To begin with, if you aren’t 100% sure what brand tracking is, we suggest taking five minutes to read our previous article that outlines it all very clearly. Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you here.
Great, now that we’re all on the same page about what brand tracking is, let’s discuss why you should invest your hard-earned marketing budget into it.
As a brand manager, you know that getting a reasonable budget is already a huge feat. Everyone wants results, but no one wants to give you the funds you need to get them.
So, we understand why it might be a touchy subject to discuss further splitting up your marketing budget. But, we promise, brand tracking is worth it.
To get a better understanding of how brand tracking will take your marketing strategy to the next level, keep reading!
Why is Brand Tracking Worth the Spend?
According to Gartner, 32% of marketers worldwide believe that managing budget and resources to meet digital marketing strategic priorities will be a big challenge in 2021.
So what does this translate to? As the digital ecosystem changes, priorities shift. Making strategic decisions to support brand growth is more important than ever before. Consequently, you need to make sure you’re getting the right bang for your buck.
And while it’s a good idea to test out different channels and target audiences, it doesn’t hurt to have a sure thing. An ace in the hole.
That’s what brand tracking is, really. By constantly monitoring your brand’s health — your main KPIs, competitors’ performance, and overall brand identity — you put yourself in a position to make smarter marketing decisions.
By basing your decisions on data and facts instead of relying on hunches and gut feelings, you’re sure to elevate your brand strategy. You’re also likely to save money in the long run — as there’s less of a chance you’ll spend huge amounts on campaigns that don’t convert.
So, what are some of the specific ways that brand tracking will improve your marketing strategy?
Let’s dig in.
How Will Brand Tracking Improve My Marketing Strategy?
To be honest, there are many ways that brand tracking software will improve your marketing strategy.
However, in the interest of time, we’ll discuss the top four.
1. Audience Segmentation Allows for More Accurate Impact Measurement
When you roll out a new brand campaign, one of the most important things to track is impact. Who is seeing your ads? Are they engaging with them? Are consumers converting into customers?
And while it’s nice to know how the general population as a whole is responding to your campaigns, it’s even better to be able to segment your audiences and take a deep dive into different niches.
There are very few brands in the world whose target audience is everyone. Most companies know that their products and services are more interesting to different subsections of the population.
For example, a made-up company called “Momaste” that sells maternity yoga pants will be far more interested in how married women in their late twenties view their brand campaigns compared to single men in their 70s.
So, when this brand rolls out a new campaign to launch their maternity bike shorts, knowing how their target audience responds to their brand messaging is vital.
And if they invest their budget in brand tracking software, they’ll not only be able to see this data — they’ll also be able to further segment their audiences with individual characteristics and demographics.
Maybe they want to know specifically how young mothers aged 27-32 in the US responded in comparison to soon-to-be mothers aged 30-35 in the UK. Being able to segment this data and draw additional conclusions from it is invaluable.
With this knowledge, Momaste’s brand manager will be able to tweak future marketing campaigns to better suit each individual audience’s likes and dislikes.
2. Increased Data Reach & Geographic Granularity Increases Scalability
Want to know how your most recent brand campaign is performing in different countries or cities around the world? Some tools like Google Ad Manager or Google Analytics have the ability to show you location-based data.
However, what if you want to know how consumers in Sydney feel about your campaign, but don’t have enough — or any — data available? That’s where brand tracking software comes in.
Instead of hoping that you’ll see results from the various locations that are important to your brand, you’re in complete control. Many brand tracking tools will allow you to choose which countries and cities you want to gather data from.
This geographic granularity allows you to better understand how your brand is performing in different parts of the world — to identify where to scale and where to cut back. This knowledge is a sure-fire way to save money.
Furthermore, a tool like Latana utilizes mobile-optimized surveys, which encourage more respondents to complete the questionnaire thanks to the easy-to-use, familiar interface.
High-quality surveys make for more engaged and truthful respondents — which provides you with the data you need to succeed.
For example, the made-up brand called “Wood You Believe It” sells custom-made wooden furniture which is shipped all over the world.
In an effort to scale their business, they recently expanded into South America. However, they aren’t getting the traction they were hoping for and the data they’ve gathered from their regular analytics tools isn’t providing the insights they need.
Now, if WYBI decided to use brand tracking software, they could choose to survey their target audience all throughout South America to gather data on their chosen KPIs — with data broken down into big cities or entire countries. They’d then have access to data on brand awareness, consideration, preference, and usage — as well as brand associations, values, and drivers.
With this data — which they know comes directly from the geographic location they’re interested in analyzing — they can more accurately track their performance in this new market.
3. Accurate Insights from a Global Audience Leads to Higher-Quality Data
Many analytics tools can provide you with insights into your brand campaign performance. They can even show you data from consumers around the world.
