Need to strengthen your brand strategy but not sure where to start? A comprehensive brand analysis provides the insights you need.
This guide shows you exactly how to analyze a brand and transform raw data into actionable insights for your PR efforts.
Turn your insights into results with Prowly β an all-in-one PR platform.
What is brand analysis and why should you do it?
Brand analysis is a systematic evaluation of your brand's performance, perception, and position in the market. It combines quantitative metrics and qualitative insights to give you a complete picture of your brand's health and effectiveness.
But what's in it for PR pros? Isn't it just a marketing thing? Well, not really.
For PR professionals, brand analysis is more than just tracking numbers β it's about understanding the story behind them and using those insights to shape future strategies.
How does brand analysis differ from a brand audit?
Let's see how these notions differ:
- Brand analysis is an on-going process: a continuous monitoring of your brand health and performance.
- Brand audit is more of a-point-in-time assessment: a deep dive that's needed when you face strategic changes.
Both are needed and they complement each other, as during the brand audit you'll often refer to your brand analysis findings.
How to do analysis of a brand? 3 steps
Step 1: Define goals and KPIs
Before diving into your brand analysis process, establish clear objectives. Are you looking to:
- Increase brand awareness?
- Enhance brand equity?
- Measure campaign effectiveness?
- Track brand performance?
Brand analysis makes sense only when you get actionable insights after, and starting with a clear goal in mind helps to focus on the outcome you need.
Step 2: Collect data
Gather data from all the channels you use that could inform your brand analysis. Some examples are:
- News media and press mentions
- Social media platforms
- Review sites and forums
- Industry publications
- Competitor channels

In Prowly, you can use a Brand Query to gather all the data you need, or just use preprepared dashboards. If you haven't started monitoring your brand yet and want to learn more about it, you can read our Guide to media monitoring.
Step 3: Choose key metrics to track
1οΈβ£ Website traffic
Website traffic tells you how many visits you get online and what people do on your site (browse more, click, or maybe close the tab). In a PR context, you need data about visits to branded pages, blog posts, or referral traffic from PR campaigns.
Google Analytics 4, the go-to tool for website analytics, lets you set apart PR results from marketing efforts by defining the traffic source.

Why it matters: This part of website traffic reflects brand awareness (how many people looked up your brand or clicked on a search result because they recognized it) and the effectiveness of PR campaigns in driving interest.
Practical examples:
- Page views on press release landing pages
- Time spent on brand story pages
- Traffic spikes during PR campaigns
- Referral sources from media coverage
- Conversion rates from PR-driven traffic
2οΈβ£ Marketing channels distribution
Marketing channels distribution pinpoints the sources of your web traffic ratio. It's a great tool for competitive brand assessment, as looking at this chart tells you a lot about your competitors' strategies.
Let's see the brand analysis example from Ahrefs with data pulled from SimilarWeb. As you can see, over 1/3 of their traffic comes from organic search results. Ahrefs is known for their SEO strategy (after all, they're an SEO tool!), and it finds confirmation of its abilities in this chart.

Why it matters: You can observe where they put their PR and marketing efforts (and budgets) and where they reach their potential customers. This intel will boost your brand analytics process.
What does each metric mean in a PR context:
- Direct traffic (brand awareness)
- Organic search (SEO effectiveness)
- Referral traffic (media coverage impact)
- Social media traffic (social PR success)
- Email traffic (newsletter effectiveness)
3οΈβ£ Media mentions
Media mentions give you information about the frequency and context of discussions about your brand across media outlets. It's the results of your PR campaigns, and as such, make up an important part of brand analysis.
Media monitoring tools, like Prowly, let you track and analyze brand mentions in digital and traditional media. You can track them on dashboards and add them to your brand analysis report.

