How Brand Health Tracking Can Position Your Agency as a Strategic Partner
The Idea in Brief
THE CHALLENGE
Marketing agencies can struggle to attract new clients in a highly competitive and fragmented market. The AgencyAnalytics 2023 Agency Benchmark Report reveals that 37% of agencies see client acquisition as their biggest challenge. ¹
CONTEXT
Digital agencies excel at optimizing day-to-day metrics like website traffic and social media engagement, but these metrics don't offer insight into long-term brand strategy performance.
THE SOLUTION
By incorporating brand health and category tracking capabilities, agencies can offer a comprehensive view of a brand's market position, including awareness and perception. This helps connect tactical digital marketing results with long-term strategy, positioning agencies as valuable strategic partners, which will give them an edge when pitching new clients.
"The agencies of the future will need to be able to deliver outcomes for CMO partners with next-generation thinking, and that requires a willingness to adapt and evolve."
— JOSH CAMPO, CEO AT RAZORFISH ²
Introduction
Marketing agencies face fierce competition when it comes to attracting new clients. According to the AgencyAnalytics 2023 Agency Benchmark Report, 37% of agencies say their top concern is client acquisition, while only 5% cite churn as a top issue. This highlights the importance of standing out to prospective clients in a crowded marketplace.
One way digital marketing agencies can enhance their appeal is by adding brand health and perception research—sometimes called brand strategy or category driver research—to their services. Brand health tracking provides a “big picture” view of brand perception in the marketplace.
By integrating brand health tracking into their offerings, agencies can help clients connect the dots between short-term campaign results and long-term brand strategy goals. This can help position agencies as trusted partners in their clients’ growth, adding strategic value on top of campaign execution.
Digital Marketing Metrics vs. Brand Health Tracking
Digital marketing agencies are experts at tracking metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, PPC performance, backlinks, and more. Understanding and optimizing these metrics is critical for driving immediate campaign performance. However, these tactical metrics don’t provide insight into a brand’s performance against its broader brand strategy. Nor do they show how an agency’s digital marketing work shapes market perception or builds brand equity over time.
That’s where brand health tracking comes in. By tracking brand health, category drivers, and customer perceptions of brands on those drivers, agencies can complement digital metrics with a deeper view of the impact of their work on their clients’ overall brand standing.
The Value of Brand Health Tracking
Brand health tracking offers a comprehensive view of a brand’s position in the market and the factors driving purchase decisions and brand preference. Unlike tactical campaign metrics which measure immediate performance, brand health metrics assess how brands are perceived over time, providing insights that are essential for long-term growth.
Here are just a few of the key areas typically covered by brand health tracking and category research:
Brand Awareness: Measures the percentage of potential customers who recognize a brand, which is the first step toward increasing share of market.
Brand Usage: Assesses the percentage of customers aware of the brand who actively choose it, providing insight into customer loyalty and market share.
Overall Market Perception: Gauges how customers view the brand relative to competitors, including perceived strengths and weaknesses relative to category purchase drivers and unique selling points.
Monitoring changes in these metrics over time helps agencies demonstrate the enduring value of their work. By tracking shifts in brand awareness, usage, and market perception, agencies can show how their campaigns contribute to a stronger, more recognizable, and trusted brand. This long-term view reinforces the agency’s role in building brand equity in addition to driving near-term campaign results, positioning them as valuable partners in their clients’ brand and business strategy.
Continuous Brand Health Tracking for Ongoing Insights
Brand health studies are often conducted as a snapshot at a single point in time (e.g., annually). Alternatively, continuous fielding—an “always-on” market research approach where brand health data is collected year-round—offers significant benefits for brands with frequent marketing activity and short sales cycles. This method provides timely insights that align with campaign activity throughout the year.
