At the heart of all marketing campaigns and initiatives is the ambition to make the brand, its products, and its services better known to the audience. Recognition is the first step toward brand success.
Have you ever scrolled through social media and subconsciously recognized a brand in an ad, even if you weren’t totally paying attention? That’s brand awareness in action!
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness refers to how familiar and recognizable a particular brand is to consumers. It measures the extent to which consumers can recall or recognize a brand and associate it with its products or services. The more familiar people are with your brand, the more likely they are to think of you when they need something you offer.
How do you build brand awareness?
Brand awareness is typically achieved through consistent marketing efforts and brand promotion across various channels such as advertising, social media platforms, sponsorships, product placement, and other marketing communications. It helps establish a brand’s identity, builds customer loyalty, and differentiates it from competitors in a crowded marketplace.
Building brand recognition isn’t about a one-time ad or a catchy jingle (although those can help!). It’s about consistently putting your brand in front of people across different channels, like social media, advertising, or even sponsoring events.
The goal is to become a familiar face (or logo) in the crowd. Ultimately, strong brand awareness can translate into increased sales, market share, and long-term brand equity.
Want to measure brand awareness? Tracking brand awareness is difficult because of subjectivity, multiple touchpoints, challenging data collection, and changing customer behavior. This is where brand awareness KPIs come into the picture.
This blog post will explore proven KPIs to help you track brand awareness and overcome challenges.
- What is brand awareness?
- How do you build brand awareness?
- Benefits of Tracking Brand Awareness KPIs
- Brand Awareness Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Examples
- Mitigating Privacy Concerns While Measuring Brand Awareness
- Tracking Brand Awareness KPIs
- Track and Improve Brand Awareness with the Right KPIs
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Benefits of Tracking Brand Awareness KPIs
Brand awareness KPIs determine whether the brand resonates with the audience or not.
The key benefits of tracking important brand awareness metrics include:
- Analyzing campaign effectiveness: The right brand awareness metrics provide insight into the effectiveness of the marketing campaign by quantifying the results
- Measuring reach and engagement: The KPIs assist in measuring the reach and engagement of your brand across marketing channels and platforms and gather customer perception through a brand awareness survey
- Comparing competitive performance: Assess the brand performance against the competitors and curate relevant growth marketing strategies for increasing brand awareness
- Benchmark performance: Measurable goals and benchmarks help compare campaign performance and identify gaps in achievement
- Measuring return on investment: Marketing campaigns come at a cost, and the KPIs help measure the ROI from distinct brand awareness campaigns
- Driving continuous improvement: Regularly tracking the brand awareness performance fosters a culture of continuous improvement with valuable insight and strategic refinement
Brand Awareness Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Examples
There are multiple project management KPIs and brand awareness KPIs targeted at different measures, but not all of them will meet your purpose. From various KPIs, we’ve handpicked the top 8 with proven benefits for most marketing teams. Dive in as we look at each KPI with examples.
1. Brand mentions
As the name suggests, brand mentions refer to the mention of your brand across platforms encompassing social media, news websites, online forums, and blogs. This brand awareness KPI marks the buzz around your brand, how much people are talking about it, and what they say. |
You can measure this metric in multiple ways: the total number of brand mentions, the mentions of a particular product or service you offer, the social reach of each channel, the number of people who joined your online community in a period, the reach of influencer marketing campaigns, and hashtag performance.
The more the brand mentions, reach, and engagement, the higher your brand recognition.
You can also expand this metric to gain insight into your competitive edge. Use the share of voice metric to assess how many brand mentions your competitors have and gauge your position in the market.
2. Social media engagement
Likes, comments, retweets, and shares are some of the metrics you can use to measure social media engagement. |
Take, for example, a post you made on one of the social media apps. While the visibility was 1000 views, the likes and comments were only 50. This hints that your content could be more engaging.
Additionally, comments are an excellent way to gauge how the customers feel about your brand.
While most social media applications provide analytics to gain insight into engagement, you might have to use external KPI software tools for others. These tools directly indicate your success in engaging the audience and knowing if they stop to look at what you have to show/say.Â
3. Search engine visibility
Search engine visibility showcases your website’s Google ranking. |
The higher your website ranks on search engine results pages (SERPs), the better the brand awareness will be. Important factors include keyword visibility, authority score, branded search volume and organic traffic.
Focus on tweaking and enhancing your SEO strategy if you don’t rank for the brand-specific keywords. By employing search engine tools, you can also assess the traffic of branded search volume.
4. Customer surveys and reviews
Setting the foundation of engagement and awareness is not enough. Keeping customers satisfied and promoting a positive brand image is equally important. Conduct brand awareness surveys to assess customer satisfaction and experience.
You can also track your rating across platforms such as Yelp and Google to understand what customers say about you and identify areas for improvement.