Interested? Read more in our Media mentions guide.
Why it matters: Media mentions indicate PR effects and brand visibility in traditional and digital media.
Practical examples of metrics:
- Mention volume trends
- Publication tier analysis
- Message pull-through rates
- Spokesperson quote inclusion
- Story angle adoption rates
4οΈβ£ Sentiment analysis
There's one key quality of each media mention β the sentiment.
In brand analysis, sentiment helps you understand how your brand is perceived in media.
With media monitoring tools, you can have this data at your fingertips. Each mention is categorized as positive, negative, or neutral.
As you can see, it shows you the distribution of positive vs negative vs neutral mentions, which is key information in each brand audit process.
You can spot trends or correlations between media and social media sentiment.
Check out how to use sentiment in brand analysis in our Sentiment analysis guide!
Why it matters: Sentiment reveals how your brand is perceived and helps identify potential brand reputation issues.
Practical examples:
- Positive/negative/neutral ratio
- Sentiment change after campaigns
- Crisis impact on sentiment
- Product launch reception
- Executive communication effectiveness
5οΈβ£ Social sentiment
Even if your branding strategies don't involve social media, you need to know what people think about you β especially in places where PR crises are often born.
Just like with "official" media mentions, each post or comment gets rated with its emotional value. Let's take a look at Prowly:
With social sentiment, there's more than just analyzing a brand's performance. When you spot a potentially harmful comment, you can quickly work on mitigating the situation, and make sure no negative mention is left unattended.
Read more in our Social listening guide!
Why it matters: Social sentiment provides real-time feedback and identifies emerging issues.
Practical examples:
- Comment tone analysis
- Hashtag sentiment tracking
- Response rates to brand content
- Community manager effectiveness
- Social crisis early warning signs
6οΈβ£ Reputation tracking
Reputation tracking tells you more about how certain actions impact brand loyalty and perception among key stakeholders: your customers, investors, or potential partners. It highly impacts brand strategy and setting priorities: your focus will change when you need to build, strengthen, or restore your reputation.
Why it matters: Reputation directly impacts business success and stakeholder relationships.
Practical examples:
- Trust scores
- Employee sentiment
- Customer loyalty metrics
- Industry reputation rankings
- Crisis recovery tracking
7οΈβ£ Audience engagement
You want to create brand content that resonates with people and audience engagement is one way to check on it during the brand analysis process.
Measuring behaviors like shares, comments, or newsletter openings can tell you how actively people interact with your brand content and communications.
Why it matters: Engagement indicates message resonance and relationship strength.
Practical examples:
- Content sharing rates
- Sentiment on social media
- Comment frequency and quality
- Event participation
- Newsletter engagement
- Community growth rates
8οΈβ£ Share of Voice
There's only so many brands to be seen in a given context and Share of Voice shows how visible you are vs your competitors.
It's one of the best pieces of strategic advice you can give to top management and the strongest argument to get them more involved in PR actions.
Why it matters: Share of Voice shows your brand's market position and PR effectiveness.
Practical examples:
- Media mention share
- Social media presence share
- Industry conversation share
- Speaking opportunity share
- Award recognition share
9οΈβ£ Competitive coverage analysis
When your brand appears in the media, you're competing for attention just like in the marketplace.
Competitive coverage analysis shows you not just where you stand, but what stories and angles get your competitors featured. It's your window into understanding what journalists and media outlets find newsworthy about your industry β and how to get your brand into these conversations.
It's a great point to guide your brand strength analysis, as you can put them into specific context.

