Brand awareness metrics you should track

Marta
July 31, 2019 ・ 9 min read

Measuring the results of a brand awareness campaign is not a piece of cake. There are many variables you have to take into account while measuring brand awareness campaign. Tracking how many people could have come across your brand name will give you insights about your online presence.

Many marketers consider brand awareness a vanity metric, a metric that is useless for calculating the marketing ROI. The recommend focusing on more tangible data, for example, social media reach, or reach of a hashtag campaign.

Another marketing school argues that measuring the effects of a brand awareness campaign is one of the most important marketing activities.

Why should you measure brand awareness?

Many consumers make purchasing decisions based on brand recall.

In other words, the more your potential customers are familiar with your brand, the better the chance they will purchase your product or service.

That’s why many brands put so much effort into brand awareness campaigns.

For example, L’Oreal is sponsoring the Cannes Film Festival.

Next time, someone wants to buy a beauty product they will likely recall the name they associate with red carpet looks.

That’s the effect of an increase in brand awareness.

Like with everything in marketing, we need to see hard numbers to assess the results of our efforts. That way we see what’s working and what’s not and improve our efforts.

The question remains — how do you measure the effects of brand awareness campaign?

Measuring brand awareness could be easy, provided you know what to measure and have the right tools!

All you have to do is follow these steps:

  • Brand awareness metrics
  • Set goals to measure brand awareness campaign
  • Track the right brand awareness campaign metrics
  • How to assess the results of brand awareness campaign?
  • Is measuring brand awareness campaign complicated?
  • Brand awareness metrics

    To measure brand awareness you need data from three sources:

    • media monitoring tool that collects data from social media and Web
    • Google Analytics
    • ads accounts (if you run Google ads or social media campaigns based on ads)

    Since you already have a Google Analytics and ads account, let’s see how to set up a media monitoring project.

    Media monitoring tools, for example, Brand24, will gather and analyse all publicly available mentions that contain your keywords.

    Set up your free account here (no credit card required).

    Start with setting up a project.

    Enter the keywords you’d like to monitor. A keyword can be:

    • your brand name
    • the name of your product or service
    • your branded hashtag
    • your campaign-specific hashtag

    Track brand awareness metrics! Create your first project

    From that moment on, a brand monitoring tool will gather all online mentions containing your keyword.

    We’re all set. Now, let’s get to the bottom of measuring brand awareness campaign!

    Set goals to measure brand awareness campaign

    Before we delve into the world of brand awareness metrics and tactics, let’s establish some ground rules.

    First, we need to know why we want to increase brand awareness.

    What is the ultimate goal of your brand awareness campaign?

    Think about:

    • increasing brand recall
    • increasing website traffic
    • sparking conversations around your brand
    • reaching new audiences that might be interested in your product
    • establishing your brand as an industry leader
    • increasing earned media value.

    The brand awareness metrics and strategy will depend on the goal you want to achieve.

    Track the right brand awareness campaign metrics

    Once you know what you want to achieve, it’s time to track the right brand awareness metrics.

    Brand awareness metrics will tell you whether your campaign is delivering the results you need.

    The right metrics of brand awareness depends on the channel you focus on. If you’re looking to measure social media performance, you need to choose social media metrics that will help you assess your actions.

    If you want to drive traffic to your website, you should monitor Google Analytics closely.

    And if you increase brand awareness via paid ads, you mainly take a look at number of clicks and cost per click.

    Let’s delve into the brand awareness metrics!

    1. The volume of mentions

    That’s a primary metric when it comes to measuring brand awareness campaign.

    The volume of mentions track the mentions of your brand. You can spot seasonal differences in the number of mentions, which will help you adjust your marketing campaigns.

    What is the benefit of tracking the volume of brand mentions with the help of a media monitoring tool?

    the volume of mentions, a metric you can use to measure your brand awareness campaign

    Measure brand awareness campaign with Brand24

    Many conversations about your brand happen outside your owned channels. If you want to measure the results of a brand awareness campaign, you have to know when and where a customer mentions your brand name.

    According to Brandwatch, 96% of conversations around your brand happens outside owned channels.

    If you want to measure brand awareness, you need to know exactly how many times your brand is mentioned online. Media monitoring project will make sure you’re aware of every mention.

    2. Sentiment

    Online sentiment is a metric complementary to the volume of mentions. Sentiment will tell you whether the online talk about your brand is positive, negative, or neutral.

    A high volume of mentions with prevailing positive sentiment is a sign your brand awareness campaign is yielding desired results.

    sentiment analysis, one of metrics you can use to measure your brand awareness campaign

    Measure the sentiment around your brand.

    On the other hand, a combination of negative sentiment and a high volume of mentions could be an indicator of a social media crisis.

    I’m happy to say that our sentiment analysis algorithms are cutting-edge. 

    Brand24’s sentiment analysis distinguishes more than 80 languages. It’s based on an AI and machine learning that learns while monitoring mentions about your brand. The sentiment analysis algorithm is able to detect sarcasm and irony.