Additionally, calculate the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customer loyalty and how likely they are to recommend your brand to others. Create an executive dashboard and set up goals for the percentage of positive reviews. |
Lastly, a simple survey of what comes to mind when a customer thinks about a specific product category is enough to hint at your brand awareness.
5. Influencer impact
The influencer market has grown immensely over the past years—from $1.7 billion in 2016 to a whopping $16.4 billion in 2022. It’s expected to expand even further, with a projected market size of $24 billion by the end of 2024.
Influencers are now one of the most preferred catalysts for boosting brand awareness. However, measuring the impact of influencer marketing helps you understand their role and refine your marketing strategy for the best results.
Use reporting tools to track metrics like the rise in followers and influencer post engagement. Create benchmarks, including influencer post engagement, website traffic based on influencer posts, and ROI from the influencer campaign—to measure and increase brand awareness.
6. Web traffic
Web traffic indicates the number of people accessing and showing up on your website. It’s equivalent to the number of visitors or footfall in a physical store. Here, the key KPIs to track include direct traffic, page views, bounce rate, time spent on the website, and new and old visitors.
Together, these KPIs will help you understand how well your website performs and whether you can satisfy the customer who once ends up on your website.
Once you judge your current performance with these metrics, set goals to track your growth. Work on building effective brand awareness strategies if you have a high bounce rate.
7. Target audience perception
The target audience perception is essentially what your potential customers think about your products and services. Whether they’re happy or not determines if you’re successful in attracting new customers and maintaining a healthy relationship with the current ones.
This brand awareness KPI also includes what your target audience thinks about your competitors and whether they prefer their products over yours. With a deeper understanding of your customer’s feelings, you can shape your services and products and work on any negative perceptions.
Emotional brand connection, customer surveys, social media interaction, and reviews help understand the target audience’s perception. This KPI reveals whether you have a good brand recall.
8. Brand positioning and messaging
Brand positioning refers to the distinguishing factor that makes you different from others, and brand messaging is how you communicate this difference. At the heart of strong brand positioning and messaging are a brand’s values and vision, which give it an edge over competitors.
Surveys, interviews, and online brand engagement help assess a brand’s unique positioning. If you don’t get good feedback from these sources, it might be time to update your brand statement and positioning, test more, and evolve until you reach the customer.
Mitigating Privacy Concerns While Measuring Brand Awareness
While measuring key brand awareness metrics, it’s important to balance gathering valuable insights and respecting customer privacy.
Customers may be reluctant to engage with a brand or fill out surveys and feedback if they fear the brand will use their information inappropriately.
Here are simple ways to mitigate privacy concerns while measuring brand awareness:
- Transparent data collection: The foremost and the best way to go about data collection is opting for transparent data collection. Inform the customers about their data utilization and give them opt-in options
- Anonymous data collection: Businesses can employ anonymous data collection and use aggregates to keep the customer data away from exposure
- Encryption: Another way to ensure that the customer data remains safe is by encrypting it and incorporating access controls
- Compliance requirements: Lastly, adhere to the compliance requirements such as GDPR and CCPA to build trust and credibility with the customers
By incorporating these practices, you can effectively measure and initiate raising brand awareness while cultivating trust.
Tracking Brand Awareness KPIs
Now that you know all about the essential brand awareness metrics, here’s a step-by-step guide to track them better:
1. Consult with team members
Brand awareness is a collaborative effort that tracks a team’s diverse efforts toward achieving a common goal. As a result, the first step is a thorough consultation with the team members to identify all the marketing efforts made by the team, set common goals, and create benchmarks. Taking input from the team helps boost morale and involvement.
You could hold a brainstorming session to identify all the marketing efforts your team might already be undertaking and what you may have yet to try. For instance, developers might suggest creating blog posts showcasing the product’s technical prowess, while the customer support team could recommend user testimonials for social media. This collaborative approach ensures a well-rounded strategy.
2. Define KPIs and other metrics
Following consultation, the next step is to define the KPIs. Pick the most relevant KPIs in sync with your marketing goals and determine the angles from which you’ll measure them. Additionally, make these KPIs visible to the team with project status reports. Defining the KPIs keeps the team focused and in sync to work toward a common goal.
Let’s say your goal is to increase website traffic by 20%. The performance marketing team might suggest creating targeted social media ads to achieve a click-through rate (CTR) of 5%. In contrast, the content and SEO team could work on optimizing existing blog posts for ranking in the top 3 search engine results. By setting these KPIs, everyone contributes to achieving the common objective.
3. Determine and connect data sources
The last piece in the puzzle is to determine the appropriate sources to measure the KPIs.
For example, choose whether to conduct a survey, look at online platform engagement, or have a feedback session to measure the KPIs. This step helps you establish quantifiable measures to track your progress using software and client reporting tools.
