Brand Consideration Tracking Across Journey Stages

Brand consideration tracking across the planned journey: measure which brands enter and leave the consideration set at each stage, and why.

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At a Glance

Overview

Brand consideration tracking measures the set of brands buyers take seriously at each stage of a planned journey, and follows how that set changes. The planned journey framework expects change: in the Quirk's article that describes the framework, Alex Xiaoguang Zhu of SKIM notes that familiar or popular brands may dominate the initial consideration set in the latent stage, but that buyers who research and talk to others may conclude later that another brand fits better. This skill turns that expectation into measurement.

The core output is a consideration shift analysis. For each stage it records the brands in the buyer's consideration set, the brands that entered since the previous stage, the brands that dropped out, and the reason for each move. Aggregated over a sample, that gives a picture of where each brand gains and loses ground, which is the input the rest of the method depends on.

The concept of a brand consideration set comes from consumer behavior research. It is the group of brands a buyer seriously considers and evaluates, sitting inside the larger set of brands they know about, alongside brands they have no opinion of and brands they have rejected (Consideration set). Tracking these sets stage by stage is what separates this skill from a standard brand health tracker, which usually reports awareness and consideration once, without stage.

This is purchase journey measurement for long, deliberate categories. It suits a brand that is well known but loses at the final choice, and a challenger that wants to know whether it is being added late in evaluation or never considered at all. The method background and the stage model are on the Planned Journey Framework page.

How It Works

Each respondent is placed in a stage using the agreed stage definitions. For current buyers, the placement comes from their behavior or a screening question. For recent buyers, it comes from a guided recall of each stage. Current-stage measurement is more accurate. Recall covers the whole journey from one respondent but is subject to recall bias, which grows with the time since the purchase.

Within each stage, three questions define the set: which brands the buyer knew, which they were seriously considering, and which they had ruled out. Keeping the rejected set separate matters, because a brand that was known and rejected has a different problem from a brand that was never known. The consideration set literature distinguishes these explicitly and notes that the sets "are fluid and the products in each set can change rapidly when the consumer is presented with new information" (Consideration set).

Moves between stages are the unit of analysis. For each brand, count how many buyers added it and how many dropped it between latent and evaluation and between evaluation and buying. Then ask the reason. Zhu's telecom example shows why reasons are needed: network and value drove latent consideration while plan and data mattered most at the buying stage (Quirk's). A brand strong on network but weak on plans would be considered early and dropped late, and only the reasons would show why.

Latent-stage consideration is closely related to what the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute calls mental availability: the chance a brand comes to mind when a buyer enters the category. An article written with Jenni Romaniuk ties this to category entry points, the situations that bring people into a category. Asking which brands come to mind for each entry point is a practical way to measure the latent set.

Stated measures can be combined with behavior. SKIM's journey work pairs survey data with passive metering and digital tracking (SKIM journey mapping), which shows which brand sites buyers visited during evaluation and when. Behavior confirms that a brand was actively examined and dates the move. The survey supplies the reason.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Fix the brand list and stage definitions

Agree the list of competing brands, including an "other" option with a text field so new entrants are not missed. Confirm the stage definitions and the screening questions that place a respondent in a stage. Write both down before designing questions. Changing either mid-study breaks comparability.

Step 2: Choose the design

Decide between measuring buyers currently in each stage, asking recent buyers to recall every stage, or following the same people over time. Following the same people gives the cleanest shift data but takes longest. Recall is faster but less reliable for the latent stage. Many teams combine a recall study of recent buyers with a smaller current-stage sample to check it.

Step 3: Write the set questions for each stage

For each stage, ask which brands the respondent knew, which they seriously considered and which they had ruled out. Ask about the latent stage through category entry points, for example "when your current contract was ending, which providers came to mind?" (category entry points). Keep the brand list and wording identical across stages. Randomize brand order to avoid position effects.

Step 4: Ask the reasons for each move

For every brand the respondent added or dropped between stages, ask why, with a short list of reasons drawn from earlier interviews plus an open answer. Ask the reason close to the move in the questionnaire so the respondent is thinking about that moment. Keep the reason list the same for all brands. Open answers often reveal reasons the team had not anticipated.

Step 5: Build the shift table

For each brand, tabulate consideration at each stage, the number of buyers who added it and the number who dropped it between stages, and the top reasons for each. Show gains and losses separately rather than as net change, because a brand can have a stable net share while churning heavily underneath. Flag any figure resting on a small base.

Step 6: Identify the decisive moves

Look for the stage transition where your brand loses the most buyers and the transition where a competitor gains the most. Read the reasons for both. Write a short statement for each: where the brand loses, to whom, and why. Pass these statements to touchpoint and messaging work.

Step 7: Repeat on a schedule

Run the same measurement again at a fixed interval, or after a major campaign or product change. Keep the questions and brand list stable so changes are real. Track whether the decisive moves shrink after interventions aimed at them.

Best Practices

• Report additions and removals separately. Net consideration hides churn, and churn is where the explanation lives.
• Keep the rejected set distinct from the unaware set. A brand buyers know and reject needs a different fix from a brand they have never heard of, a distinction the consideration set literature makes explicitly (Consideration set).
• Include buyers who chose competitors and people who stalled. A sample of your own customers shows only journeys that ended with your brand.
• Measure latent consideration through buying situations. Asking which brands come to mind for a specific trigger is closer to how buyers enter the category than an unprompted brand list.
• Confirm stated moves with behavior where you can. Site visits, quote requests and store visits date each move and check whether stated consideration was real.
• Hold question wording constant across waves. A wording change can shift consideration by more than any campaign.

Common Mistakes

• Measuring consideration only once: A single consideration figure cannot show where a brand is gained or lost. Measure it at each stage.
• Reporting net share only: A stable number can hide a brand that gains many buyers in evaluation and loses as many at buying. Show the flows.
• Leaning on long recall for the latent stage: Buyers who purchased long ago reconstruct their early consideration from what they chose. Weight toward recent buyers and check with a current-stage sample.
• Skipping the reasons: Counts without reasons tell a team where to look and nothing about what to change.
• Changing the brand list between waves: Adding or removing brands shifts every other brand's share. Keep the list fixed and use the open answer to spot new entrants.

References

• Examples: Worked examples and scenarios
• FAQ: Frequently asked questions
• Parent Method: Planned Journey Framework

Related Skills

• Planned Journey Framework Stages: Latent, Evaluation, Buying
• Connecting Cross-Stage Journey Insights
• Building a Planned Journey Funnel Diagram
• Touchpoint Optimization for Each Journey Stage
• Research-Intensive Purchase Mapping for Planned Journeys
• Planned Journey Framework for B2B Buying Committees

Sources

• Quirk's: 4 frameworks for mapping customer decision journeys
• Wikipedia: Consideration set
• Jenni Romaniuk: Category Entry Points dissected
• SKIM: Decision and customer journey mapping
• Wikipedia: Recall bias

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