Brand tracking software generally falls into two broad categories:
- Survey-focused platforms, which are ideal for collecting structured, quantitative data directly from your target audience to help you measure brand awareness, track perception over time, and more.
- Brand monitoring software, which specializes in tracking online mentions of your brand across social media platforms, news outlets, forums, review sites, and more.
In this post, we cover the following survey-based brand tracking software:
- Pollfish: Our survey-focused brand tracking software offering transparent pay-per-response pricing, quick turnaround time, and high-quality data. Well-suited for companies of all sizes, from small and medium businesses to large enterprises.
- Qualtrics: A survey platform whose pricing may be cost-prohibitive for smaller and medium-sized companies due to high monthly fees.
- Tracksuit: Measures brand health using recurring surveys and simple visual dashboards.
- Quantilope: A market research platform offering various research tools, including surveys.
- Latana: A research platform focused on non-incentivized surveys and large sample sizes.
- Kantar: Offers a suite of brand guidance and research tools and services.
- Attest: A consumer research platform offering multi-market surveys and brand tracking dashboards.
And then we cover the following monitoring-based brand tracking software:
- Brandwatch: A social listening platform with a built-in influencer marketing solution.
- Meltwater: Well-established reputation management tool for tracking mentions across different types of media.
- Awario: Offers brand management and sentiment analysis.
- Brand24: Monitors social media mentions and tracks metrics using AI.
- Ahrefs: An SEO platform that can be used to track branded search terms, backlinks, and visibility across the web.
1. Pollfish: DIY Survey Platform for Brand Tracking
Pollfish is a DIY survey platform used by companies of all sizes for a variety of research needs, with brand tracking being one of the most popular.
You can choose from pre-built brand research templates like Brand Awareness, Brand Diagnostic, Brand Perceptions, and CPG Brand Awareness & Perceptions, or create your own survey from scratch.
While the platform is easy to use, it also offers powerful features that let you customize every part of your survey to match your research goals.
In this section, we’ll cover:
- How to use Pollfish, from designing your survey to selecting your target audience and analyzing results.
- Pollfish’s first-party respondent communities, which provide higher-quality audiences and more reliable data.
- Our transparent, pay-per-response pricing model that’s more affordable and upfront than traditional subscriptions.
- Pollfish’s fast turnaround times, just a few hours for general audiences, or a few days for more niche segments.
- Complimentary support from seasoned market researchers to guide you on survey design, targeting, and analysis.
Let’s dive in.
How to Use Pollfish’s Brand Tracking Software in 3 Easy Steps
- Build your brand tracking survey: Start with one of our brand research templates or create a custom survey from scratch.
- Choose your target audience: Pollfish offers flexible audience targeting, so you can either reach general populations or highly specific groups based on your research goals.
- Review and analyze your results: View your survey data directly in the Pollfish platform. You can filter responses, compare segments, and create custom charts in your brand’s colors, all without needing to export to Excel.
Below, we’ll look at each of these in more detail.
Step 1: Design Your Survey
❇️ Brand Tracking Templates
Pollfish offers brand tracking templates built by research experts, so you don’t have to start from zero.
Benefits of using Pollfish’s templates include:
- Save time by starting with professionally written, customizable questions.
- Follow market research best practices to ensure clean, reliable data.
- Maintain consistency across surveys to track brand changes over time.
- Reduce setup errors with built-in logic and structure.
- Get results faster by minimizing survey design work upfront.
Popular templates include:
- Brand Awareness: Measure how many people have heard of your brand.
- Brand Perception: Understand how your brand is viewed by consumers.
- Brand Diagnostic: Assess overall brand health at a specific point in time.
- CPG Brand Awareness & Perceptions: Track familiarity and perception of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands.
❇️ 16 Question Types
Pollfish offers 16 different question formats to choose from, including multiple choice, open-ended, NPS, MaxDiff, A/B tests, and more, giving you the flexibility to design surveys that match your research needs.
Read the full list of question types here.
