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How to Measure and Improve Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is the driving force of any thriving business. It builds customer trust, fuels loyalty, and sets your brand apart in a crowded market. By strategically engaging with your target audience across multiple touchpoints, especially through social media, every interaction can be transformed into an opportunity to elevate your brand.
Research shows that 71% of consumers are likely to recommend a brand after a positive social media experience, highlighting the power of these interactions. A perfect example is Oreo’s iconic 2013 Super Bowl tweet during the blackout, which turned a spontaneous moment into a viral marketing success. That creative decision generated millions of earned media impressions and made headlines globally. In retrospect it also highlights how a creative, timely response can skyrocket a brand’s visibility.
With the right tools, you can track and measure brand awareness to optimize your impact and market reach.
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness represents your target audience’s familiarity with your brand. It tracks how well-known your brand is. When you need a tissue, you might say "Kleenex," or when ordering a soda, you might naturally just ask for a "Coke" regardless of the actual brand. That's the power of strong brand awareness and recall.
For established companies and big brands, brand awareness delivers tremendous advantages:
- Higher customer trust and loyalty: People naturally gravitate toward brands they recognize, with studies showing that familiarity breeds confidence in purchasing decisions.
- Premium pricing opportunities: Well-known brands can set premium prices for their products since consumers often equate recognition with quality.
- Lower marketing costs over time: As awareness grows, big brands spend less to acquire new customers. Dependence on paid channels can be significantly reduced.
Several factors influence how aware consumers are of your brand. Your visual identity (logo, colors, design elements) plays a crucial role, as does the consistency of your messaging across channels.
The quality of customer experiences, the distinctiveness of your products or services and the emotional connections you build all contribute to that precious real estate in consumers' minds.
While you go on building brand awareness, you also need to be watchful of where your brand stands currently – and that's where measurement comes in.
5 key metrics to measure brand awareness
Measuring something as seemingly intangible as brand awareness requires looking at multiple data points across both qualitative and quantitative dimensions. Each metric tied to brand awareness must provide unique insights into different aspects of how consumers discover, remember and engage with your brand across various touchpoints.
Let’s go through five essential metrics that can help quantify your brand's visibility and recognizability in the marketplace, establish benchmarks for growth and demonstrate ROI to stakeholders:
1. Direct traffic
Rising direct traffic numbers typically indicate growing brand awareness. These visitors didn't need a search engine or another site to lead them to you. This indicates healthy brand awareness, whether through recall or word-of-mouth from strong brand advocates.
To track this metric, set up specific segments in your analytics platform to isolate and monitor direct traffic patterns over time. Pay special attention to new direct visitors, as they represent fresh awareness rather than returning customers.
💡 Pro tip: Direct traffic is not always accurate in platforms like Google Analytics (GA4) because of problems with cookie deprecation and tracking. The best way to double-check your traffic sources is to add UTM parameters to your marketing campaigns.
Utilize the UTM Manager modules feature in your marketing suite for content and campaigns to make deployment and tracking simple.
2. Social media mentions and engagement
When users actively discuss your brand on social platforms, it significantly expands your reach beyond your existing audience, introducing your brand to new potential customers through their networks.
These organic conversations create valuable touchpoints that reinforce brand recognition and recall. Each mention essentially functions as a free brand impression that carries added credibility since it comes from peers rather than paid advertising. According to a Harvard Business Review research, companies that improved brand equity by a mere 4% saw a 1.3x return on investment (ROI).
Your brand's presence in social conversations provides real-time insights into awareness levels. Track both volume (how often people mention you) and customer sentiment (what they're saying) across platforms.
Social media mentions and engagement metrics capture both deliberate engagement (people tagging your brand) and organic mentions (people talking about you without direct tagging).
💡 Pro tip: Look beyond just mention counts and analyze engagement rates on your content. High engagement relative to your follower count often indicates strong awareness and connection with your audience.
Set up a social listening tool to capture consumer intelligence across digital platforms and benchmark them against your competing brands.
