Is your brand tracking fit for purpose?

Your brand is your most valuable intangible asset. A strong brand helps you to grow your business and helps to ensure profitability through justifying a higher price.  As Mark Ritson says, ‘if you’re not tracking your brand then you’re not managing your brand’. So, it’s perhaps no surprise that the majority of businesses have some form of brand tracking in place. Without tracking, how will you manage, steer and course correct your brand?​

So what does a good tracking study look like?​

We have put together what we are calling our Top 10 of brand tracking.  10 posts, that in combination aim to provide the most valuable advice we can based on our combined experience.  ​

10. Use reliable data​

There are quite a few things to consider when it comes to design, content and analytical approach. But the harsh truth is that none of that really matters unless your tracking program is fueled by a reliable and consistent data stream. ​

This should be a given for all survey research but is something that has been taken a little bit for granted in recent years. A tracking study should provide a robust, reliable view of the health of your brand. Your tracking agency should take all necessary steps to ensure that they are setting, monitoring and enforcing quotas, and if necessary, weighting data to ensure stable representation of your target audience month after month.  Only if this is done can you be sure that any movements you see in the data are meaningful movements, not statistical noise, or caused by changes in the sample make-up.  And of course, only then can you trust the data as the basis for your decision making.​

Sadly today, respondent fraud is an issue in online market research. It should go without saying that your tracking agency should have robust processes in place to ensure that all fraudulent responses are removed from the data long before you, the client, see the data. This should involve strict control of online panel membership and strict checks that those taking the survey are real people taking the survey – and only once. It is an ongoing challenge to stay ahead of those looking to earn from the relatively small incentives on offer to participants. Careful panel management and robust data checking is a key part of the solution. Being clear about what panels are being used to form your sample is also vital. Our own meta-analysis of tracking study data we have collected, tells us that some providers are much better than others.    

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