❇️ Advanced Questionnaire Design Features
Pollfish has a variety of advanced features that help you collect clean, unbiased data and tailor the survey experience for each respondent. Let’s take a look at some that you may want to use in your brand tracking surveys:
1. Skip Logic Branching
Guide participants through different paths in your survey based on how they respond to earlier questions.
- Example: Ask “Which type of skincare products have you purchased in the last month?” If they select “Moisturizers,” they’re shown questions tailored to that category. If they choose “Acne treatments,” they’re routed to a different set of questions focused on that product type. This ensures each respondent gets a relevant experience, and your data reflects meaningful subgroup insights.
2. Shuffle Answers
Randomize the order of answer choices to prevent order bias.
- Example: When asking respondents to choose their favorite athletic shoe brand, some may unconsciously choose the first option if the list is always presented in the same order. Shuffling the choices ensures that no brand is unfairly favored by its position.
3. Randomize Questions
Change the order in which questions are shown to different respondents.
- Example: If your survey includes 10 brand attribute questions, randomizing them can help reduce response patterns or fatigue, especially if someone tends to rush through later questions.
4. Screening Questions
Filter out participants who don’t meet specific criteria before they enter the main portion of the survey.
- Example: If someone selects “I’ve never heard of this brand,” then they won’t be able to proceed with the survey.
5. “Other” and “None of the Above” Options
Quickly add these common answer choices to relevant questions with one click.
- Example: When asking, “Which of the following brands have you heard of?” including “Other” and “None of the above” helps you capture more complete and accurate responses without needing to add those options to every question manually.
Note: This is just a small sampling — explore the full list of survey design capabilities here.
Step 2: Select Your Target Audience
Pollfish gives you access to a broad and diverse set of respondents through our first-party network (through parent company Prodege), with tools to help you precisely define your ideal audience.
❇️ 50+ Audience Filters Across 6 Categories
Target respondents via 50 filters in six categories, including Demographics, Geographic Criteria, Consumer Lifestyle, Employment & Occupation, Behavioral Data, and Media.
For example, you can survey urban professionals aged 30 to 45 who read digital news daily, work in tech or finance, and regularly dine out at least three times a week.
❇️ Target Specific Shoppers
Refine your audience to include consumers who’ve purchased specific brands or visited particular stores, based on verified receipt data.
For example, instead of targeting all athletic shoe buyers, you can narrow your audience to people who’ve recently purchased from Nike, Adidas, or New Balance, or who regularly shop at retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods or Foot Locker. (Later on, we cover in more detail how we verify that they’ve actually made these purchases.)
❇️ Set Audience Quotas
Ensure a balanced sample by setting quotas on attributes like age, gender, income, etc.
For example, if you want to compare perceptions across income groups, you can set quotas to ensure one-third of your sample earns under $50K, one-third earns $50 to 100K, and one-third earns over $100K.
That’s only scratching the surface of what you can do with Pollfish targeting, but you can view the full video demonstration here.
Step 3: Analyze the Results
Once responses start coming in, Pollfish gives you a range of tools to explore, filter, and share your findings. There’s no need to export data to external platforms unless you want to.
❇️ Visualize Results Instantly
You can view your survey result data in real time without waiting for a post-survey download. Results are automatically displayed as color-coded charts, graphs, and tables, making it easy to understand trends at a glance.
❇️ Filter by Segment or Response
Pollfish lets you break down your data by specific audience segments or individual responses.
For example, if you want to see how Gen Z respondents rated your brand versus Gen X, you can isolate that group and instantly update your visuals. You can also filter by specific answer choices: for instance, viewing only those who selected “highly likely to purchase.”
❇️ Analyze Multiple Variables at Once
You can layer multiple filters to uncover deeper insights without needing to export your data.
Let’s say you want to compare brand perception among women aged 35 to 44 who live in urban areas and earn over $75K annually. You can easily set those filters and see the exact results for that audience. The platform will automatically update your charts so you can compare across segments without additional setup.
