Creating a brand is a whole lot of fun, isn’t it? All that time siphoning your creative energy into designing a logo, choosing a brand name (that is — one where the .com hasn’t already been taken!), and coming up with amazing campaigns to really get your brand out there and build connections with your target audience.
But, here comes the hard part: brand tracking.
And by brand tracking, we mean being able to accurately determine how well your brand is performing. Now, we may not be psychics, but we can read your mind about this particular issue — and we see some worrying thoughts.
You’re unable to track your key brand metrics.
You tried in the past but the data provided wasn’t accurate and, therefore, of no use.
You are almost on the verge of giving up.
We understand, we really do. This is a problem that’s been around for a long time, and for whatever reason, no one has tried to fix it.
Enter Latana. We don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that when you use advanced brand tracking software, your brand will grow, your insights will become more reliable, and your data will be so accurate, you’ll weep with joy.
Branding campaigns don’t need to be shots in the dark when you can make use of tools that can turn on the lights and let you see whether your ad spend is being put to good use, if your efforts are gaining traction, and in what ways your brand is growing. That, my friends, is the beauty of advanced brand tracking.
The Short Version
The key details of what brand tracking is and how it can benefit your brand can be seen via this nifty infographic.
For more detailed information about brand analytics and how it is reinventing brand tracking, keep reading.
The Detailed Version
What is Advanced Brand Tracking?
Let’s talk business. You’re probably wondering what makes advanced brand tracking so… well, advanced! To put it simply, advanced brand tracking is:
"A means of continuously and precisely measuring brand health via audience brand metrics by using advanced statistical modeling and large data sets."
Why Advanced Brand Tracking and not Traditional Brand Tracking?
Interesting question — especially since traditional brand tracking has been around for ages. Why should you risk working with new methods rather than sticking with tried and tested brand tracking tools?
You’ve actually stumbled on your answer: because traditional brand tracking has been tried and tested — and isn’t up to snuff.
We don’t mean to be dismissive of other platforms on the market, but let’s state the facts. While traditional brand tracking makes it possible for companies to track the health of their brand. It works well, but not well enough.
What the industry is missing is a platform that provides more accurate data — data that is actionable. We need a brand analytics platform that offers unrivaled precision. A platform that can get inside the minds of even the most niche audiences.
And this is where we run into the major issue when it comes to branding campaigns: Everybody is guessing.
They’re guessing that the money they’re pumping into brand monitoring is buying them accurate results and guessing that their campaigns are making an impact.
Consumer firms spend more than one trillion dollars a year on marketing and advertising, but when it comes to branding campaigns, traditional KPIs and data sets don’t paint an accurate picture of how their brand is growing.
So they don’t understand the data and they don’t understand how their brand is being perceived, all because they don't have an analytics platform. Correction: they didn't have an analytics platform — until now.
To sum it up, we noticed a gap in the market for such a tool.
We saw that brands often use Google Analytics and other digital marketing tools in pursuit of precise data, information on ROI, etc. However, these tools are more suited to the needs of marketers, not brand managers.
In fact, there are no viable tools on the market for brand managers to gather the same precise information regarding brand health and performance. That’s why we decided to bridge that gap and provide brand monitoring software that works on the same level as Google Analytics.
Now, why should anyone continue with traditional brand tracking when they can have something better?
Defining Advanced Brand Tracking
Nice story, but what exactly is it that makes advanced brand tracking special? So, so much! To illustrate our point, let’s do a comparison.
Audiences
With advanced brand tracking, you have access to 1000s of audiences — a big jump up from the 2-3 audiences that are usually available with traditional brand trackers.
And, no, this isn’t an outlandish claim. Here’s why.
First, advanced brand tracking provides insights on five key demographics:
Age
Gender
Income
Education
Geography
That’s more than two audiences already.
Then, with advanced brand tracking software, you can add audience segmentation to the mix — these segments can drill down to anything, from parents to eco-friendly Berliners to people interested in yoga apps.
