Insight Tracking Programs Must Be Nurtured
Brand tracking programs are the backbone of decision-making. However, without consistent care and evolution, even the best systems can falter. How can you ensure your program is future-proof?
Tracking programs face unique challenges. Unlike short-term insight projects, tracking requires the ongoing maintenance of a long-term relationship. After the ramp-up phase, the tracking “honeymoon period” often ends, and there’s the potential for cracks to show if emerging issues aren’t addressed proactively.
Early warning signs can be subtle. It may begin with a feeling that “we could get more out of this tracker” or, even worse, when your CMO asks, “Why are spending so much on this research again? What value does it really provide?”
Pointing to scorecards and initial answers may satisfy the Senior Leadership Team temporarily, but apprehension can emerge if what’s publicly shared with stakeholders isn’t quite the reality behind the scenes. Like any long-term relationship, tracking programs require regular evaluation and improvements to stay relevant. Addressing the core needs of the business as it evolves is essential for a program’s continued success.
Core Challenges for Brand Tracking Programs
So, what are the fundamentals that every successful tracking program must have? Based on our experience managing global brand trackers and working with dozens of clients who have put their tracking out to bid (both brand and advertising tracking), we’ve identified three core challenges that derail tracking programs:
1. Structural Challenges
2. Alignment Issues
3. Value-add and Depth of Insights
Each challenge represents a potential pitfall. Let’s break them down – and explore how to overcome them.
Structural Challenges
A surprising number of tracking systems are held back by limitations in their initial setup. While evolving technology makes updates to the survey, like adding new markets, easier, many programs still struggle due to structural limitations that prevent them from realizing their “best tracking” because the tracker was not designed to have enough flexibility.
While maintaining consistency in approach, philosophy, and certain key metrics is important – tracking consistency does not mean staying static. Trackers must also be built to adapt and grow or they risk stagnation.
Structural challenges often surface when these types of updates are needed:
- Adding new markets, including adapting content to work for cultural differences
- Adding new consumer segments (maybe the core tracker focused on consumers under age 35 but there’s now a need to measure older consumers as a key group)
- Incorporating a new segmentation framework (e.g., adding a typing tool into the screener)
- Investigating trends that require historical data
- Adjusting screening qualifications (tightening or loosening)
- Tracking new competitors or product lines
- Generating new sub-group analyses that require complex, time-intensive data cuts to run new trended tabs
While these are all reasonable tracking changes, recurring challenges with any of them often indicate underlying structural problems. For clients, these challenges often present themselves in the form of delays – and these delays should signal concern if they begin to repeat or compound. If you frequently hear, “Our system wasn’t set up for that,” it’s time to review your tracking structure. A future-proof tracker requires flexibility to accommodate change.
Alignment issues
Alignment issues affect almost every tracking program and, if not addressed, can push trackers back into the RFP stage or even off the project list entirely.
The dynamic nature of both the marketplace as well as shifts in business strategy mean that measurements that worked great initially do not always fit with evolving needs and core business markers. Despite frequent discussions, inertia and a reluctance to “lose trendability” often causes a program to naturally drift away from the current business model and stakeholder priorities. Even when the core business strategy remains unchanged, shifts in how tracking results are used internally may still require adjustments – despite resistance to doing things differently even when “that’s not how we’ve done it in the past.”
Alignment red flags include:
- Failing to track emerging competitors that matter most to the organization
- Misaligned reporting due to major or minor company reorgs and or new stakeholder groups
- Continuing to report on outdated KPIs due to historical trending rather than those critical for business growth
- Overlooking new market emphasis or consumer segments that require different tracking approaches not included in the current tracker (this can be a structural and alignment issue).
- Ignoring brand architecture (e.g., understanding how consumers view sub-brands within the master brand)
What can you do? Regularly audit how well your tracker content and output aligns with your current business goals to ensure value. A willingness to trade-off some level of trending to ensure this alignment is key to ongoing success. Don’t hesitate to adjust trending if it improves relevance and impact.
Value-Add and Depth of Insights
After presenting quarterly results, you’ve likely heard the (inevitable) question: “What else can we learn from all this tracking data?” While it may feel frustrating, even after sharing relevant results and key metrics the organization needs, this question is valid. These programs should be held to a higher standard than the standards of one-time studies that conclude with deliverable and specific recommendations.
Tracking shouldn’t just be a trended report card for high-level strategies. Instead, it should act as a continual source of new, actionable insights that help enhance decision-making. Most trackers are continually talking to hundreds and thousands of customers on a regular basis. With access to vast amounts of customer data, this information represents a treasure trove of untapped potential for insights – if a plan for seeking unique insights beyond KPIs is established from the start.
Ways to build value-added insights into your tracker:
- Review neglected sections of questions that are not part of core KPIs reported that may yield useful and important results if compared across key groups. Consider trading out less impactful items for new, relevant data points.
- Analyze open-ended responses. They are not typically included in standard reports because it’s viewed as a hassle and “messy”. Despite their complexity open-ends can represent a wealth of unique information. Don’t overlook the value and currency of this info.
- Planned investigation for new or novel trends and analyze trending of core KPIs with different sub-groups.
- Regularly ask clients about new developments and business challenges and apply tracking results to address them.
- On the supplier side independent of client-side communication, assign a regular update of news and business issues related to the tracker and use this to seed investigation ideas that the tracker can support.
By planning for deeper investigations and uncovering new trends, you can ensure your tracker has value-added to stay relevant and actionable.
The Bonus Factor: A Tracking Champion
No tracking program can thrive without an internal Tracking Champion. This individual owns and proactively advocates for the tracking program’s value within the organization. They ensure the tracker adapts to business changes and that results are being actively used for decision-making. In fact, we’d go as far to say that any tracker that does not have this is bound for decline or replacement.
Conclusion
What problems or challenges does your tracker face? Are you staying ahead of these issues to protect its long-term success?
If you’re concerned about structural limitations, alignment issues, or the depth of insights in your program, let’s talk. We’d love to help you optimize your tracker to deliver meaningful, actionable results.