❇️ Match Charts to Your Brand Colors
Pollfish allows you to customize the look and feel of your charts by applying your brand’s color palette. This helps ensure that your reports feel consistent with your company’s visual identity, which is especially important when sharing insights with stakeholders, presenting to clients, or incorporating charts into larger brand deliverables.
❇️ Statistical Testing
Pollfish includes built-in stat testing so you can validate whether observed differences in your data are meaningful.
Suppose 82% of respondents aged 25 to 34 recognize your brand, compared to 68% of respondents aged 45 to 54. Pollfish can automatically test this difference for statistical significance and highlight the results within your charts. No need to use manual tests or export to another tool.
❇️ Build Presentations in the Platform
Pollfish lets you start building your presentation as soon as responses begin to roll in, so you don’t have to wait until the survey is complete. You can organize insights, add visualizations, and begin shaping your narrative while data is still being collected. Once you’re ready to finalize, export everything into an editable PowerPoint file to polish and share with your team.
❇️ Export Your Data
You can download your results as a PDF, Excel file, SPSS dataset, or crosstabs, depending on your workflow. This flexibility makes it easy to bring your data into whatever tool your team uses for deeper analysis or final reporting.
These are only some of the analysis tools built into the Pollfish platform.
Pollfish’s High Audience Data Quality
For brand tracking to be meaningful, you need accurate, thoughtful responses from real people, not rushed answers from disengaged panelists or fraudulent bots. Here’s how Pollfish approaches audience sourcing and quality control.
❇️ Sourced from a Verified First-Party Network
Pollfish operates through a proprietary respondent network built and maintained by our parent company, Prodege. Unlike platforms that rely on third-party panel aggregators, our audience comes from a trusted ecosystem where respondents engage in real-world activities, such as uploading receipts, shopping online, playing games, or completing microtasks. These behavioral touchpoints create a built-in safeguard against bots and fake users.
As one of our customers shared on Trustpilot: “The most important point to make is that I trust the responses of my survey. My target audience was very specific and I could tell that the responses were legitimately coming [from] subjects in my target audience.”
❇️ Respondents Opt In, Not Burn Out
Pollfish respondents aren’t bombarded with constant survey invites. Instead, they choose when to participate. This opt-in model attracts more thoughtful and attentive participants, which is essential when measuring nuanced brand perceptions over time.
❇️ 14-Day Evaluation Before the First Question
Before new panelists ever see a live survey, they go through a 14-day onboarding phase where they complete internal profiling surveys. Only those who demonstrate consistent, high-quality participation are invited into the active respondent pool, so your brand tracking survey data is built on a solid foundation from the start.
❇️ Fraud Prevention Built into Every Survey
Pollfish applies multiple layers of quality control to each response. This includes:
- Unique user IDs to block duplicates
- Attention checks and trap questions
- Speeding detection and gibberish filtering
- Anti-VPN and device fingerprinting
- Straight-lining detection
- Human oversight for each and every manual response
❇️ Trust Scores That Promote Better Behavior
Every respondent is assigned a dynamic trust score based on their response patterns and long-term behavior. Higher scores unlock more opportunities within the Prodege ecosystem, creating a real incentive for thoughtful, honest participation.
Like one of our customers noted on Trustpilot:
“Each time I use this service I am blown away by the speed with which the responses come in and with the detail which most of them include. You can tell that the respondents take this very seriously. They must really enjoy doing it.”
Note: These are just some of the ways that we ensure your brand tracking insights are based on clean, reliable data. Learn more here.
Pay-per-Response Pricing That Scales with Your Needs
Pollfish uses a usage-based pricing model that starts at just $0.95 per completed response, making it easy to scale your brand tracking efforts up or down depending on your goals and budget.
❇️ No Subscriptions, No Commitments
You’re never locked into a long-term plan or paying for unused response quotas. Whether you’re launching a single brand tracking survey or running them on a recurring basis, you only pay for what you use.
As noted on Trustpilot by a Pollfish customer, “They charge based on the completed response. It is very fair and transparent. As a researcher, I have used many survey platforms, but they are the best so far.”
❇️ Unlimited Team Members Included
Collaborate freely across all departments at no extra cost. Pollfish allows unlimited users under one account, unlike other platforms that charge per seat.
