Information Architecture/URL Structure of a Consolidated Website

[triveraseo]

I am working on a project for a company that is going through a major transition. They are deciding to move from a subscription publisher to a digital membership content site. They are ALSO consolidating their sub-brands into one, becoming a branded house.  They are a publisher of a niche-hobby, whose base is extremely passionate about the overarching topic. Currently, each sub-brand has its own website with its own branded content. Their new "mega-site" will have all content combined on one domain.

Their goal is to appeal to a new user who has overlapping interests in one core topic, while also allowing their existing users and brand loyalists to be able to navigate the site by brand if they want to .  If users land on the main domain HP, they will see a simple global navigation where they can navigate the content by topic OR select a brand. Each sub-brand will have it's own sub-navigation.

We are currently at the phase where we are working on information architecture and trying to figure out the global nav and the nav for each individual brand.

I am A) looking for advice on the best analytics reports to use to help inform navigation decisions and how to categorize content, and B) trying to decide if I should keep the BRANDED content in a sub-folder, or if I should categorize the content by topic and then tag branded content.

I'm not concerned about how users will be able to filter the content because that will be easier to figure out. I'm just trying to decide what the main URLs should be when content can be navigated to in multiple ways. Would it be easier to redirect brand1.domain.com > domain.com/brand-1....? Are there benefits to doing it that way?

[triveraseo]

any insight would be helpful!