Brand health tracking in action
Lids set out to better understand its customers, competitors, and market position — but the team needed more consistent data to guide strategic decisions. By partnering with Alchemer to launch a brand tracking program, Lids uncovered ongoing, actionable insights that helped shape how the business invests, goes to market, and identifies new growth opportunities.
The result? Smarter decisions across the business, including the launch and expansion of a new retail category that quickly became a meaningful growth driver.
New Category
Launched and expanded using brand tracker insights
6
weeks
from Alchemer kickoff to brand tracker launch
Millions
of loyalty members in the ecosystem the team is now activating
1200+
retail locations across North America
“Working with Alchemer feels like a true partnership. They have over delivered and exceeded our expectations.”
— Matt Davis, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Lids
The Challenge: Big decisions, limited visibility
As a leading licensed sports retailer with five brands and more than 1,200 locations across North America, Lids manages both ecommerce and in-store experiences at scale.
For Matt Davis, Lid’s Senior Digital Marketing Manager, that means ensuring every marketing dollar moves the needle and reaches the right customers.
But before partnering with Alchemer, the team was missing a critical piece of the puzzle. They didn’t have a consistent way to answer the questions that drive everyday decisions.
- How do customers actually perceive the Lids brand?
- How does Lids stack up against competitors in the licensed sports retail space?
- Where and how should Lids invest media dollars to show up more effectively across the fan journey.
They needed a more rigorous way to understand brand health. Without formal tracking, Lids lacked actionable data on awareness, consideration, purchase intent, and how our brand was perceived versus competitors.
Compounding the problem: Lids didn’t have a dedicated market research department to fill the gap. The team needed a partner.
The solution: A true partnership with Alchemer
Lids came to Alchemer with segmentation and persona work already in place from a well-known enterprise experience management vendor, which the team still credits as foundational. But when leadership asked for a recurring brand tracker to measure performance month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year, Lids needed a different kind of relationship. One built on responsiveness, flexibility, and hands-on guidance.
After evaluating options, they chose Alchemer for its flexibility, service, and ability to meet Lids exactly where they were, both in terms of budget and internal capacity.
From the start, the relationship felt different than experiences with previous vendors. The Alchemer team stepped in as an extension of Lids’ own team — guiding strategy, shaping questions, and helping translate raw data into decisions the business could act on.
“We’re a lean performance marketing team, so building a multi-year brand tracker was not something we were going to manage like a traditional research department. We are not market researchers by trade, so having a team of experts guide us through the process gave us a lot of confidence.”
— Matt Davis, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Lids
Fast implementation, immediate value
Speed mattered to Lids. They needed to get the brand tracker study up and running as soon as possible, and Alchemer delivered:
- Brand health tracking program launched in just 6 weeks.
- First insights available within the first reporting cycle.
- Early data began informing decisions by the next quarter.
The process was deeply collaborative. Lids brought the business questions and expertise. Alchemer helped translate those questions into a structured, scalable research program built on the core personas Lids already had in place. For a lean team, that support made all the difference.
Key outcomes: Smarter decisions across the business
Stronger media and partner decisioning
Lids set out with three objectives for the brand tracker: gather competitive intelligence, establish a baseline for marketplace performance, and make smarter, data-backed decisions about advertising, audience engagement, and media investment.
For Matt’s team, the brand tracker brought more structure to conversations around where Lids should show up in the market. The goal was not just to optimize traditional paid media channels, but to better understand how Lids’ target audience engages with brands, content, and retail environments.
As Lids explored opportunities beyond its core media mix, the team needed a clearer way to evaluate where partners were reaching the right audiences. The brand tracker provided consistent insights into audience behavior, brand perception, and category dynamics, helping the team assess which channels and environments were most relevant for Lids’ consumers.
Matt reflects, “Before launching the brand tracker, we lacked a consistent, data-driven view of how consumers understood and evaluated our brand. We needed clearer visibility into awareness, consideration, purchase intent, and competitive perception so we could make more informed decisions about where and why to invest.”
That changed as ongoing consumer insights began feeding directly into planning. Matt’s team gained a clearer understanding of where their audience spends time, how Lids is perceived relative to competitors, and how those insights should inform media investment. This enabled Lids to make more confident, informed decisions about where to invest, which opportunities to prioritize, and how to show up in ways that feel relevant to its fans.
“Alchemer helped us connect brand insights directly to media strategy. With a clearer understanding of our audience, their media behaviors, and how consumers perceived our brand, we were able to make more informed decisions about where to invest and how to show up across the fan journey.”
— Matt Davis, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Lids
Finding the next growth opportunity
With the brand tracking program in place, Lids could finally ask — and answer — the right questions. Beyond standard brand health and competitive metrics, the team began layering in targeted, ad hoc questions to test emerging opportunities directly with consumers.