Transparent Pricing with No Surprises
Pollfish makes it easy to understand exactly what you’re paying before you ever launch your survey.
❇️ No Hidden Fees
Your total cost is calculated based on the number of responses and any targeting filters you apply. There are no added charges behind the scenes.
As two of our customers shared on Trustpilot:
“The dollar amount they quote you in their cost calculator tool, and the number they show when you’re developing the survey, is the number you pay. I was burned multiple times by SurveyMonkey charging me unexpected amounts and making it difficult to quit an expensive subscription. I’m so happy to have found Pollfish as an alternative. Their support team also responds VERY quickly to chat messages and has been tremendously helpful the few times I had questions.”
“The pricing is clear and transparent from the beginning. The results come quickly and can be downloaded in different formats and with different filters. What we like most is the ability to filter the results and analyze them separately for each segment. We highly recommend this platform.”
❇️ Full Price Transparency
As you build your survey and apply targeting filters, your total cost is clearly displayed in real time in the upper right-hand area.
For example:
- Base cost per response: $0.95
- Add targeting for household income over $150K: +$0.55
- Add targeting for respondents who shop at premium grocery stores: +$0.55
- Final cost per response: $2.05
Need 800 responses for your brand tracking survey? You’ll pay exactly $1,640, visibly displayed upfront — no surprises, no hidden fees.
This level of clarity makes budgeting for brand tracking surveys simple and predictable.
Fast Turnaround Time From a Few Hours to a Few Days
When you’re tracking brand performance, timing matters. Pollfish helps you get results quickly, so you can take action without delay.
❇️ General Population Surveys Typically Come Back Within a Few Hours
If your brand tracking survey targets a broad audience, like adults in the U.S., smartphone users, or pet owners, you can often collect hundreds of responses within just a few hours. This makes it easy to monitor shifts in awareness or perception shortly after a product launch, PR event, or ad campaign.
Like our customers have pointed out on Trustpilot:
“The thing that amazes me most is how quickly you can get your data results back. So fast! Usually in a couple of hours.”
“I needed a 25 question survey answered, and was able to get 500 completed surveys in 8 hours with Pollfish. The presentation of the results is very impressive and the demographics information Pollfish provided is invaluable.”
“I honestly thought the results would take days, and I was starting to get worried because I was using Pollfish for a quarterly goal and I was trying to make it before the deadline. However, I received the results in literally just a few hours!”
– Read the full review here
“Much more affordable than all the alternatives I found, and I had all my results ready within just a couple of hours.”
❇️ Niche or Highly Targeted Audience Surveys Usually Take a Few Days
If you’re targeting a more specific segment, such as high-income earners who buy from premium skincare brands, or Gen Z consumers in urban areas with a strong interest in sustainability, it may take a few days to complete. That’s because these groups are smaller and more defined, but Pollfish still delivers faster results than most other platforms in the same category.
Our customers have pointed out how quickly results come back in Trustpilot reviews:
“I’m amazed at how quickly the platform was able to deliver rich, segmentable data from over 500 respondents. I had feature-ready insights in only 3 days.”
“I’ve used Pollfish before so when I needed to test concepts for a new business pitch in 5 countries over the holiday, I turned to Pollfish. The surveys were easy to set up, allowed me to select my very specific target and launched right away. Within a couple of days I had my results in an easy to interpret, actionable format well within my budget.”
Complimentary Advanced Support from Brand Tracking Research Experts
Designing a great brand tracking survey isn’t always straightforward, especially if you’re new to market research or juggling multiple priorities. That’s why Pollfish offers free, on-demand support from seasoned market research experts who know the ins and outs of survey design, audience targeting, and data analysis.
❇️ Free 24/7 Support (Yes, Really)
Our support team is available 24/7 via live chat with no additional fees and no hidden limitations. And unlike platforms that rely on scripted chatbot responses, you’ll speak with real people who understand research.
Take it from one of our customers:
“The customer support agents were awesome. They responded to every question I had in a timely manner. (And before we even paid a cent!)”
