Brand Health Tracking: 5 Metrics That Matter in 2025

A brand’s reputation can change in an instant. A viral post, a surge of negative feedback, or a surprise move by a competitor can shift public opinion, impacting sales, customer loyalty, and future growth. For businesses, the challenge isn’t just responding to these changes but also anticipating them.

That’s where brand health tracking comes in. With so many different conversations taking place on social media, review sites and digital platforms, brands need a clear overview of how they’re perceived. It’s no surprise that 54% of organizations now use technology to analyze customer sentiment from reviews and social media.

Having the ability to track and act on these insights can be the key to fostering growth or avoiding a reputation crisis. In this blog, we’ll break down five key metrics every brand should monitor in 2025. With the right data, you can make informed decisions, strengthen customer relationships and stay competitive.

What is brand health tracking?

Brand health tracking surveys how people perceive your brand over time. It goes beyond sales numbers or website traffic, though. It’s about understanding sentiment, awareness and loyalty across various touchpoints like social media, customer feedback and online reviews.

While traditional brand metrics focus on market share or advertising reach, today’s brand health tracking digs deeper. It looks at emotional connections, customer advocacy and how your brand stands against competitors. By monitoring these insights, you can proactively manage your reputation, refine your messaging and stay aligned with customer expectations.

Why brand health tracking is important

A strong brand is more than a logo or a tagline. It’s an evolving relationship with customers. Tracking brand health helps businesses adapt to shifting perceptions, identify risks early and capitalize on opportunities. Here’s why it matters.

• Proactive reputation management: Brands that track sentiment in real time can address negative feedback before it escalates. Whether it’s a product issue or a PR crisis, early intervention can prevent long-term damage.
• Stronger customer relationships: Understanding how customers feel about your brand helps tailor experiences to their needs. With 73% of consumers expecting brands to understand their expectations, tracking brand health ensures businesses stay customer centric.
• Competitive advantage: Keeping an eye on brand perception relative to competitors reveals market positioning opportunities. If a rival brand is facing backlash, for example, a well-timed campaign can attract new customers.

As brands shift toward customer-first strategies, tracking brand health is no longer optional but a strategic necessity. By continuously monitoring perception and engagement, businesses can foster trust, build loyalty and ensure long-term success.

Now, let’s discuss five key metrics essential for your brand health-tracking strategy.

5 key brand health metrics to track in 2025

To truly measure brand health, it’s not enough to rely on vanity metrics like follower counts or website traffic alone. Instead, businesses must take a comprehensive approach, tracking key indicators that reflect brand strength, customer sentiment and market position. Here are five essential components of brand health and metrics used to monitor them in 2025 and beyond:

1. Brand awareness

Brand awareness is the foundation of your organization’s health. It determines whether your brand is known, remembered and associated with the right qualities in audiences’ minds. If people aren’t aware of your brand, they won’t consider your products no matter how good they are.’

McDonald’s “Golden Arches” logo is one of the most recognized symbols worldwide. A 2023 study found that 94% of people could identify McDonald’s just by its logo, even without seeing the brand name. This level of brand recognition has been cultivated through years of consistent marketing and global visibility.

But awareness isn’t just about recognition; it’s also about recall and preference. A brand with strong awareness isn’t just seen but is at the top of customers’ minds when they make purchasing decisions.

How to measure it:

• Brand recall surveys: Ask consumers to name brands in your industry (unaided) and then show them a list (aided) to see if they recognize yours.
• Search volume trends: Use Google Trends, Ahrefs or Semrush to monitor the volume of branded search terms like “Nike sneakers” versus generic terms like “running shoes.”
• Social media and PR mentions: Platforms like Sprinklr Social can track the number of organic mentions, hashtags and conversations related to your brand.
• Direct website traffic: More direct visits (e.g., typing “nike.com” into the browser instead of searching) indicate stronger awareness.

2. Brand perception

Brand perception is not what you say about your brand but what customers believe about it. It’s shaped by customer experiences, online reviews and word-of-mouth, making it a critical factor for long-term success.

A positive brand perception builds trust and loyalty, while a negative perception can lead to reputation crises and lost customers. In 2025, with social media amplifying opinions instantly, tracking and managing brand perception is non-negotiable.

How to measure it:

• Sentiment analysis: Sentiment analysis helps you understand how customers really feel—positive, negative, or neutral—about your brand or products. It turns raw feedback from social media, surveys, and reviews into insights you can act on to build loyalty and protect your brand.