But the question is: Is this data that you can trust? Can you rely on it to be accurate?
If the answer is “no” or even a hesitant “maybe”, you need to consider alternatives. Brand managers use data from campaign performance to make important decisions — ones that often involve a hefty chunk of change.
Do you want to be making such important decisions based on questionable data? We’re hoping you’re shaking your head no.
In an effort to ensure that all data is accurate and precise, brand tracking tools often run data through advanced algorithms. This ensures stability and accuracy for all audiences — which is especially important for niche audiences.
Brand tracking tools also ensure that all insights are generated from a representative global audience. There’s no point in making huge changes to your marketing strategy based on insights you know aren’t necessarily reliable or representative of your target audiences.
For example, a made-up custom pool installation company called “Blue Lagoon” wants to compare their target audiences in different regions of the United States. They’re interested in seeing if location makes a difference in how consumers feel about their product and how much they’re willing to pay.
Now, they could look at their Google Analytics data — as it’s possible to separate website visitors by region. However, Blue Lagoon’s brand manager has no way of knowing if the data in GA is representative of the different regions.
Therefore, they have questionable confidence in the data and its ability to inform smart marketing decisions.
But, if they chose to use brand tracking software, there’d be no issue here. By entrusting expert data scientists, researchers, and project managers to do the dirty work, Blue Lagoon’s brand manager can rest assured knowing that the insights they base future decisions on are high-quality.
4. Customizable KPIs Allow You to Track What Really Matters
When it comes to tracking your brand campaign performance, there are certain KPIs that you need to keep an eye on.
From brand awareness to brand usage, every stage of the brand funnel is important. But what really takes things to the next level are customizable KPIs — things that set your brand apart and are incredibly influential in future decisions.
What matters to your brand is unique and you need to be able to track what’s important. Customization of your KPIs makes it possible to focus on what’s needed and ignore the noise.
For example, a fake brand called “Jet Solo” provides boutique vacation experiences for solo travelers. Their brand manager is preparing for the annual marketing review and must present a growth forecast for the next four quarters.
To do this, she wants to start targeting more niche audiences. But first, she needs to know what these niches think about her brand. For instance, she’d like to know what brand associations women between the ages of 20-30 who are frequent flyers and love luxury have for Jet Solo.
Do they think it’s practical? Luxurious? Affordable? When using a brand tracking tool, you can choose customer KPIs like these in advance. Then, when respondents are surveyed, you’ll be able to see data on things like brand associations and values.
At the end of the day, the level of customization you require is dependent on your brand and marketing goals. But you can’t go wrong if you choose brand tracking software.
Who Has Brand Tracking Already Helped?
We’re positive there are thousands of brands out there that are already using (and loving) their brand tracking software. To be fair, many companies don’t talk about it publicly — but would you talk openly about one of your best-kept secrets to success?
Therefore, we’ll touch on two companies that are using the Latana Brand Tracking software and how it has improved their marketing strategies.
1. Headspace
With millions of customers spread throughout the globe, Headspace is one of the world’s leading meditation and mindfulness apps. When they came to us, they wanted to transition from more performance-based marketing to brand-based marketing in order to get ahead of the competition.
However, they had no way of measuring impact in their recently launched brand campaigns. For this reason, they decided to invest in a brand tracking tool and we joined forces.
With the data that our brand tracking software was able to provide, Headspace could see that their brand campaigns were indeed driving brand awareness. What’s more — they were able to compare performance across different markets to see how brand campaigns were impacting their target audiences.
Using Latana, Headspace was able to confirm that their brand marketing efforts in Germany were paying off and accelerating their growth. With this knowledge, they could replicate their efforts in other countries and further accelerate their growth.
Now that’s what we call a successful partnership!
2. Blinkist
As one of the world’s first brands to turn best-selling texts and audio into bite-sized, 15-minute pieces, Blinkist has been around since 2012. In an effort to increase their brand awareness, they started to run TV campaigns.
However, they didn’t have any fool-proof ways to measure campaign impact. Without this information, they were at risk of wasting money and falling behind the competition. By using Latana, Blinkist was able to accurately measure the response of their target audiences to their brand campaigns.
With this data at hand, Blinkist was then able to confirm their results. They’d reached and increased awareness within the “ambitious Millennials” audience through their TV ad campaigns.
At the end of the day, Latana provided Blinkist with the data confidence they needed to measure the impact of their TV brand campaigns — and the knowledge that their money was well-spent.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to whether or not brand tracking is worth investing your hard-earned budget in, we think the results speak for themselves.
Brand tracking provides accurate data, reliable insights, increased confidence in campaign impact, and a better idea of how/where to spend your budget going forward.
For more examples of how brand tracking improved their marketing strategies, check out the rest of our Case Studies.
