Brand Equity Tracking: What to Measure and Where to Get It

Why Regular Monitoring Matters

Monitoring your brand health is like taking a physical exam. You do it on a regular basis and cover the key items, so if a result is going in the wrong direction, you can act on it. If all the results are good, you carry on and check again next year. Brand equity tracking works the same way. Checking in regularly with the right metrics shows you where you stand, and it can point to an opportunity for growth or to a weak link that needs fixing. The sooner you know, the better.

Brand health and brand equity are related but not the same. Brand health is the overall picture of how your brand is doing, from awareness and purchase to loyalty and what's happening at shelf. Brand equity is one part of that picture. It's the value consumers hold in their heads (and hearts) about your brand: what you stand for, how they perceive you, and how connected they feel to you. A good monitoring plan covers both.

There are many ways to monitor them, and you can make it as complex or as simple as you want. The main sources are survey data, syndicated data, and internal data.

Survey Data: The Main Tool for Brand Equity Tracking

A survey is a good way to collect all the key metrics in one place, and it's the main way to measure brand equity, since perceptions and feelings can only come from asking consumers. It also gives you flexibility to understand the impact of different strategies.

How often to run a survey depends on your business objective, and who you survey should stay consistent over time. A big brand with a fairly consistent strategy may only need to monitor annually. If your strategy is changing, or you want to understand the impact of a particular media campaign, you might check in quarterly. A small, high-growth brand may want to check in frequently to see whether its equity is growing with the brand and reflecting the positioning you want.

Who you survey matters too. Decide whether you're talking to category buyers, your brand's buyers, or your defined consumer target, and keep that consistent over time.

What to Include in a Brand Health Tracker

A brand health tracker typically includes six sections: the marketing funnel, brand perceptions, emotional connection, positioning, brand satisfaction, and campaign assessment.

The marketing funnel covers awareness (both total and top of mind), consideration, purchase, and repeat. Consideration is a great place to explore why or why not a consumer would consider your brand or your competitors. The earlier post on the purchase funnel and How to Measure Repeat Purchase Rate and Brand Loyalty cover these in more detail.

Brand perceptions show how much consumers associate various attributes with your brand, such as brand personality, tone, imagery, and reputation.

Emotional connection shows how consumers feel about your brand and how strongly they prefer it. This is often what separates a brand people choose on purpose from one they would easily swap out. You can get at this through visuals or through attributes and to what degree respondents agree with those statements about your brand.

Brand relevancy and uniqueness gives you a read on how important you are to consumers and whether you have a strong point of difference from competitors.  Feedback on your positioning shows what consumers think you stand for and whether that's consistent with what you want to stand for.

Brand satisfaction shows how satisfied consumers are with your brand at every point, such as opening the packaging, using the product, the taste, and the prep.

Campaign assessment gives you a read on whether a particular campaign is effective. Is it communicating what you want, and do consumers have positive associations with it?

Always include key competitors across all of these sections, so you see how you stack up and not just how you're doing on your own. And keep the tracker focused, otherwise, the survey gets long, taxes respondents, and takes focus away from what's actionable.

Surveys rely on what consumers remember and say they do (claimed behavior), and they cost more to repeat over time.

Syndicated Data: What Consumers Actually Buy

Syndicated data from a source like Circana or NielsenIQ tracks actual purchases, so it doesn't depend on consumers' memories. It shows real behavior, but it can't capture every measure, such as awareness or perceptions.

There are two main types. Household panel data is a good source for understanding penetration and repeat or loyalty trends. Retail scan data can help you uncover what's going on at shelf ahead of any sales declines, such as changes in distribution and velocity.

Because the whole category is tracked, competitive context is built in. Larger companies typically subscribe, but smaller companies can often purchase one-time access or specific reports.

Internal Data: Low-Cost Signals You Already Have

Internal data can provide some of the input, and much of it costs little or nothing.

Call center data can be very useful for spotting trends or a potential issue. Most consumers who call have a complaint, so you can't depend on it entirely, but if complaints are going up, that could be a red flag. Not every call is a complaint, though. Questions about how to use the product or where to find it can also be telling.

Ratings and reviews on retailer sites, Amazon, and your own website, along with comments on social media, are often the most accessible early signals for a smaller brand.

Also look at ROI data on your campaigns. If it's trending down, your messaging may not be working as hard as it should. And ask your sales team and retail partners what they're hearing and seeing in store. 

Starting Simple and Building Up

You don't need to do everything at once. Start with what you have and build from there.

Internal data and reviews cost little to nothing. Add syndicated data if you have access or can purchase a one-time look. Layer in a survey tracker when a strategy change, a campaign, or a big business decision justifies the investment.

Making the Data Useful

The first time you monitor is a baseline. With only one check-in, you don't have a trend yet.

Keep your questions, sample definition, and timing consistent from wave to wave, so the changes you see are real and not caused by the study itself. Watch for seasonality too. And read your results relative to competitors, not in isolation.

Finally, pull the sources together into one story. A tracker run through a survey gives a more complete picture within one study, but a stronger view pulls in the survey, syndicated, and internal data together.

Acting on What You Find

Like a physical exam, the point of brand equity tracking isn't the test itself. It's acting on the results. Check in regularly with the right mix of sources for your brand, and remember you can start simple.

A good first step is to pick one source you already have, like reviews or call center data, and look at the trend.