How do I measure Brand Awareness?
How do I measure Brand Awareness?
3 Options: From Beginner to Pro Teaser: you can have your first report ready in < 1 hour đź‘Š
It all starts with Awareness.
Whether you’re looking to grow revenue in the EOFY sale, you’ve launched a new product or looking to venture into a new market; if people don’t know your brand they’re unlikely to buy it (***asterisk, disclaimer, caveat, please note: This is a generalisation, there are many factors that play a part, but this is not a research paper - just a quick note to help you start tracking)
So, how do you know what’s your current Brand Awareness?
1: Beginner: Track Branded Searches
Setup: Super Easy
Cost: Zero
Reliability: OK
About you:
Never tracked awareness before
Don’t want to spend too much
Build some new habits around tracking this
The number of people going on Google and typing in your brand name is a good indicator of how many people know your brand.
If you keep track of this number it gives you a good indication of changes overtime.
How you do it:
There are a few options:
Use Google’s keyword planner
Use Google trends
Use an SEO tool (ahrefs, SEMrush, MOZ)
Pros:
It’s easy to set up. Going back to the title of this post - you can have this up and running in an hour or 2.
Another big benefit is time related too: You can monitor weekly or even daily changes. Now, we wouldn’t suggest changing your life plans based on a daily awareness increase, but it is nice to not have to wait for a few months before you can finally get some numbers (more on this below).
Cons:
Not all people who know you, will google you; When’s the last time you googled “coca cola”, “Starbucks” or “Hewlett Packard”? -> A search is not the same as someone who is aware.
The change in the number of searches says something about interest in your brand, but there are a fair number of caveats and side notes here.
2: Semi Pro: Use a Brand Tracking Tool
Setup: Easy
Cost: Medium (From ~$1K/month up to several thousands, depending on the platform and options)
Reliability: Good
About you:
What it is:
SaaS brand tracking tools market that give you an independent measure of your brand awareness, based on surveys, social listening and/or AI
How you do it:
There are a few options:
Lantana
Tracksuit
Qualtrics
Brandwatch
Pros:
It’s pretty bloody accurate. If your objective is to find out if all those awareness ads on instagram, that billboard you ran and the new campaign creative is actually working, a brand tracking tool is probably the way to go.
The principle of just doing a survey and asking a good sample of people if they have heard of your brand is a pretty sure way to find out how you’re doing.
The value for money is good too - To get to a “simple” awareness number used to cost a lot more (see below) and has become affordable in the last few years.
Cons:
Not everyone might trust the numbers. Depending on the platform the questions that you or your colleagues might have:
Should we really use AI to model the numbers?
Is that survey sample size big enough?
Is everything included in Social listening?
Etc
Brand tracking tools are not as cheap as measuring search volume (see above) and not as robust as a dedicated study. That means it suits a specific type of company and stakeholder.
3: Pro: Conduct a study
Setup: Hard
Cost: High (10s of thousands up to millions of dollars yearly)
Reliability: Fantastic
What it is:
A dedicated, independent market research study, conducted by a professional firm or inhouse department.
How you do it:
There is not enough space on this page to go through everything, but on a high level some of the elements could include:
Figure out what you want to know: Is it just a number of people who know you? Or also what they think about your brand, would they recommend it? Are there geographical, demographic differences, etc..
Measurement plan: Will you do a survey? When, where? What will you ask? Should there be a qualitative phase before?
Do the research
Analyze the data
Present the data back to the stakeholders
Pros:
It’s very robust. By putting more effort in the preparation, having a dedicated research team just fo you, you will very likely come out with the most accurate measure of your brand’s awareness levels. Also, by working with a dedicated professional the results are more likely to be actually implemented -> If the whole business trusts the outcomes, they are more likely to be supported and implemented.
Cons:
Obviously: It’s not cheap
And also: It might be too much. All the time and effort spent on reporting is not spent on actually growing your business. It’s a delicate balance and consideration to make.
Bonus: Tracking options we wouldn’t recommend:
1.Brand Uplift studies
What: A report provided by the channel you advertise on (Meta, Google), that is meant to provide you with an idea of awareness changes
Why not:
It lacks independence (after all, it is someone rating their own homework)
It only includes one channel. This should be about your brand, not someone else’s channel
2. Social Listening
What: Reporting back on your brand awareness by measuring mentions an sentiment on various channels, mostly social media.
Why not:
Similar to Option 1 (measuring branded Search), the number of mentions is not the same as the number of people who know your brand. The reason Social Listening isn’t in the list above is because there is a cost associated with it.
3. Traffic
What: Measuring total, direct and/or referral traffic to your website
Why not: In short: there are many factors that contribute to this number, Brand Awareness being only one (other include your spend, SEO, promotions, referrals, market demand, the weather, etc etc…). Measure direct and/or referral traffic might steer you even further away from the truth as any kind of tracking issues, analytic tool set up and most importantly; attribution discussions (was that unattributed traffic actually direct or was it just the new GA4 setup? ;-)) all play a role in this too.