This allowed the team to quickly validate potential areas of expansion, using real customer feedback instead of assumption. As different categories were explored, one in particular stood out, showing clear, measurable consumer interest and strong alignment with Lids’ audience.
Instead of relying on instinct, Lids had the data it needed to confidently move forward. What started as exploratory research quickly translated into a focused business decision, backed by validated demand and a clearer understanding of the customer.
That insight evolved into one of the most meaningful growth drivers for the business. Lids expanded investment in the category, scaling it from a smaller offering into a significant revenue contributor. Within twelve months, the impact was clear.
According to Matt, “This category has become a meaningful part of our business in a very short period of time.” Beyond the immediate results, this shift demonstrated the broader value of the brand tracker. By listening to customers and acting on those insights quickly, Lids is able to identify and capitalize on new growth opportunities with greater confidence and speed.
Always-on competitive intelligence
The fan retail space is highly competitive, with national retailers, team and league shops, specialty stores, and smaller players competing for consumer attention. Companies like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Fanatics also serve as important partners to Lids, creating a broader landscape that goes beyond a simple competitor list. Before the brand tracker, Lids didn’t have a clear, data-backed view of how consumers saw the brand compared with other places they could shop.
As Matt puts it, “We didn’t have any intel on how those competitors were perceived against what Lids was delivering. We needed a high-level view to understand this is what they’re doing, this is what we’re doing, and this is how our consumers are perceiving us.”
That visibility gap is now closed. The brand tracker gives Lids a consistent view of how the brand performs against key competitors across the metrics that matter most, including awareness, consideration, NPS, perceived value, and the brand attributes customers care about most. The team can see a quarterly view of where Lids is winning, where competitors are pulling ahead, and which gaps are worth closing first. Instead of reacting to what the competition is doing, Lids can make deliberate, evidence-based moves based on what customers actually think.
Continuous improvement of key programs
Lids also uses the brand tracker to refine its Access Pass loyalty program. It’s a perfect example of how the right insights sharpen even the parts of the business that are already working.
The challenge wasn’t the program’s value. It was understanding what members valued most, and what would compel new customers to sign up. Before the brand tracker, the team didn’t have a clear way to answer either question.
Matt elaborates, “We weren’t able to get those insights prior to implementing this. It wasn’t a surprise that the 20% off was the main draw, but on top of that, what are the sweeteners? What are the things that people want to see? Those were the questions we were able to ask the general population that we couldn’t ask before.”
With brand data in hand, the Lids team is now evolving the program by layering in the benefits members say they want, sharpening the messaging around the program’s value, and improving how renewals and onboarding work behind the scenes.
The stakes are significant. Lids’ loyalty ecosystem touches millions of people — a massive pool of engaged fans the team is just beginning to activate against. As first-party data integrations come online, every brand insight becomes more powerful, helping Lids reach the right members with the right offer at the right moment.
The brand tracking program isn’t just helping Lids understand its loyalty program. It’s helping the team unlock the full potential of one of its most valuable assets.
The partnership advantage
For Lids, the biggest differentiator isn’t just the data, it’s the relationship behind it.
Without an internal market research function, having Alchemer as a true extension of the team means:
- Faster answers to complex questions, without waiting on a procurement cycle.
- Super responsive team to bounce ideas off of and answer questions
- Clear, executive-ready reporting that drives action, not just discussion.
- Ongoing strategic guidance from people who know the platform, and market research inside and out.
“It’s really been about the people for us. Alchemer really became an extension of our team. They helped us ask the right questions, pressure-test the approach, incorporate our feedback, and turn our business needs into a research framework we could actually use.”
— Matt Davis, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Lids
What's next?
Brand tracker findings don’t sit in a dashboard waiting to be discovered. The Alchemer team produces clear, digestible reports that get circulated all the way up to the executive leadership team. That visibility helps the Lids team validate ideas, align on strategy, and move forward with confidence. Matt notes, “Leadership has been very pleased with us having a brand tracker, so now we’re trying to figure out how we can expand it and get even more out of it.”
With the foundation in place, the next chapter is focused on scaling what works:
- Continuing to evolve personas and segmentation, including identifying new sub-cohorts within existing audience groups
- Deepening engagement with priority growth audiences to ensure Lids is reaching consumers in ways that are culturally relevant and resonant
- Further integrating brand tracker insights with first-party data, enabling the team to activate against a growing network of customer touchpoints across the business
Conclusion
Lids didn’t just gain visibility into its brand; they built a smarter way to make decisions. With Alchemer as a partner, insights don’t stay buried in reports. They drive action, shape strategy, deliver ROI, and create entirely new sources of revenue. Sometimes, all it takes is asking the right question.
Ready to build your own brand health tracker?
Lids didn’t need a research department to get clear, actionable brand insights — just the right partner.
See how Alchemer’s brand health tracker can help you understand your customers, outpace your competitors, and find your next growth opportunity.
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