Use a reporting dashboard software tool such as ClickUp to simplify tracking KPIs.
Create a ClickUp Dashboard consisting of all the KPIs you want to track, collect and analyze data, and communicate with the team—all in one place.
Here’s how the dashboard can be beneficial:
- Custom statuses and fields: You can create KPIs with custom statuses such as Completed, Off Track, On Track, Not Started, and At Risk. This provides at-a-glance insights into the progress of each KPI and the areas needing attention
- Project management tools: Tagging, time tracking in ClickUp, ClickUp’s email integration, and automations contribute to streamlined KPI tracking within your existing workflow.
- Real-time data: Dashboards provide central access to data sources in real-time, helping you spot trends and bottlenecks and get a high-level visualization of your company’s activities. This empowers data-driven decision-making for course correction when necessary
- Scannability: They’re designed for quick scanning to understand the main insights, ensuring clear communication and team alignment on brand awareness goals
You can also use ClickUp Goals to allocate specific tasks to each team member and track them visually. This fosters collaboration and ensures everyone contributes to achieving brand awareness objectives.
Here’s how it can help:
- Define clear goals: Start by setting clear, measurable, and achievable goals within ClickUp. This ensures everyone understands what they’re working toward
- Identify metrics: Determine the metrics that will measure progress toward these goals. Common metrics include customer satisfaction, website traffic, cost per acquisition, and conversion rates
- Progress tracking: The Progress (Auto) Custom Field is a progress bar that automatically tracks the completion of subtasks, checklists, and assigned comments, giving a visual representation of progress
- Task organization: Organize tasks for each goal or OKR, assigning them to individuals or teams, setting due dates, and customizing for additional details
- Custom statuses: Create custom statuses to keep track of the progress of each KPI and OKR, such as Completed, Off Track, On Track, Not Started, and At Risk
- Dashboard views: Use the Dashboard to track multiple KPIs at once, ensuring you’re on track to reach your goals with easy-to-read visuals
- Relationships: Link different OKRs within your Workspace using task Relationships, which can connect team-level tasks to larger company or department-level OKRs
Additionally, the ClickUp KPI Template will address all your KPI tracking needs.
Its key features let you:
- Track the performance of KPIs with easy-to-read visuals
- Identify areas that demand improvement
- Continually evaluate the progress around business goals and objectives
- Use custom statuses such as Completed, Off Track, On Track, Not Started, and At-Risk to keep all stakeholders updated
- Enhance KPI tracking with project management tools such as tagging, time-tracking capabilities, ClickUp Automation, and more
With its systematized functioning and access to multiple tools, tracking brand awareness KPIs with the ClickUp Marketing Project Management tool becomes a breeze.
Here’s how,
- Utilize different ClickUp Views, including Summary, Departmental OKR, Progress, and Timeline, to align department goals and monitor progress. These views offer a visual representation of KPI milestones and facilitate the tracking of brand awareness over time
- Leverage reporting and analytics features to gain insights into your brand’s awareness growth, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions for improved performance
- Accelerate your marketing initiatives and content development with ClickUp Brain’s AI writing prowess. Brainstorm on innovative campaign concepts, create detailed content plans, write entire blog posts, draft case studies, and write emails within minutes, if not seconds
- Ensure cohesive teamwork from ideation to execution. Facilitate flawless collaboration through ClickUp Docs and ClickUp Whiteboards, which let multiple team members co-create and co-edit projects, maintaining perfect alignment and communication among your team throughout the project lifecycle
Track and Improve Brand Awareness with the Right KPIs
Brand awareness is the first step toward effective brand management. Only when people are talking about you, have you created something truly meaningful. And without KPI tracking, you won’t be able to point fingers at what’s wrong.
With advanced Google analytics, real-time monitoring, personalized metrics, and privacy-centric approaches, brand awareness performance tracking is expected to become smoother and more effective with time.
ClickUp Dashboards deliver real-time data, crystal-clear visualizations, and custom tracking—the perfect tools to identify opportunities and course-correct when needed. Plus, its project management capabilities ensure your brand awareness efforts become a well-oiled machine
True brand impact comes from being talked about, remembered, and chosen. So, take control of your brand narrative with ClickUp, and watch your brand awareness soar.
Sign up for ClickUp today!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What is the KPI for brand awareness?
KPIs for brand awareness measure the brand’s visibility and sentiment across search engines and social media platforms. These KPIs give an insight into whether the target audience recognizes and resonates with the brand.
2. How do you measure brand awareness?
Brand awareness can be measured using several KPIs, such as social media engagement, search engine visibility, web traffic, brand positioning, customer surveys, etc.
3. Which KPIs would you track for an awareness campaign?
The core KPIs to track for an awareness campaign include impressions/visibility, clicks, web traffic, share of voice, brand mentions, and social media engagement.