    3. Social media and non-social reach

    When it comes to measuring the results of a brand awareness campaign, you should also take into account the reach of your posts, generated both on social media and beyond.

    Social media reach shows an estimated number of social media users that might have seen your posts. In other words, social media reach indicates how many people could be aware of your brand.

    Non-social reach calculates exactly the same, the metric focuses on Web sources outside social media channels. Reach is important metric for PR professionals.

    You can measure brand awareness by monitoring the changes in reach over time. The higher the number of people that have seen your message, the higher brand awareness.

    a graph showing social media reach which you can use while measuring brand awareness campaign

    Measure brand awareness

    4. Engagement metrics

    The fact that people have heard about your brand isn’t enough. In an ideal situation, many people will see the posts and engage with the content.

    For many, engagement shouldn’t be a part of measuring brand awareness campaign. But engagement is not one of vanity metrics and you should monitor it closely while evaluating your social media efforts.

    However, the levels of engagement (measured in the number of likes, shares, and comments) will tell you how your content resonates with your target audience.

    engagement numbers, which you can use to measure your brand awareness campaign

    Measure brand awareness on social media. Start your free trial

    Engagement is an indicator of the effectiveness of your social media campaign.

    Moreover, many social media algorithms take the engagement levels into account while calculating how high on the social media wall your content will rank.

    High engagement levels will, ultimately, boost other brand awareness metrics.

    5. The share of voice

    And finally one of the most important metrics when it comes to brand awareness strategies — the share of voice.

    I’d call the share of voice an auxiliary metric when it comes to measuring brand awareness. 

    In simple terms, the share of voice is a metric telling you how much people talk about your company compared to your competitors. 

    Does it sound complicated?

    It really isn’t!

    All you have to do is take into account two metrics:

    • the volume of mentions concerning your brand
    • the volume of mentions regarding your competitors

    Now all you have to do is divide the number of your mentions by the number of mentions regarding your competitors. 

    You can also take a look at the share of voice generated by public profiles talking about your product, company, or service. That way you will know how popular your brand is, know potential influencers you can cooperate with and promote your brand.

    print screen from Brand24 dashboard, showing the top public profiles, metric useful in measuring the results of brand awareness campaigns

    Measure the results of a brand awareness campaign with Brand24. Try it for free.

    6. Website traffic

    GA will tell you where the referral traffic comes from. Study referral traffic to identify platforms that bring you visitors and analyse what type of content resonates well with your target audience. But website traffic will also indicate your owned content that performs well among your audience. An important metric to examine is bounce rate, so the total number of users who left your website after visiting just one page.

    Google Analytics pulls a lot of data from the website traffic. You can analyse the demographic data of your audience which will help you tailor your messaging to your your audience expectations.

    7. Search volume data

    When it comes to measuring brand awareness you should take a deeper look in Google Keyword Planner, especially in the search volume data.

    Search volume data will tell you what the general interest in your brand and in your industry is. You can then compare the results with your direct and indirect competitors to see whether there is place of improvement.

    8. Brand awareness survey

    Brand awareness survey is a bit old-fashioned method of measuring brand awareness, yet it might prove to be very effective.

    You can ask your audience, one-by-one, whether they have heard about your brand, product, or service. Brand awareness survey allows you to ask about aspects of your online presence that you would otherwise miss.

    How to assess the results of brand awareness campaigns?

    You’ve gathered a lot of insightful metrics. Now, you can assess the results of your brand awareness campaign.

    The numbers you’ve gathered won’t tell you much on their own.

    You have to compare the results of a brand awareness campaign with other benchmarks.

    Firstly, you need to establish benchmark metrics. There are two ways of doing that.

    You can monitor the metrics for some time before you start your brand awareness campaign. The metrics will serve as your baseline. You will be able to assess whether you’re making progress or not.

    The second way to establish a baseline is to take a look at your competitors.

    Set up a media monitoring project and follow the same steps as in the beginning. Instead of typing in the keywords related to your business, think about your main competitor.

    Analyse their brand awareness to know how you position against your main competitors.

    The brand awareness analysis will give you valuable insights into your market position. You will know who are the main influencers in your business niche, what is the brand awareness gap between you and your competitors. With a bit of brand awareness analysis you will know what should you improve to stay ahead of your rivals.

    Is measuring brand awareness campaign complicated?

    Hopefully, you see not only the importance of measuring the results of a brand awareness campaign but also how easy the whole process is.

    At first glance, it seems complicated, as you have to examine many different metrics to get the full picture. You have to take into account social media metrics, media monitoring data, survey responses, and website traffic data.

    But the results are worth the effort.

    The more people can recall your brand, the better your chance of success. And with media monitoring tools that can provide rich data, measuring the effects of your brand awareness campaign is easier than ever.

    Ready to measure brand awareness? Set up your free trial account here! No credit card required!