3. Share of voice
You can calculate your share of voice by dividing your brand mentions by the total mentions across brands in your category and track changes over time. You can notice spikes and drops around campaign launches, product releases, or industry news.
Measuring the social media share of voice gives you a perspective on your brand perception. For instance, a 5% increase in mentions might seem modest until you realize your competitors saw decreases during the same period.
4. Search volume data
The number of people searching for your brand name, products or branded terms indicates awareness levels. Rising search volumes suggest more people know about you and are actively seeking information.
Search data is valuable because it represents active interest. It represents people intentionally looking for you, not passively encountering your brand.
Example: According to Google Trends data, plant-based meat alternative Beyond Meat saw their search volume soar 836% after their IPO launch. They used this data to secure wider retail distribution. Their CEO Ethan Brown specifically mentioned in their Q2 2019 earnings call that this search lift was a leading indicator that directly correlated with their 287% revenue growth.
Tools like Google Trends can help your brand track search interest over time and across regions. Comparing branded search volume against non-branded industry terms will show you which potential customers are specifically seeking you out.
5. Brand surveys and studies
Surveys can measure both unaided awareness (asking "Name three companies that sell office furniture" without prompts) and aided awareness (asking "Have you heard of Brand X?").
Surveys provide context that digital metrics sometimes miss. For meaningful results, survey a representative sample of your target market at regular intervals using consistent methodology. Track changes over time and correlate them with marketing activities to identify what drives awareness most effectively.
Best tools to track and measure brand awareness
Having the right tools in your arsenal makes measuring brand awareness significantly easier and more accurate. Here are six powerful platforms that provide valuable insights:
Sprinklr
Sprinklr stands out for its unified approach, bringing together marketing, social listening, customer experience data and competitive analysis in one platform. This holistic view helps brands see not just how often they're mentioned, but in what context and with what sentiment compared to competitors.
Key features for brand awareness:
- Connected insights: Sprinklr can overlay social mention spikes with website traffic bumps to identify which conversations are actually driving interest.
- Emotional context: The platform's AI capabilities help you understand whether mentions reflect simple acknowledgment or genuine connection.
- Trend prediction: Sprinklr can identify emerging conversation trends related to your brand before they peak, helping you amplify positive momentum or address potential issues early.
- Portfolio comparison: For multi-brand companies, Sprinklr offers comparative analysis across your portfolio, helping you understand which brands have awareness momentum and which need additional investment.
- Real-time monitoring: Sprinklr provides always-on alerts on campaign performance, brand mentions and trends.
Best for: All-in-one brand awareness monitoring with enterprise-grade insights and competitive bechmarking
Google Trends
Google Trends excels at showing the bigger picture of brand awareness. You can track how customer interest varies over years, not just days or weeks and identify seasonal patterns or regional strongholds.
Key features for brand awareness:
- Normalized data: Trends normalizes information against total search volume, giving you relative measures of interest rather than raw numbers.
- Geographic patterns: The regional breakdown reveals awareness hotspots and gaps.
- Context clues: The "related queries" feature shows what people search for alongside your brand, revealing product associations, common questions or potential misconceptions.
- Competitive comparison: Side-by-side analysis of up to five terms helps you understand your relative position against competitors.
- Topic tracking: Using the "topics" feature ensures you capture all search variations related to your brand, not just exact name matches.
Best for: Free, long-term trend analysis and geographic insights into brand search behavior.
A cool Google Trends hack: While Google Trends doesn't provide absolute search volumes, pairing it with Google Keyword Planner gives you both relative interest (from Trends) and absolute volume numbers (from keyword tools).
SEMrush
SEMrush gives you visibility into how discoverable your brand is online, both through organic search and through mentions on other websites. Its competitive intelligence features help contextualize your visibility against key competitors.
Key features for brand awareness:
- Position tracking: Monitor how well your brand ranks for key search terms in different geographic markets to pinpoint where awareness needs improvement.
