No matter how much marketing changes, awareness stands as a cornerstone of success. Yet the brand awareness metrics we’ve long relied upon likely don’t paint the full picture in today’s digital-first world.
In this article, we’ll dive into the necessity of brand awareness metrics that transcend vanity and offer actionable insights. These are the kinds of metrics that guide businesses toward informed decisions and sustainable growth.
Understanding Brand Awareness Metrics
Brand awareness metrics should capture the visibility and recognition a brand holds within its target audience. However, not all metrics are created equal. Some merely scratch the surface. Others go deeper, providing valuable insights into consumer behavior.
Nearly any metric could be a vanity metric if used in isolation. This makes it crucial to distinguish between vanity metrics, which offer little substance beyond surface-level numbers, and actionable metrics, which drive strategic decision-making.
To illustrate, consider the difference between tracking the number of social media followers versus measuring the engagement rates of those followers. Follower count is a classic example of a vanity metric. This metric offers a superficial gauge of popularity. In contrast, engagement rate delves into how actively and positively the audience interacts with the brand, revealing a more meaningful connection. Such distinctions are vital for businesses seeking to refine their marketing strategies and foster genuine consumer relationships.
Pageviews is another common vanity metric. It’s easy to tally up pageviews and believe your brand awareness is on the rise. It’s much more meaningful, however, to measure brand awareness in the context of time spent on page, pages viewed per session, or even just the number of unique users viewing your content. When you add bounce rates, visits per branded search terms (versus unbranded ones) and return visitor rates, you can get a much more actionable understanding of how your brand’s message is getting out.
Ensuring Meaningful and Scientifically Valid Brand Awareness Metrics
To ensure that your metrics are both meaningful and scientifically valid, you could employ several strategies. Firstly, align metrics with specific business objectives and tangible goals; metrics for brand awareness likely won’t be the same as metrics for loyalty, for instance. Secondly, complement quantitative data with qualitative insights, understanding that impressions alone don’t guarantee engaged awareness. Incorporating sentiment analysis and brand engagement metrics allows you to gauge the true impact of your efforts.
The other side to valid data is determining if it’s reliable data, meaning the measurement is consistent across platforms (as much as it can be). If you are looking to see total social engagement rate, it’s imperative to find similar, if not the same, units of measure across platforms. Additionally, regularly validating your metrics through controlled experiments and A/B testing can enhance their reliability.
Comparing different marketing approaches—and measuring their outcomes—refines the understanding of what truly resonates with the audience. This iterative process not only sharpens your metrics but keeps them relevant to evolving market dynamics.
Recognizing Unequal Value Across Channels
It’s also important to know what kind of channel spread you’re looking at measuring. We can categorize metrics based on owned and not-owned channels, recognizing the nuances of each. Owned channels, such as websites and social media accounts, offer direct control but require careful cultivation. Not-owned channels, like third-party websites, can deliver wider reach but usually bring a less focused audience.
Impressions, a ubiquitous marketing metric, vary significantly in value across different platforms. This is especially relevant when considering channels your brand doesn’t own.
For instance, impressions on social media platforms or third-party blogs may signify fleeting exposure. Impressions within an owned e-commerce platform often indicate a more engaged audience. Factors such as user intent and interaction levels can help weight your metrics even more accurately. Additionally, by coupling impressions with another metric like multiple page view rate or click-through-rate (CTR), you can see if the user is truly engaged or just happens to scroll by.
Case Study: Content Engagement Index
At Pace, we are data-driven storytellers. And for our clients, finding out how to get the most out of the data never has a dull moment. Recently, we worked with a client to develop a Content Engagement Index which combines multiple website metrics like multi-page visit rate, time spent on site, and a few others to produce an engagement score. This tells us what owned content the audience is most engaged with and allows us to think strategically about where to contextually link that piece of content or if there is new, similar content we could develop somewhere else.
Creating and consistently analyzing the index allows the brand to take a few possible next steps in the content creation journey. This data could guide content programs that go more in depth on a specific topic audience members engage with most frequently. The brand could decide to refresh and update articles that are seeing dwindling engagement. Or it could focus heavily on producing a certain type of content (i.e. article, video, podcast, etc.) that meets audience needs and desires.
In this instance and in others, meaningful brand awareness metrics serve as the compass guiding businesses toward sustainable growth. By prioritizing actionable insights over vanity metrics, we empower ourselves to make informed decisions and adapt to ever-changing consumer landscapes.