AI-driven tools like Sprinklr Insights analyses customer sentiment by tracking keywords and emotions across social media, forums and reviews. With access to billions of customer conversations across 30+ social and digital channels via social listening, it ensures real-time, lossless data capture through direct firehose access to over 10 platforms.

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Additionally, it goes beyond text by monitoring user-generated content, including visual brand mentions in images and videos. It provides a comprehensive view of brand sentiment and perception. Schedule a free demo now to learn more.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Surveys asking customers how likely they are to recommend your brand (scale of 0-10) help gauge overall perception.
• Customer reviews and ratings: Monitoring platforms like Trustpilot, Google Reviews and Yelp provides direct insights into consumer trust and satisfaction.
• Brand association audits: Conduct focus groups or surveys to see what words customers associate with your brand (e.g., “luxury” vs. “affordable”).

For example, Nike’s commitment to sustainability through its “Move to Zero” campaign has positively influenced customer perception. The campaign resulted in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 0.5 million tons, a 25% decrease in freshwater usage, and 80% waste recycling at their end. By addressing environmental concerns and promoting eco-friendly products, Nike has strengthened its brand image among environmentally conscious consumers.

3. Customer engagement

Customer engagement isn’t just about likes and shares but meaningful interactions that indicate customer interest and emotional connection. A highly engaged audience is more likely to convert, stay loyal and advocate for your brand.

Brands that fail to engage often see declining retention rates, as modern consumers expect two-way interactions rather than one-sided marketing. Coca-Cola replaced its logo with common first names, encouraging people to find and share bottles with their names. The result? An increase in U.S. sales and millions of social media interactions. This indicated that personalized engagement can drive both awareness and conversions.

How to measure it:

• Social media interaction rates: Track shares, comments, mentions and video watch time, measuring engagement beyond passive scrolling. How? You can use Sprinklr Social to seamlessly measure engagement across 30+ channels.
• Website analytics: Use Google Analytics to track time avg. session time, bounce rates and user journey, revealing genuine user interest.
• Email marketing performance: Open rates, click rates and response rates indicate whether customers find your content valuable.
• Community and forum activity: Are customers actively discussing your brand on Reddit, Discord or industry forums? Strong community engagement reflects deep brand attachment.

Also Read: Strategies for social media growth

4. Competitive positioning and market share

A brand doesn’t operate in isolation. It competes for attention, trust and market share. Competitive benchmarking evaluates where your brand stands compared to others in your industry. Even if your awareness and perception are strong, losing market share can signal a long-term decline.

How to measure it:

• Market share reports: Use sources like Statista, IBISWorld, or Nielsen to track market dominance.
• Competitive benchmarking: By tracking key performance indicators like engagement, reach and follower count using the competitive benchmarking tool, you can gain a clear understanding of where you stand in the market. It eliminates the need for manual data collection, saving hundreds of hours while delivering accurate, real-time insights to drive smarter strategic decisions.

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• Share of Voice (SOV): Measures how often your brand is mentioned in media and social discussions versus competitors.

Bonus resource: 10+ Best Sentiment Analysis Tools

5. Customer loyalty and advocacy

Customer retention and advocacy are the ultimate signs of brand health. A brand with high loyalty doesn’t just retain customers. Instead, it turns them into ambassadors.

In 2025, brand advocacy is more critical than ever because consumers trust recommendations from peers over ads. If your customers aren’t actively promoting your brand, you may be at risk of stagnation.

A great example of this is Tesla, which has built a devoted customer base without traditional advertising. Instead, Tesla owners enthusiastically promote the brand through word-of-mouth and social media, sharing their experiences and even referring new buyers through the company’s referral program. This organic advocacy has been a key driver of Tesla’s sustained growth and brand strength.

How to measure it:

• Repeat purchase rate: Tracks how often customers make additional purchases.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): Measures the long-term revenue a customer generates.
• Referral and word-of-mouth rates: Track how many new customers come from referrals or organic recommendations.
• Loyalty program participation: High engagement in loyalty programs (e.g., Starbucks Rewards) signals strong brand attachment.

Related Read: How Brand Advocacy Can Be Your Secret Growth Weapon

Now that you know which metrics to track, let’s get into some of the best practices for brand health tracking.

Best practices for tracking brand health

Tracking brand health helps you stay connected to your audience and make informed decisions. Here are four best practices to ensure meaningful insights and impact.