- Earned awareness: The backlink analysis reveals which publications, influencers and websites are talking about you - providing insight into valuable third-party endorsements.
- Brand strength areas: The Organic Research tool shows which branded keywords drive traffic, helping identify specific aspects of your brand with strong awareness versus areas needing development.
- Keyword gaps: This feature shows branded terms your competitors rank for that you don't - revealing potential awareness blind spots.
Best for: Search-focused brand awareness measurement with strong competitive analysis capabilities
Google Analytics
Google Analytics connects the dots between awareness and action by showing you how brand-aware visitors behave differently on your site. It can segment users based on acquisition source and helps isolate and study those who already know your brand.
Key features for brand awareness:
- Quality assessment: Compare behavior metrics (bounce rate, pages per session, conversion rate) between visitors who arrive via branded search versus other channels to gauge whether your awareness is attracting the right audience.
- Custom segments: Create segments for brand-aware visitors (direct traffic + branded search) versus non-brand-aware visitors to reveal comparative insights.
- Attribution insights: Multi-Channel Funnel reports show how brand awareness influences the customer journey even when it's not the final touchpoint before conversion.
- Geographic strength: Filter Location reports to show only direct or branded search traffic, revealing regional brand strength patterns.
- Monitoring systems: Set up custom alerts for significant changes in direct traffic or branded search volume to identify unexpected awareness shifts requiring investigation.
Best for: Website-focused awareness measurement with detailed visitor behavior insights.
Mention
Mention excels at capturing conversations about your brand as they happen, helping you measure immediate impacts of campaigns or PR efforts on awareness. Its filtering capabilities ensure you're measuring meaningful mentions, not just noise.
Key features for brand awareness:
- Real-time monitoring: Track awareness spikes during specific campaigns or events.
- Precision filtering: Advanced Boolean search options capture variants of your name, common misspellings and product mentions while filtering out irrelevant content.
- Emotional context: Sentiment analysis helps understand whether people are talking about you positively, negatively, or neutrally - crucial because negative awareness can be worse than no awareness.
- Influence mapping: Identify who's driving conversation about your brand, providing insight into which voices are shaping your market perception.
- Competitive context: Side-by-side comparison of mention volume and sentiment against key competitors helps you understand your relative position in the market conversation.
Best for: Real-time brand mention monitoring with strong filtering capabilities for relevance.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey provides the direct approach to measuring awareness by simply asking your audience what they know about your brand. Its targeting capabilities ensure you're measuring awareness among the people who matter most to your business.
Key features for brand awareness:
- Visual recognition: The Image Choice question type tests recognition of your logo or packaging without text prompts.
- Comparative awareness: Matrix/Rating Scale questions help compare awareness levels across multiple brands in a single question.
- Adaptive questioning: Branching logic creates sophisticated awareness studies that adapt based on respondent answers, with different paths for aware versus unaware participants.
- Demographic insights: Filtering tools segment awareness data by age, location, income, or custom criteria.
- Industry context: Benchmarking capabilities compare your brand awareness metrics against industry standards, providing crucial context for your numbers.
- Association mapping: Word cloud and text analysis features help interpret open-ended responses about brand associations, revealing emotional connections that accompany awareness.
Best for: Creating and analyzing custom brand awareness surveys with robust demographic insights.
3 Tips to improve brand awareness based on key insights
Once you've established your baseline metrics for brand awareness, the next step is taking action to improve them. These three proven strategies can significantly boost your visibility and recognition when implemented consistently:
1. Create distinctive brand assets that trigger recognition
Distinctive brand assets create immediate recognition even without your name present. Think about the McDonald's golden arches, Netflix's distinctive "tudum" sound, or Coca-Cola's unique bottle shape. These assets become mental shortcuts that trigger brand recognition instantly.
Why it works: According to research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, brands with strong distinctive assets enjoy significantly higher mental availability - the likelihood of being thought of in buying situations. These assets create "retrieval cues" that trigger brand recall through multiple sensory pathways.
