Why your business should switch to brand tracking software

How much are you paying your research agency for brand tracking? It’s a lot, isn’t it? By switching to DIY brand tracking software you could save yourself a hefty chunk of marketing budget.

When you compare costs side by side, the case for self-serve is compelling. But as attractive as cost savings are, you’re probably worried about maintaining the quality of your brand tracking if you go it alone. And what about the expertise you get in-house, you won’t get that for less, right? Wrong! Brand tracking software like Attest’s can deliver high-quality results, in days instead of months, at a fraction of the cost, and with expertise on hand to help uncover compelling insights.

Read on to discover the 6 reasons that brand tracking software is the future, and why research agencies might not deserve your brand tracking business…

Brand tracking software helps you focus on core KPIs

Your agency is helping you run long surveys with lots of questions. The questions come from a desire to know lots of different things about how your brand is faring with consumers… but how many of those data points are actually useful to your team and business? And how many of them get reported to management? Our guess is a select few – and with tons of data to wade through, the ‘need to know’ data becomes more difficult to share and uncover.

Streamlining your brand tracker is a great way to think about what really matters to your business. With Attest, you can always tack on additional questions (say, to gauge awareness of your latest campaign activity) whenever you need to, but we don’t commit you to them.

Brand tracking software prioritises respondent experience

Long surveys are not only making it harder for you to surface actionable insight, but they’re also costing you in terms of respondent engagement. In simple terms, people get bored taking surveys of 50-100 questions, and they start to rush through them, giving any old answers in order to get them finished. 

People’s attention spans are getting shorter all the time. According to SimilarWeb data, the average visit duration to a mobile website is now 432 seconds (7.2 minutes) – that’s dropped by 11 seconds in the last three years. Now consider the fact that 10-15 minute surveys are the norm in the market research industry. On the other hand, Attest surveys typically last less than 5 minutes.

We also let respondents take surveys on their device of choice, while other research agencies ask respondents to take surveys on desktops. You might wonder why this matters, but in a world where more than half of web traffic now comes from mobile phones, it makes sense to choose brand tracking software that’s mobile-first. This becomes even more important as 5G scales up, and mobile web browsing becomes more prevalent. 

Using device-agnostic brand tracking software also helps to avoid device bias (i.e. only respondents with desktops being able to take part or people without smartphones being excluded). Don’t forget that different demographics and markets have different device preferences. 

Brand tracking software often offers more diverse panels

You might not give too much thought to where the respondents to your brand tracking surveys come from, but it’s worth checking. If your agency is using a single-source/owned panel (and many of them do) it can affect data quality. This is because they’re biased towards a single respondent recruitment or reward method.

The best brand tracking software incorporates a multitude of panels and uses mixed-method recruitment. That’s why Attest uses hundreds of different panels. It not only removes potential bias from respondent selection but is also key to offering a more diverse range of views, which more accurately reflects reality.

Brand tracking software delivers results online, in days

You’re making business decisions every day – having fast access to data means you can make better decisions. So do you really want to wait four weeks for your brand tracking results to be delivered? What has been delayed in that time? And what decisions got made anyway, without the benefit of insight?

The beauty of DIY brand tracking software is how quickly you can get results back. As soon as your survey is live you can see the responses start to come in. And you can go from launch to collection to results within a day. With this agility and speed, you can report back into the business in real-time and, ultimately, gain a competitive advantage.

Brand tracking software costs less but gives you everything you need

Research agencies offer you a comprehensive service but you don’t always need all the bells and whistles. Once your brand tracking survey is set up, it’s really a case of rinse and repeat…so why pay for someone to do something you can easily do yourself? With Attest, you can schedule surveys to be sent automatically on a regular cadence.

Meanwhile, brand tracking software comes with built-in features for analysing results. Attest makes it so simple that even those on your team who are new to consumer research can start exploring the data in minutes. And collaboration features let you share results across your business, meaning you can dispense with costly presentations that agencies bake-in to their retainers. 

Brand tracking software can layer research expertise on top of technology

Agencies can seem attractive because of the dedicated support they provide. But actually, agencies aren’t the only ones with research experts and data analysts in-house. Software providers often offer additional support too!

Our subscription clients benefit from a dedicated account manager, platform training, technical support and access to seasoned research pros. ACE, or Attest Customer Expertise, is available to help with things like:

• Project planning, ideation and workshop sessions
• Refining and revising surveys
• In-platform support for results analysis
• Strategic advice and recommendations 
• Off-platform analysis and presentations 

Still worried about transitioning your tracker from an agency to DIY brand tracking software? Find out more with our free-to-download guide…