All site visits tracked. Each message tailored. Every caller’s valuable feedback sought. Orchestrating a cohesive brand experience has become more challenging — and more high-stakes — than ever. To overcome the complexities, CMOs are investing heavily in machine-learning software to manage the touchpoints throughout the customer journey. According to a Forrester Consulting survey, they’ll spend $105M each annually on brand management.
In parallel, four categories of brand-oriented data sets have emerged as critical tools for assessing the effectiveness of brand investments in real-time: sentiment, social, search and sales. These “4 S’s of Brand Analytics” each have independent origins, and unique value to today’s data-driven CMO.
Sentiment has its roots in classic marketing analytics, but today’s brand trackers and brand lift are powered by near real-time feedback. Many players are jockeying for dominance in the social listening category, with products that analyze billions of comments, photos and videos to provide a clear understanding of the customer conversations around a brand. This space is also ripe for gleaning competitive intel. Brands look to share of search data as a leading, real-time indicator of market share. Tying sales data to brand marketing investment has been a critical tool for many year. Savvy marketers are getting more sophisticated around category-level data to assess both their outcomes and competitors.
Investment in analytics capabilities by brands is paying off. Leading marketers report using real-time brand experience data and insights about 82% of the time, while laggards only use data 31% of the time, according to Forrester. Leaders see their brand resonating more with customers (79% vs. 73%), resonating more with potential customers (45% vs. 34%), and more differentiated (69% vs. 54%) versus lagards.
Despite the successes, marketers report the proliferation of data sets can make effective brand orchestration unwieldy. The solution? Breaking down silos and integrating across the 4S’s, to keep insights actionable and business growth on track. Real-time campaign brand lift married with audience penetration can predict changes in sentiment that will be captured via a brand tracker. Combined search and social insights will enable more accurate sales predictions.
PR and social management firm Meltwater has already recognized the opportunities from consolidation, acquiring consumer insight firm Linkfluence in early 2021. In Q3, Upwave added a dedicated Brand section to our historically campaign-oriented brand lift analytics. It marries the ad-impacted sentiment dataset with Share of Search data.
As this space continues to evolve, Upwave is committed to fostering innovation across the 4S’s. We’re hosting a Masters of Brand Measurement webinar to discuss the 4S’s on Oct. 28. To hear from our panelists and join the discussion, register here.
