How do you run a brand tracking study?
TL;DR
- A tracker measures a fixed funnel over time: awareness, familiarity, consideration, preference, recent purchase and a few image attributes.
- Change nothing between waves. A new question order or a new sample source can move scores more than your campaign did.
- Expect small brands to score lower on loyalty as well as reach. That pattern, called double jeopardy, is normal and should shape how you read your numbers.
- Neon Blue runs simulated waves to pre-read the effect of a campaign, a price move or a competitor launch, labeled as simulated. Run your first study free
Neon Blue builds simulations of human behavior. A brand tracking study asks the same funnel questions to the same kind of audience at regular intervals, so you can see whether awareness, consideration and preference for your brand are moving. The hard part is not the questions. It is keeping the sample, wording and timing identical so a change means something. Neon Blue adds simulated audience waves between live waves, so brand teams can test "what if" moments without waiting for the next fieldwork date.
What questions go into a brand tracker?
Keep the core short and in this order, so earlier questions do not prompt later ones:
- When you think of [category], which brands come to mind? [Open, unaided]
- Which of these brands have you heard of? [List, aided]
- How familiar are you with each brand you have heard of? [1 to 5]
- Which of these would you consider the next time you buy [category]? [Multi-select]
- Which one would you most prefer? [Single]
- Which have you bought in the past 3 months? [Multi-select]
- Which brands do you associate with each statement? [Grid of 6 to 8 image attributes]
Unaided awareness always goes first. Once someone has seen your logo in a list, you can't ask what they remember. Image attributes should map to the claims your brand is trying to own, which you can choose with positioning and value proposition testing.
How do you read a brand tracker without fooling yourself?
In 1990, Andrew Ehrenberg, Gerald Goodhardt and Patrick Barwise published "Double Jeopardy Revisited" in the Journal of Marketing. The pattern they described holds across categories: smaller brands have far fewer buyers, and those buyers are also somewhat less loyal. Small brands are hit twice.
For a tracker, that means two things. First, a small brand with low loyalty scores is not necessarily doing something wrong; it is usually a reach problem. Second, the fastest lever is often more people knowing and considering the brand, not deeper love from existing fans. Read loyalty and preference against your brand's size before calling a problem.
Other reading rules:
- Look at three-wave rolling averages, not single waves.
- Report the margin you'd expect from sample size alone before calling a move real.
- Read by segment. A flat total can hide one segment rising and another falling, so cut results by the same segments every wave.
How often should you run brand tracking waves?
| Brand situation | Cadence | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Stable category, steady spend | Quarterly | Scores move slowly; more waves add noise |
| Heavy campaign periods | Monthly, or continuous fieldwork | Catch the lift and the decay |
| Launch or rebrand | Pre-wave, then weekly or monthly for a period | Need a clean before and after |
Live waves cost time and fieldwork. Many brand teams have questions between waves: what would happen to consideration if the competitor's new campaign lands, or if we raised the price. A simulated wave answers those as a pre-read, kept apart from the live trend line.
Where does a simulated wave fit next to a live tracker?
Hypothetical: a sparkling water brand sees a rival announce a national campaign and wants to know which of its own image attributes are most exposed before the next live wave.
- Audience: US adults who bought sparkling water in the past 3 months, split by the brand's current buyers, rival buyers and lapsed buyers, and by age.
- Design: the brand's standard tracker questions, run once on the current audience and once after exposure to a description of the rival campaign.
- Readout: change in consideration and preference by segment, and which image attributes shift, with reasons in shoppers' words.
Example output layout (illustrative, not a real result)
| Segment | Consideration before | After rival campaign | Attribute that moved most | Reason (coded) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current buyers | __% | __% | Coded attribute | Coded theme |
| Rival buyers | __% | __% | Coded attribute | Coded theme |
| Lapsed buyers | __% | __% | Coded attribute | Coded theme |
The simulated wave is a scenario read, not a data point on the live trend. Keep it on a separate chart. When the next live wave arrives, compare the two.
What should a brand team do with tracker results?
- If awareness is flat, the problem is reach or memorability. Pretest the next flight and check brand link.
- If awareness rises but consideration doesn't, people know you but don't see you as an option. That is a positioning question, covered in positioning and value proposition testing.
- If preference is strong but purchase is weak, look at price and availability. A willingness to pay read helps separate the two.
Brand managers running a full year of studies can see where tracking sits in the calendar in what research a brand manager needs before a launch.
Questions about brand tracking
What is the difference between brand tracking and brand awareness research?
Awareness research is one measure at one point in time. Brand tracking repeats a full funnel, from awareness to purchase, at fixed intervals so you can see trends.
How large should a brand tracking sample be?
Large enough that the expected wave-to-wave noise is smaller than the change you care about. Brands that need segment reads need more per segment, not just more in total.
Can a simulated audience replace live tracking waves?
No. Live waves carry the trend line. A simulated wave is a fast scenario read between them, labeled as simulated and charted separately.
How does Neon Blue support brand tracking teams?
Neon Blue runs your tracker questions on a simulated audience to pre-read campaigns, price moves and competitor launches between live waves. Start a free first study.