Success story: In 2019, Mastercard removed its name from its logo, relying solely on the distinctive red and yellow interlocking circles. According to Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard's Chief Marketing Officer, this move was possible because their research showed most people recognized the symbol without the name. The transition has been highly successful, with brand recognition increasing after the change.
Quick-start action steps:
- Audit your current visual and auditory brand elements for distinctiveness.
- Test recognition of your brand assets without your name present.
- Consistently apply your distinctive assets across all touchpoints.
- Monitor sentiment around visual elements using tools like Sprinklr's Social Listening.
2. Leverage strategic partnerships to amplify brand awareness
Strategic partnerships with complementary brands can significantly boost brand awareness by tapping into their existing audiences. By collaborating with brands that share similar values but cater to slightly different or overlapping demographics, you can expose your brand to new potential customers who might not otherwise encounter it.
Why it works: According to the concept of brand affinity, partnering with brands that align with your values allows you to leverage mutual trust and credibility. This can expand your reach without the need for major investment. Successful partnerships can also foster positive associations between brands, reinforcing each other's value in the eyes of customers.
Success story: Spotify and Starbucks teamed up to elevate the café experience by integrating Spotify’s music service into Starbucks stores. Customers could play their favorite tracks via the Starbucks app and even influence the in-store playlist.
This collaboration brought Spotify directly into the hands of Starbucks’ loyal customers, while Starbucks added a unique, personalized touch to its in-store experience. It seamlessly combined Starbucks’ physical ambiance with Spotify’s digital music library, deepening engagement and boosting brand visibility for both.
Quick-start action steps:
- Identify brands with complementary values and overlapping but not identical audiences.
- Start with micro-partnerships (guest content, co-branded events) before major investments.
- Measure awareness specifically in the partner's audience before and after collaboration.
- Use Sprinklr audience insights tool to identify potential partnership opportunities based on affinity data.
3. Develop a consistent omnichannel storytelling approach
Consistent storytelling across channels creates cumulative awareness that's greater than the sum of its parts. When people encounter your same core message adapted appropriately for different contexts, it reinforces memory formation and brand recognition.
The key is maintaining core narrative consistency while adapting the delivery to each channel's unique strengths.
Why it works: According to memory consolidation theory, repeated exposure to consistent messages across diverse contexts strengthens neural pathways associated with your brand. Each repetition reinforces recognition, while diverse contexts create multiple retrieval pathways to your brand in memory.
Success story: Flowe, Italy’s renowned digital bank used Sprinklr to unify its messaging across marketing, engagement and support to scale its growth by 67% within the first year of deployment.
Quick-start action steps:
- Define your core brand narrative in a single sentence that captures your unique value.
- Create a messaging matrix that adapts this core story appropriately for each channel.
- Use content performance tools to see which versions of your story resonate best.
- Ensure visual consistency accompanies narrative consistency across touchpoints.
By consistently implementing these strategies and measuring their impact using the tools mentioned earlier, you'll create a virtuous cycle of awareness growth that compounds over time.
Measure your brand awareness consistently
Brand awareness isn't a "set it and forget it" metric. It requires ongoing attention and measurement. Markets evolve, competitors emerge and consumer preferences shift. What worked last year may not work today and the brand awareness you've built can erode without consistent reinforcement.
The most successful brands treat awareness measurement as an ongoing practice rather than a periodic project. They integrate tools like Sprinklr, Google Analytics and targeted surveys into their regular reporting cadence, watching for trends and responding quickly to changes. This consistent monitoring allows them to spot opportunities and threats earlier than competitors, maintaining their mental availability advantage even as markets evolve!
Sprinklr’s AI-powered Marketing Platform combines marketing and advertising tools across 30+ channels, simplifying campaign planning, content production, and reporting into one platform. This unified approach streamlines workflows, boosts collaboration, and reduces costs, enhancing team productivity and campaign efficiency.
Are you ready to revolutionize your marketing strategy? Book a Sprinklr DEMO today!.
