The Right Metrics for Brand Communication:Tracking Messages, Visuals, and Engagement

In today’s digital-first world, every post, email, or campaign carries a piece of your brand identity. The challenge is figuring out whether those messages and visuals are working the way you intend. Are people engaging with them? Do they remember them? Do they take action because of them? Tracking the right metrics helps answer those questions and transforms communication into something measurable and strategic instead of guesswork.

Image Created by The Creative Crew.

Brands are not built on intuition alone. They grow when insights guide decisions, and that applies equally to corporations and to personal communication channels. Tools like brand audits, tracking studies, and scorecards highlight the importance of connecting what we create with the way audiences respond. But, as Joel Shapiro wrote in Forbes, “Business leaders need to understand context: if one measure goes up and another goes down, does that mean success or failure? Will it be better to do more of one—less of another? Answering these questions ahead of time are key to ensuring that a company’s leaders and data scientists [are] on the same page.” Metrics only gain meaning when they are tied to strategy and interpreted with context.

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Measuring the Effectiveness of Messages

Image Created by The Creative Crew.

When evaluating messages, engagement is the starting point. Likes, comments, and shares reveal if a message sparks interaction rather than silence. Beyond that, recall shows whether people actually remember the content, while sentiment analysis—whether reactions are positive, neutral, or critical—adds depth to the numbers. Together, these indicators capture how messages influence audience perception and response.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Visuals

Visuals are often the first thing audiences notice, but their value lies in whether they drive behavior. Strong visuals can keep readers on a blog post longer, increase shares on social platforms, or boost click- through rates. By comparing the performance of different design styles—such as colorful editorial photos versus plain text graphics—it becomes possible to identify which formats attract attention and encourage action.

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Image Created by The Creative Crew.

Connecting to the Brand Relationship Funnel

Metrics also align with the stages of the brand relationship funnel. Awareness reflects discovery: are more people seeing and following? Consideration tracks interest through actions like sign-ups, downloads, or trials. Advocacy demonstrates loyalty: when people voluntarily recommend or share content. Tracking these stages reveals how far communication efforts move audiences and where improvements are needed.

How I Would Apply This Personally

For The Creative Crew USA, I would focus on visual performance as the starting point. Since design is at the core of my communication, I want to know whether editorial-style images increase reading time on the site or whether infographics encourage more shares than text posts. These insights would guide me to refine not only my style but also the strategic impact of each post.

Here, I find Greg Kihlstrom’s insight especially relevant. As he explained in Forbes, “The exact metrics you choose to measure will depend on your specific business, but the way that you choose them will be successful if you follow the above guidelines. Remember that it’s more important to choose the right metrics than to try to track everything.” For me, this means resisting the temptation to measure every number available and instead focusing on the signals that genuinely reflect the health and growth of my brand.

Measuring brand equity doesn’t require endless dashboards. It requires focus. By choosing the right metrics, interpreting them in context, and staying consistent, it becomes possible to see whether messages and visuals are connecting with audiences and building long-term brand strength.