Why it matters: Reveals competitive advantages and areas for improvement.
Practical examples:
- Coverage volume comparison
- Message effectiveness analysis
- Share of positive coverage
- Spokesperson visibility
- Story placement quality
π Performance metrics
Showing the impact of marketing efforts is hard: with PR, it's another level of challenges.
Performance metrics in a PR context can translate the brand's strengths into tangible ($$$) business results. They focus on quantitative measures of PR and communication effectiveness, showing the reach and price of PR campaigns β the costs of which are often lower than aggressive marketing messaging.
Why it matters: Shows ROI and helps justify PR investments.
Practical examples:
- Campaign reach vs. goals
- Message adoption rates
- Lead generation from PR
- Cost per impression
- PR-attributed conversions
- AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency)
1οΈβ£1οΈβ£ Top keywords
Every time someone talks about your brand, they're adding to its story.
Top keywords reveal the actual language people use when discussing your brand β not what you want them to say, but what they really say. This insight is pure gold for PR pros: it helps you speak your audience's language and shape the narrative in terms that actually resonate.
Why it matters: Keywords reveal how people think about and look for your brand.
Practical examples:
- Brand term search volume
- Associated topic clusters
- Negative keyword alerts
- Product mention tracking
- Executive name monitoring
1οΈβ£2οΈβ£ Audience demographics
Your brand message hits differently across various audience segments β what works for Gen Z might fall flat with Boomers, and what resonates in New York might miss the mark in Austin.
Audience demographics tell you exactly who's engaging with your brand, helping you tailor your PR approach to the real people behind the numbers. This isn't just data β it's your roadmap to crafting messages that land and which are coherent with your overall brand identity.
Why it matters: Demographics help tailor messaging and channel selection.
Practical examples:
- Age and gender distribution
- Geographic location
- Industry affiliation
- Professional roles
- Interest categories
What tools work for brand analysis?
The two approaches to tools
When looking for tools to conduct brand analysis, you might opt for two solutions:
- either a media monitoring/social listening tool like Brand24 or Determ
- a comprehensive PR platform like Prowly
The first option helps you get intel and effectively lead brand analysis.
The second option, on top of that, helps you turn the insights into actions and execute your brand strategy by providing aid in:
π maintaining journalists relationships
π shaping the narrative with press releases
π creating and sending media pitches
Maybe it would be a good idea to give Prowly a try and have it all at once?
Turn insights into actions
PR software like Prowly isn't just a monitoring tool β it's your command center for both brand analysis and action.
While it helps you track metrics like share of voice and sentiment, its real power lies in turning those insights into results.
You can spot a relevant media opportunity through monitoring, immediately identify and reach out to the perfect journalist through the PR CRM, craft and distribute your pitch, then track the coverage and its impact β all in the same platform.
This seamless flow from analysis to action means you're not just collecting data about your brand; you're actively shaping its story. Instead of switching between different tools for monitoring, outreach, and measurement, you can execute your entire PR strategy in one place, making you more agile and effective in building your brand's presence.
Use the insights from your brand analysis with Prowly.
Common challenges and mistakes in brand analysis
Challenge: getting actionable insights
You conduct a brand analysis to inform your brand strategy and plans. Yet, there are often challenges like:
π information paralysis: you get too much data to draw insights from and don't know when you should act
π looking at only a part of the picture: for example, you don't join social metrics with social sentiment, and therefore can't identify correlations
π limited resources: brand analytics is neglected in busy periods
The key to overcoming these challenges is to establish clear thresholds for action, integrate data sources for a complete picture, and automate routine analysis to maintain consistency even during busy periods.
Challenge: losing context
When you conduct brand analysis, you need to get reliable context info apart from looking at current metric values. These three are the most common mistakes that can cause you to lose perspective:
π ignoring competitors: brands don't work on their own and the business environment is crucial to understand and assess a brand's performance
π changing measurement methods: when you don't run your metrics in a coherent way, you can't rely on noticed changes or trust the trends
π missing historical data: brand loyalty and perception isn't built in a day and trends give meaning to current metric values
To maintain reliable context for your brand analysis, implement standardized measurement protocols, establish competitor tracking baselines, and maintain historical data archives β with this, you'll always have the full picture needed for meaningful insights.
Solution: Use PR tools to work effectively
The common pattern in all the brand analysis challenges is data: either unclear or incomplete. PR tools help you solve this issue with comprehensive, easy-to-understand dashboards.

Compared to manual research, you don't have to worry that some key information is slipping through the cracks.
Try the Mentions Dashboard for yourself: test Prowly for 7 days free.
Next steps
Brand analysis isn't just about collecting dataβit's about gaining actionable insights that drive your brand strategy forward and add to your brand equity. By tracking these key metrics consistently and understanding their implications, you can make more informed decisions and demonstrate PR's value to your organization.
Start with the metrics most relevant to your current goals and gradually expand your analysis as you build your monitoring capabilities. Remember, the goal isn't to track everything, but to track what matters most for your brand's success.
Show PR's value and brand impact.