From here, you can find even more audiences, by mixing and matching your key variables and then adding in your custom variables. This will allow you to create literally hundreds of different audiences — each one as broad or as specific as you like!
Margin of Error
Ever been given great-looking data, only to be told that those wonderful results may not be that wonderful, thanks to a large margin of error? It mirrors the feeling of being a 4-year-old with a lollipop — but you only take one lick before it is unceremoniously snatched away.
When advanced brand tracking gives you the lollipop, it gives you the entire thing — no take-backs.
By reducing the margin of error, even when it comes to niche audiences you can more confidently and consistently rely on data from Latana — yet another reason to move away from your traditional brand tracker provider.
MRP
Multilevel Regression and Poststratification — what a tongue twister.
But what’s even harder to wrap your head around is how it works. We know this stuff isn’t simple, so we’ll keep it plain and clear:
MRP uses data to create a model, which is then used to generate estimates for responses in a survey. So, when it is given respondent characteristics, the model can produce an estimate for how those characteristics will influence the answers given for a particular survey question.
MRP organizes respondents’ characteristics into groups — this allows it to understand and capture how variables interact in the real world. In the final step, MRP takes weighted averages of the predictions ensuring that the model has a fair sample of respondents.
Using this technique enables Latana to make accurate predictions, based on the assumption that certain audience segmentations have similar preferences to other segmentations in different areas.
This is our special ingredient that allows advanced brand tracking to reflect real-world changes while smoothing out statistical outliers — as well as providing detailed insights for niche target audiences.
How Advanced Brand Tracking Can Benefit You
Now we get into the juicy part: What advanced brand tracking can do for you, aka the bit you really want to know.
Well, when you combine our low margin of error, large sample size, use of MRP, and ability to discover niche audiences, you get the following:
1. Improved Brand Performance
First, we should address the obvious — advanced brand tracking is what it is. It won’t provide strategies or formulate marketing plans for you. It’s just data.
But that’s okay because no one knows your brand better than you. At the end of the day, it’s best that you make the decisions.
However, what advanced brand tracking does offer is reliable brand insights and trustworthy information — in short, everything you need to understand how your brand is performing and in what ways it is resonating with consumers. Once your strategic decisions are informed by data that you can trust, you can rest assured that they will steer your brand in the right direction.
Plus, advanced brand tracking can help you measure performance! Every brand marketing or TV campaign you run has an impact on your brand and insights from advanced brand tracking will allow you to measure how effective these campaigns have been by picking up spikes of awareness, consideration, or preference in your core audience after campaigns. You can even track what associations consumers have with your brand and work to strengthen these or run campaigns to get new associations to stick.
Additionally, all this will help you prove brand performance to your boss!
2. Know Your Audience Better
We can’t emphasize enough how much advanced brand tracking will help you better understand your audience.
It allows you to get inside the head of your target audience, segment data to find potential new audiences, and then build campaigns that they feel an emotional connection to.
Because advanced brand tracking works within age brackets, it’s possible to decipher whether or not your marketing is working better with certain demographics.
This information can be used to fine-tune your marketing strategy and feeds into improved brand performance.
Similarly, you’ll be able to see how your target audiences perceive your brand and, thus, confirm if your brand marketing is reaching the right audience.
3. Competitor Comparison
Shhh, don’t tell your competitors, but advanced brand tracking can also provide some insight into their brand performance.
You can see where you both stand in terms of aided brand awareness, brand consideration, brand associations, and more. Learn from your competitors’ mistakes, build on their success, and, then, leave them in the dust.
Final Thoughts
So, are you as convinced as we are that advanced brand tracking software is the tool that ambitious B2C start-ups and scale-ups need to grow?
Well, Holvi and Headspace are certainly on board. Why not take their lead?
Updated by Ashley Lightfoot on 01.04.22