For large, well-established B2B brands, however, continuous fielding can sometimes be excessive. These businesses often face slower shifts in market perceptions and have costlier, harder-to-reach audiences. Yet, they can still benefit from a tailored ongoing approach. By using a smaller, manageable monthly sample size (e.g., N=40 per month for 480 responses annually) and aggregating the data at specific intervals (e.g., quarterly with N=120 or semi-annually with N=240), brands can achieve a sufficient sample size for meaningful analysis without unnecessary expense.
Ultimately, ongoing brand health tracking maximizes the value of insights throughout the year, whether reviewed in real-time or at scheduled intervals. This flexible approach ensures that businesses of any type—whether B2C or B2B—can customize fielding strategies to meet their unique needs and goals.
Clear Reporting Through Visualization Tools
Let’s face it: clients don’t want to sift through long static slide decks and reports. According to the AgencyAnalytics 2024 report, 74% of agency leaders say that clients most value clear data visualization in their reports.³ When agencies add brand health and category driver research to their offerings, using advanced visualization tools can make a big difference in how effectively they communicate these insights.
Visualization tools like Displayr—purpose-built for market research—enable agencies to present brand health data in an accessible, interactive format. Displayr allows agencies to create live dashboards that clients can access anytime, eliminating the need to update PowerPoint reports to answer questions about data cuts or segmentation. Clients can explore data by segment, timeframe, or demographic, empowering everyone from the CEO to the marketing manager to engage with the metrics that matter most to them.
Most importantly, these tools allow agencies to combine brand health metrics with other key data sources—such as social media sentiment, sales figures, and business KPIs—to paint a complete picture of brand performance. By working with a research firm that integrates visualizations directly into reporting, agencies can deliver insights in a more efficient, compelling way that aligns with clients’ preferences. This approach not only saves time but also highlights the strategic value of brand health insights, reinforcing the agency’s role as a trusted partner.
How Brand Health Tracking Links to Measurable Business Results
Improved brand health directly impacts marketing ROI in measurable ways. When brands maintain strong health metrics, they typically see higher conversion rates across their marketing campaigns. This improvement stems from better brand recognition and trust, which leads to more efficient customer acquisition.
The benefits of a strong brand health foundation are clear:
Campaigns perform better because they build upon a foundation of positive brand perception.
Return on ad spend improves as customers develop a stronger connection with the brand.
Customer acquisition costs decrease due to better brand recognition, making it easier to convert new customers.
Brand health doesn’t just boost campaign performance—it drives lasting impact on agency clients’ businesses:
Increased customer lifetime value: A strong brand connection keeps customers engaged, leading to repeat purchases and long-term success for your client.
Organic growth through brand advocacy: Sustained brand health builds loyalty, turning customers into advocates who spread positive word-of-mouth, further reducing acquisition costs.
Enhanced customer loyalty: Perhaps most importantly, a healthy brand perception makes customers less likely to switch to competitors, even when offered lower prices or promotional incentives. This loyalty creates a lasting advantage stronger than any short-term gains.
By proactively managing brand health, clients can stay ahead of market trends and allocate resources to the strategies that drive real, measurable results. This commitment to continuous improvement ensures they’re primed to build customer loyalty, boost ROI, and achieve sustainable growth.
Conclusion
Proving the value of brand health tracking is essential for agencies looking to position themselves as strategic partners. Agencies that don’t have an in-house research function can partner with a research-focused firm to bring the required expertise in research design, programming, and brand analytics to their clients. See this checklist for what to look for in a brand research firm. By implementing ongoing monitoring, leveraging modern visualization tools, and connecting brand health metrics to tangible business outcomes, agencies can evolve from being seen as primarily a service provider to becoming an indispensable partner in their clients’ brand and business growth.
SOURCES
AgencyAnalytics. (2023, July 11). Overcoming Top Barriers To Agency Growth | 2023 Benchmarks Report. AgencyAnalytics Blog
Josh Campo. (2023, April 10). To Support Forward-Looking CMOs, Agencies Need To Modernize. Forbes Agency Council.
AgencyAnalytics. (2024, Aug 15). The Top 12 Marketing Agency Industry Trends | 2024 Benchmarks Report. AgencyAnalytics Blog