❇️Help When You Need It, At Any Experience Level
Whether you’re launching your first brand equity survey or are an experienced market researcher seeking a second set of eyes, our team can help you choose the right approach, validate your targeting criteria, or sanity-check your questionnaire.
As noted by several Pollfish customers:
“The customer service I received was fantastic. Brilliant guidance that helped get high-quality results. I was really pleased with the outcome and highly recommend using them.”
“The customer service team is super responsive too for those more complex enquiries about the tool and criteria. All in all this experience has been way easier (and cheaper) than any other ‘big players’ out there”
“I love this product. I feel like it gives me enterprise grade market survey tech at a consumer price. Highly recommend. I love how responsive the customer support team is.”
Get Started with Pollfish
Ready to start running brand tracking surveys? Pollfish makes it easy to get started.
You have three flexible options:
- Create a free account: Explore the platform and start building your brand tracking survey at your own pace. No credit card required.
- Schedule a demo walkthrough: Get a guided walkthrough tailored to your brand tracking goals.
- Inquire about full-service brand research through our parent company Prodege: Prefer to hand it off? Our in-house research team can manage everything for you from survey design to audience selection, data analysis, and a final report customized to your objectives.
2. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is best suited for large enterprises that need brand tracking survey capabilities. It’s often priced out of reach for smaller teams. We discuss what differentiates Pollfish in our article on the best alternatives to Qualtrics.
Key Features
- Enterprise-grade customer survey tools with omnichannel distribution (email, SMS, digital, post-call, and more)
- AI-powered text and sentiment analysis
- Dozens of pre-built, expert-designed survey templates
- Custom dashboards and reports tailored to specific teams or roles
- Automated closed-loop customer feedback and ticketing workflows
- Real-time customer journey insights and VoC data routing
- Integrations with ticketing systems and CRM platforms
3. Tracksuit
Tracksuit is a brand tracking survey platform that’s great for marketing teams that want to track awareness, consideration, and preferences with an intuitive dashboard that’s easy to share and present.
Key Features
- Always-on tracking of brand awareness, consideration, and preference
- Visual dashboards showing performance across the full brand funnel
- Segment-level actionable insights by gender, region, and age
- Competitive benchmarking across messaging, values, and perception
- Timeline views to track brand growth and campaign impact over time
- Surveys managed by Tracksuit’s in-house research team
4. Quantilope
Quantilope is another tool that can help you run brand tracking surveys. It combines advanced methodologies like MaxDiff and conjoint analysis with automation and AI tools to streamline complex studies from setup to reporting.
Key Features
- 15 fully automated advanced research methods, including MaxDiff, TURF, and conjoint
- AI-powered co-pilot (quinn) to guide survey creation and analysis
- Drag-and-drop survey builder with pre-built templates
- Real-time data collection and analysis
- Automated tracking studies with flexible time-based filters
- Exportable dashboards and PowerPoint reports with statistical testing
- Integrated insights repository for long-term knowledge management
5. Latana
Latana is another brand tracking platform that can help you measure brand awareness and perception at scale via surveys.
Key Features
- Access to non-panel respondents for more representative sampling
- Fully integrated solution from data collection to insight generation
- Monthly dashboard updates with segment tracking and automated significance testing
- Flexible modular setup for adding markets, switching packages, or running ad-hoc research
- Real-time, ad-based sampling and machine learning-powered QA
- Intuitive dashboard with error margins and trend visualizations
6. Kantar
Kantar combines robust brand tracking tools with global panel access and full-service consulting. It’s designed for enterprises that need both DIY flexibility and high-touch strategic support for equity measurement and forecasting.
Key Features
- Extensive brand tracking tools, including BrandDynamics, BrandEvaluator, and BrandSnapshot
- Access to 170M+ global respondents in 100+ markets
- Custom survey design and expert consultation services
- Device-agnostic survey experiences to improve data quality
- Award-winning programming tools and question component library
- Integrated dashboards and visualizations for reporting and insight sharing
- Enhanced data reliability with connected datasets and fraud prevention
7. Attest
Attest is a flexible, self-serve survey platform that’s great for brands that need fresh, ongoing consumer insights across multiple regions.
