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How does category penetration affect funnel metrics?

Understand how category penetration can shape your brand story.

Updated over 2 weeks ago

🧢 Coach T's Recap

Exploring category penetration might reveal a bigger story behind your brand metrics, sometimes your slice changes because the pie does.

When interpreting your brand funnel in Tracksuit, it’s important to remember: your brand doesn’t exist in isolation, it lives within the context of your broader category.

That’s why we start by measuring category penetration, identifying who actively buys or uses products in your category. This gives more meaningful context to brand metrics.


How category trends can affect funnel metrics

Let’s use a pie analogy šŸ‘‡

  • 🄧 Your category = the whole pie

  • šŸ° Your brand = one slice of that pie

As the size of the pie changes, the your brand’s slice can shift, too.

Head to the Funnel Timeline page to get across the category dynamics (make sure you have 'Category penetration' toggled on in the 'Display options' dropdown).

If category penetration is increasing

The pie is growing which means more people are entering the category.

  • What it means: You’re now competing for attention with more brands, and need to work harder to maintain or grow awareness and consideration.

  • Use your data to: Focus on brand fitness - be distinctive, consistent, and invest in mental availability to keep up with the growing pool of consumers.

If category penetration is stable

The pie remains the same size which means things are steady.

  • What it means: Consumer behaviour is relatively consistent.

  • Use your data to: Look for opportunity in brand positioning to sharpen your relevance, consistency and emotional connection to grow share.

If category penetration is decreasing

The pie is shrinking which means fewer people are engaging with the category.

  • What it means: You might see short-term lifts in your brand metrics as the remaining pie gets divided among fewer players. But over time, a shrinking category can limit growth opportunities.

  • Use your data to:

    • Understand which audiences are driving declines

    • Explore ways to build category growth into your strategy

    • Spot opportunities to grow into adjacent spaces or unmet needs

Here’s how Tracksuit customers are putting category penetration data to work šŸ‘‡

  • Tell the right story: Use category shifts to explain brand movements e.g. holding steady in a growing category = strong performance.

  • Spot growth levers: Is the category growing among younger audiences? New regions? Use it to guide targeting or NPD.

  • Align your team: Help internal stakeholders see the full picture, not just isolated brand metrics.

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