“One of the biggest problems the industry has right now is being able to track, measure and report on the impact of investment in marketing,” says Matthew Herbert, Tracksuit’s Co-CEO.
COVID-19 created the perfect storm. Due to market pressures, budgets were slashed and many needed to show quantifiable return on investment for their marketing activities.
For growing businesses around the world, being able to sink significant budget into marketing insights wasn’t, and still isn’t, an option. So instead, many pulled back efforts, continued flying blind, or threw money into the black hole of unmeasurable marketing.
“What surprises me is how willing people are to put marketing budget behind something they can’t track.
“Now, at Tracksuit we're trying to be the change we want to see in that space,” he says.
Tracksuit launched in 2021 at a time when the market needed it most. The insights business had a clear goal; To transform the business world’s understanding of, confidence in and commitment to brand marketing and marketers.
Launching with 10 clients, it now boasts a portfolio of 85 brands across New Zealand, Australia and the UK. Tracking over 700 brands across 50+ categories, Tracksuit has grown from $110,000 and is on track to reach $1.5 million annual recurring revenue within its first 12 months.
Since launching the company has worked with some impressive leading brands, including Sharesies, Allpress, Jack Daniels, Simplicity and Good George Brewing Co.
Good George Brewing Co in particular uses Tracksuit as a key tool for future brand planning and tracking of their campaigns. While Eucalyptus, Australia’s leading digital healthcare company, uses the platform to measure brand performance and gain real-time insights into campaign effectiveness for channels that are notoriously difficult to measure.
Speciality coffee roasters Allpress are a long-standing New Zealand brand who are now also looking to grow their measurement capabilities. Until using Tracksuit, the brand had little visibility of the impact its brand spend was having on awareness, consideration and preference in NZ and AU against its key competitors. Now through the platform it is able to track these meetings with competing brands.
One brand in particular, Yu Mei, a Kiwi founded luxury fashion retailer, looked to raise awareness in Australia of their leather goods. Looking to drive brand health as they look at new markets Yu Mei engaged Tracksuit to ensure that their digital marketing efforts were not only converting well, but also creating future demand amongst their clients' target audience.
Through Tracksuit's measurement capabilities, Yu Mei was able to make smart decisions about the brand’s next steps. The metrics the platform introduced are now one of the brand's key KPI’s and impact decisions to open stores in certain regions. The data is also used to help shape meaningful conversations with retailers such as David Jones.
For Herbert, being able to champion these brands and the marketers is what it all comes down to.
He acknowledges both TRA (The Research Agency) and Previously Unavailable who have provided not just their industry knowledge, but their research capabilities, which allowed Tracksuit to hit the ground running in the early stages.
“Alongside TRA and Previously, we’ve been fortunate enough to work alongside incredible brands and marketers who provide real feedback and validation for what we’re trying to achieve,” he adds.
Measurement insight and accountability is the overall focus, and for Herbert this needs to be provided in an expert way for seasoned marketers, whilst also easily digestible for those new to the industry.
“We're really fortunate to be able to work with marketers that know what they're doing, as well as new players who are looking to grow, develop and keep up to date. We want to be able to say, yes, we're the new player and we're looking to do this, but we're doing it in a way that is sourced from expertise and grounded in knowledge,” she says.
A Kiwi success story
The last 12 months have seen remarkable success for Tracksuit, who are the definition of a Kiwi success story. Now, the company is setting its sights globally, and looking for opportunities where they can further support those in the industry.
“Looking ahead, a big focus for us is international markets and working with ambitious leaders of growth brands. We want to build a world where the business community values brand marketing as a core driver of long-term commercial success.
Tracksuit has been built by brand leaders, marketers and experts in their own right. And it's this passion for supporting the marketing community that led to the creation of the platform and its rapid success.
“At the end of the day our goal is to champion innovative brands and marketers who are striving for better. And ultimately we can help them get there,” he says.
Written by Courtney Devereux, UK Client Lead, Clear Hayes