Key Features
- Always-on brand tracking to monitor awareness and perception over time
- Localized surveys with translations and regional targeting
- Flat audience cost with no hidden platform fees
- Side-by-side segment comparisons and crosstab insights
- Custom research capabilities tailored to brand KPIs
- Expert research support included at no extra cost
- Reach up to 150M+ people in 59 countries with surveys in 70+ languages
Next, we’ll take a look at five monitoring-based brand tracking software options.
8. Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a robust social intelligence platform built for marketers who need to understand how their brand is discussed across the digital landscape. It excels at social listening, trend analysis, and competitive benchmarking, making it ideal for teams focused on brand perception and engagement.
Key Features
- Real-time monitoring across social media, news, blogs, forums, and broadcast media
- AI-powered sentiment analysis and trend detection
- Historical data access for long-term brand studies
- Share of voice tracking to compare brand visibility
- Influencer identification and marketing campaigns measurement
- Custom dashboards for brand health metrics and messaging impact
- Seamless integration with MarTech stacks for reporting and brand strategy
9. Meltwater
Meltwater offers a comprehensive suite for media intelligence, combining digital and traditional media monitoring with PR analytics and social listening. It’s well-suited for organizations managing brand reputation, measuring media impact, and aligning comms with marketing strategy.
Key Features
- Monitoring of brand mentions across online, print, broadcast, and social media
- Reputation tracking with sentiment and advanced analytics
- PR campaign performance measurement and media outreach tools
- 360° reporting to evaluate strategy impact across departments
- AI-powered actionable insights for trend spotting and decision-making
- Tools for influencer marketing and consumer intelligence
- Social media management and audience engagement capabilities
10. Awario
Awario specializes in real-time social media monitoring across platforms like Twitter, forums, blogs, and news sites. It’s built for teams that need to stay on top of conversations as they happen and react quickly to brand mentions or sales opportunities.
Key Features
- Real-time tracking of brand mentions across the web
- Brand sentiment analysis to gauge public opinion
- Boolean search for precise, flexible keyword tracking
- Influencer identification and conversation reach scoring
- Lead generation through Awario Leads, surfacing competitor complaints and product inquiries
- Email alerts and white-label reporting for streamlined workflows
- Multi-language, location-based monitoring with mobile access
11. Brand24
Brand24 offers simple, AI-enhanced media monitoring that makes it easy for small teams to track brand mentions, analyze sentiment, and generate competitive reports. It’s a strong fit for businesses that want reliable brand insights without the complexity of enterprise tools.
Key Features
- Real-time media monitoring across social, news, blogs, and reviews
- AI-powered brand sentiment analysis and topic identification
- Share of voice, influence score, and reach metrics
- Automated alerts and anomaly detection
- Customizable, white-label reports for stakeholders
- AI Brand Assistant for insights, comparisons, and recommendations
- Clean workspace with filters, folders, and starred mentions
12. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a powerful SEO and content marketing platform designed to help teams monitor branded search performance, competitor visibility, and overall digital presence. While not a traditional brand tracker, it excels at showing how your brand performs in organic search and link-building efforts.
Key Features
- Brand Radar tracks mentions across websites, AI platforms, and competitors
- Rank Tracker monitors branded keyword rankings and share of voice
- Site Explorer analyzes traffic, backlinks, and competitive visibility
- Content Explorer surfaces brand mentions across billions of indexed pages
- Alerts notify you of changes in backlinks, rankings, and brand presence
- SEO dashboards and reports consolidate marketing campaigns’ performance data
- AI Content Grader and auditing tools optimize branded content at scale
Get Started with Pollfish
To begin using Pollfish:
Ready to Try Pollfish?
Create your survey with AI, target high-quality respondents starting at $0.95 per complete, and start getting results in just minutes in real-time. From running a simple product concept survey to managing a constant stream of trackers for dozens of clients in dozens of countries, we’ve got you.