What Metrics to Measure in Brand Tracking Study

Brand Awareness

Survey questions that measure brand awareness should cover both your business and your competitor landscape. Use aided and unaided questions to capture the respondent’s prior awareness of your brand as well as their reactions to questions that actively trigger their awareness.

Brand Attributes and Associations

In this category, you’re exploring the thoughts, opinions and experiences customers associate with your brand, and the expectations they might have as a result. Explore the possibilities with statement-type questions with a Strongly Agree-Strongly Disagree scale. You can cover basic feature-based opinions, like

• This shirt is well-made
• This fabric is durable

And also move into areas that link the brand and product with personal values, e.g.

• This is an ethical brand that I feel good about
• The style and cut would make me look sophisticated

Perceived Quality

Quality is a huge area when it comes to brand perception. The markers of quality are a result of product or service attributes, and a respondent’s opinion tends to be made up of a variety of experiences and perceptions of these.

Defining your metrics for this variable will be a journey of discovery, with a bit of in-survey detective work to establish the links between product feature and quality perception. Some areas to start with include

• Performance
• How the experience measures up to specifications/marketing
• Reliability
• Appearance and finish

Customer Brand Loyalty

Customer loyalty is a make-or-break attribute for any brand. When fed back continually into a brand loyalty program, your brand loyalty data will help you minimise poor experiences and optimise factors that promote loyalty. These might include

• Courtesy and customer care
• A perception of being treated fairly
• Product satisfaction
• Identification with the brand (where brand values and personal values are compatible)

At this point you are laying the foundation for a business intelligence program that will inform your decisions, potentially for years to come. So when you’re selecting metrics, consider which types of data you’ll want to refer back to and benchmark against in the future.

Your study should also extend to the wider landscape of your brand. That includes your competition (direct and indirect), consumer habits that form the context of use for your products and services, and the status of related factors like your raw materials or core technologies.