When consumer preferences shift rapidly, staying ahead requires more than intuition —it demands data-driven decision-making. Tracking studies are essential for brands seeking to improve performance, optimise marketing investments, and uncover consumer trends.
But with so many potential data points to track, it can be easy to get lost. Selecting the right metrics can mean the difference between actionable insights and information overload. How do you determine which metrics matter most for your next tracking study?
What are Tracking Studies?
Tracking studies involve the continuous measurement and analysis of data to monitor a research topic. Essentially, they are studies executed over time that survey a target population (e.g., customers, prospects, etc.) at specific intervals to measure fluctuations in attitudes and behaviours and compare how your data points have changed over time.
Trackers are powerful tools in the business world, providing a comprehensive view of key performance indicators (KPIs) to help businesses make informed decisions. They go beyond measurements at a single point in time, offering insights into emerging trends and unexpected shifts, such as a new competitor entering the market or a decline in category usage. By continuously monitoring changes, trackers enable businesses to be proactive—detecting potential challenges early and allowing them to act before issues escalate.
The Strategic Role of Metrics in Tracking Studies
Metrics serve as the backbone of any tracking study, offering a structured way to measure brand health, customer sentiment, and market trends. But the most effective tracking studies go beyond just collecting data—they tell a story.
Choosing the right mix of metrics means balancing the essentials vs. the nice to haves. The goal is to track changes that align with your business objectives and can drive meaningful business decisions (more on that later).
Some questions that tracking can help to answer:
- Is my brand front of mind for the needs I aim to meet?
- Are my consumers coming back to my brand?
- Am I converting consumers through the brand funnel?
- Is my brand associated with the needs of occasions that brand a consumer to a category?
- Are my marketing and communications activities effectively building associations for my brand?
- How does my brand performance compare to my competitors?
Tracking Brand Performance Through the Customer Journey
Brand performance is typically tracked using a structured funnel approach—whether it’s the marketing funnel, brand funnel, or purchase funnel—to understand how consumers move from initial awareness to long-term loyalty.
This journey typically begins with unaided and aided awareness, measuring how well a brand is recognised in the market. It then progresses to consideration and intent, where consumers evaluate the brand against competitors. The next stage, purchase and trial, assesses actual conversions and whether consumers are willing to try the product or service. Finally, loyalty and advocacy determine if customers repurchase and recommend the brand to others.
It’s important to note that the exact funnel metrics to measure will vary depending on the specific brand and how consumers make decisions for that product or service —whether it involves long-term consideration or more spontaneous, short-term decision making.
By analysing each stage, businesses can pinpoint weaknesses, optimise marketing efforts, and ensure they are effectively moving consumers through the funnel toward sustained engagement.
Let’s review some commonly utilised metrics you can incorporate into your next tracking study.
1. Awareness: Do people know about your brand?
Awareness metrics assess how well your brand is known among your target audience. These metrics help gauge brand recall and recognition, providing insight into your brand’s visibility in the market.
Unaided Awareness: Measures how readily consumers recall your brand without prompting. This is a strong indicator of how top-of-mind your brand is and is particularly valuable for competitive analysis.
Aided Awareness: Evaluates brand recognition when prompted with the brand name. Comparing aided and unaided awareness highlights how much exposure is needed to reinforce your brand in consumers' minds.
Needs Based Salience: Measures how likely consumers are to think of a brand when making a purchase decision, providing a more precise understanding of which brands come to mind in buying situations. It also captures the needs and occasions typically associated with those moments. Unlike simple recall, needs based salience reflects how quickly and easily a brand comes to mind rather than just whether it is mentioned at all.
2. Consideration: Are people actively thing about your brand?
Because future purchases depend on current behaviours and consideration of other choices, consideration metrics are key to any tracking study. Consideration metrics can help you get an indication of the effectiveness of marketing efforts or your brand’s appeal.
Brand Consideration: Tracks whether your brand is in a consumer’s shortlist of options. A strong consideration score suggests your brand is resonating well with its audience and has good standing in the marketplace. Alternatively, if your brand consideration is low, you may need to consider trialling your product or service to get more people exposed to the brand.
3. Purchase Intent: Are they planning to buy?
Purchase intent gauges how likely a consumer is to make a future purchase, providing valuable insights for demand forecasting and sales strategies. Businesses use this metric to anticipate consumer needs, allocate resources effectively, and tailor their promotional efforts to drive conversions.