1. Align brand metrics with business goals

Brand health tracking is most effective when it directly supports overarching business objectives. Whether your goal is increasing market share, improving customer loyalty or boosting brand awareness, the metrics you track should reflect those priorities.

For instance, if an enterprise aims to expand into new markets, focusing on brand awareness and reach metrics (social mentions, search volume and Share of Voice) would be critical. Meanwhile, if customer retention is a priority, NPS and customer sentiment analysis should take center stage.

Best practice: Work with leadership teams to define KPIs that align with business goals, ensuring brand health insights contribute directly to strategic decision-making.

2. Integrate cross-departmental insights

Brand perception isn’t shaped by marketing alone. It’s influenced by customer service, product teams, digital transformation leaders and even HR. Silos and data fragmentation can lead to incomplete insights, making cross-functional collaboration essential.

Take Airbnb, for example. The company’s brand health tracking isn’t just a marketing initiative; it integrates feedback from customer experience, host relations and product innovation teams. This holistic approach enables Airbnb to make customer-driven improvements, like refining its pricing model and launching features such as “AirCover” to reassure both hosts and guests.

Best practice: Create an internal brand health task force that brings together CMOs, CX leaders, product managers and data analysts. This ensures every team contributes insights and takes ownership of brand perception.

3. Leverage data-driven reports for decision-making

Gut feelings don’t shape strong brands. Data does. Regular brand health reports help companies measure progress, detect risks early and identify emerging opportunities.

Coca-Cola effectively utilizes social listening tools to monitor real-time brand sentiment and identify shifts in consumer perception across global markets. For instance, their sophisticated social media analytics system enables them to track and analyze brand mentions, allowing for swift responses to both positive and negative feedback.

Best practice: Automate brand health tracking with platforms like Sprinklr, which consolidates social, web and survey data and displays it on a single dashboard. Regularly review these reports to adapt strategies based on real consumer insights.

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4. Drive proactive brand health tracker surveys

Consumer preferences are constantly evolving and the only way to keep up is by asking the right questions regularly. Proactive surveying goes beyond passive data collection. It helps brands uncover deeper insights into customer expectations and potential brand risks.

For instance, Apple frequently conducts customer satisfaction surveys post-purchase to gauge product feedback. The company then integrates these insights into product development, ensuring each new iPhone iteration addresses real consumer needs. This iterative process is a major reason Apple maintains high brand loyalty.

Best practice: Design customer surveys that go beyond generic satisfaction questions. Include open-ended feedback prompts, track trends over time and act on findings to demonstrate responsiveness to customer concerns. Also, regularize your tracking survey schedule to keep your finger on the market’s pulse.

Pro Tip : Many brands struggle to capture meaningful customer insights because traditional surveys focus only on surface-level metrics like satisfaction scores. The real challenge is understanding why customers feel a certain way.

Sprinklr Surveys help you go beyond basic feedback by capturing in-depth, real-time insights across multiple digital channels. With AI-powered analysis, you can uncover emerging trends, understand the voice of the customer and identify key areas for improvement within a unified platform.

You can easily collect feedback across email, social media, chat and websites. Customize surveys with open-ended questions, let AI do the heavy lifting in analyzing responses and quickly turn insights into action. It’s a smarter way to improve customer experience and build lasting brand loyalty.

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Success story: Microsoft’s social intelligence transformation

Challenge

Microsoft’s Social Intelligence Practice (SIP) team faced difficulties with their in-house social data processing tool, which was not easily shareable, required extensive maintenance and had limited scalability.

Solution

Implementing Sprinklr’s Social Listening platform, the SIP team transformed vast amounts of social data into actionable insights. This enabled them to inform marketing and development strategies across Microsoft’s products and initiatives effectively.

Outcome

In the first year, the SIP team analyzed 8.6 billion listening mentions and achieved a 100% increase in projects completed on time, significantly enhancing Microsoft’s brand perception and customer engagement.

Final Thoughts

Brand health is a powerful reflection of customer trust, market positioning, and long-term success. To stay ahead of the competition, brands must track their perception in real-time, spot potential risks early, and make data-driven decisions that fuel growth.

Start by benchmarking your brand today. Gaining clarity on your market position helps you refine strategy, improve sentiment, and enhance customer loyalty.

With Sprinklr Insights, you get AI-powered social listening across 30+ digital channels, real-time sentiment analysis and deep competitive benchmarking in one platform. This means you can track brand perception as it unfolds and act on insights instantly.

Schedule a demo and see how Sprinklr can help you turn brand insights into measurable impact.