Purchase Intent: Measures the likelihood of a future purchase, helping forecast demand and shape promotional strategies. For example, an online retailer tracking purchase intent might notice a seasonal surge in interest for a particular product category, such as fitness gear at the start of the new year. By analysing this data, the retailer can optimise inventory levels, ensuring popular items are well-stocked to meet demand.
4. Trail & Usage: Have they tried the brand?
Once a consumer is aware of your brand and considering it, the next step is understanding how they engage with it.
Usage Metrics: Tracks frequency, duration, and depth of engagement with a product or service. These insights help refine product features and customer experiences. If a company observes that customers infrequently use a specific feature in their app, they might conduct surveys to determine the reasons. This information could result in redesigning the feature to improve usability or redirecting attention to more valued functions that enhance engagement.
Purchase Frequency: Identifies repeat purchases and signals customer retention rates. High frequency signifies customer loyalty, whereas lower rates indicate potential areas for enhancement. Businesses can utilise this metric to refine their loyalty programs or develop strategies to re-engage less frequent buyers through targeted promotions and incentives.
5. Loyalty & Advocacy: Do they repurchase and recommend it?
And finally, loyalty and advocacy metrics enables businesses to assess customer satisfaction and the strength of their brand’s relationship with its customers.
Brand Used Most Often: Tracks which brand consumers turn to ask their primary choice in the marketplace. It highlights brand loyalty and market dominance. A company monitoring this metric may identify changes in consumer preferences over time and adjust its product portfolio accordingly to maintain its market position.
Aligning Metrics with Business Objectives
Behind every effective tracking study is a well-defined objective. Before selecting metrics, ask yourself: What decisions will this study inform? Are you looking to track brand awareness over time, measure shifts in consumer sentiment, or assess the impact of a new campaign? Defining the business goal will help filter out unnecessary data points and focus on what truly matters.
The most common mistake businesses make when setting up a tracking study is trying to use a single survey to address multiple objectives such as measuring brand health, customer experience, and campaign performance all in one program. This approach often results in an overloaded survey with too many questions, driving up the length of interview (LOI) and causing shifts in respondent focus. The outcome is a poor respondent and experience that ultimately compromises data quality. .
Let’s look at a few common examples that align objectives to metrics:
Business A
Business A is launching a new product. Its goal is to track early adoption trends and better understand the impact of their marketing efforts. Metrics like purchase intent and aided awareness can help because they provide insight into how well the product is resonating with consumers.
Purchase intent measures the likelihood that consumers will buy the product, helping Business A gauge demand and refine its sales strategy. Aided awareness tracks how many people recognise the brand or product when prompted, revealing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns in generating familiarity. By monitoring these metrics over time, Business A can assess whether its marketing efforts are driving visibility in the market, adjust messaging as needed, and identify opportunities to improve adoption.
Business B
Now let’s pretend Business B wants to evaluate brand loyalty in order to gain a clearer picture of its customer base, identify areas for improvement, and refine strategies to build and strengthen long-term customer relationships. Brand used most often identifies whether consumers repeatedly choose a brand over competitors. By monitoring this metric, Business B can assess whether customers have a strong preference for their brand or if they frequently switch to the competition.
If the data shows low loyalty, the company can investigate potential reasons (e.g., pricing, product satisfaction, etc.) and implement strategies to improve retention. Additionally, tracking shifts in brand preference over time can help Business B evaluate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, loyalty programs, and product enhancements aimed at increasing repeat purchases and customer commitment.
By selecting metrics that directly tie into your business strategy, you ensure that your tracking study generates insights that drive decision-making.
Conclusion
Choosing the right metrics for your tracking study is not just about gathering data—it’s about gathering the right data to drive your business forward. By aligning your metrics with strategic objectives, you can transform your tracking study into a powerful decision-making tool.
Whether it’s uncovering consumer trends, boosting campaign effectiveness, or anticipating shifts in behaviour, the Profiles team helps businesses turn data into meaningful actions. With Kantar’s Custom Survey Solutions, you gain insights that address immediate challenges while setting the foundation for long-term success.
For more information about tracking solutions, download our full guide — Custom Tracking for Business Growth today using the form below. In it you’ll find best practices for maintaining data collection consistency, key metrics and their impact, essential considerations for developing a tracking study, and strategies to customise and enhance your tracking efforts.
