
Who are your customers?
Where can you find them?
What is the market trend?
Does your product have a demand in the market?
What problems are your customers facing?
If you are searching for tools that can solve all your above problems, then this blog is for you.
I have mentioned the 12 best market research tools that will help you penetrate the market and win over the competitors.
What market insights will you get from these tools?
Data like the market trend, content strategy, customer tastes and preferences, competitor’s strategy and analysis, product demand, and many more.
1. Google Trends
Google Trends is a free platform by Google.
You can use it to know the search trend of any topic for the past days, months, or years.
Type the search term in the search bar, and set the date range, location, category, and search type (web, image, shopping, news, or YouTube)
You will see the trend line of when the term got high or low search.
Not only the topic trends but you can check the search trends of your competitors.
For example, I am taking the Netflix brand.
Compare option allows you to compare two terms.
Here I compared Netflix and Amazon Prime to see how many people are preferring either of the brands.
With this trend line you can see that in the US, for the past 12 months, the Netflix brand was more highly searched than Amazon Prime Video in web search.
So, if your brand is also in the same industry, and wants to capture the market in the US, then your biggest competitor is Netflix.
Below, if you scroll, you also get a region-wise breakdown of the search trend.
On further scrolling, you get the options to check related topics, and queries.
So, visit the site and explore the tool. It is free from Google.
2. Google Keyword Planner
We have one more Google product, Google Keyword Planner.
In Google Trends, you get to see the trend line. But here, you get the number range of how many users search the topic.
Brands use it to find keywords for on-page SEO and Google Ads.
Suppose you run a business selling sneakers.
To optimize the site, you can check how many people use what search terms to shop.
For example, I am checking for the ‘best white sneakers for women.’
You can see that its average monthly search is 1k-10k.
If you scroll further, you get more keyword ideas.
So, the tool is very simple.
Set the region, date range, language, and search terms (you can enter 10 search terms at a time), and you are ready to compete.
You can also enter the competitor’s website URL to know what keyword they use.
3. BuzzSumo
Every brand must focus on the content because:
Content is King
And BuzzSumo helps you make that happen.
It answers your questions like:
- Which are trending topics?
- What topic to make content on?
- What do people search for in a particular niche?
- Which is the most sharable topic?
- Who are the best influencers I can collaborate with?
- Which competitor’s content is getting shared the most and why?
BuzzSumo is a great platform for your content marketing strategy.
Search the content by either entering the keyword or the competitor’s website URL.
See what topics they create content around and which are getting shared the most.
BuzzSumo shows a proper breakdown of how many likes, comments, and shares the content is getting from different social media platforms.
You can also search for the content idea on a platform basis like the web, Facebook, or YouTube.
The part is that the platform lets you create an alert for the topic. If any new article gets published on that topic, you will get an alert from the platform.
There are only 10 free monthly searches in a free trial.
After that, you got to buy any one of the paid plans.
Here are the pricing plans:
Plans | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual – save 20%) |
Free | $0 | $0 |
Pro | $99 | $79 |
Plus | $179 | $139 |
Large | $299 | $239 |
4. Answer The Public
If you want content ideas and see what people search around a topic, Answer the Public is the best tool.
You only need to select the target region, and language, and enter the topic in the search bar.
For example, you run a blogging site for business and marketing niches.
You plan to write about D2C business, but do not know what people search about it.
So, enter the topic D2C business in the search and see the magic!
(I select the UK as the target location.)
Look at this!
You got the gold mine!
There are so many topics you can create content on. That too, not any topic. These are the ones that people search for on the web.
As you scroll down further, you get more topics.
You can also export the data or download it in image format.
The tool is free for a few searches per day. After that, you get to buy the paid version.
Answer The Public offer the following pricing plans:
Plans | Price (Monthly) |
Monthly | $99 |
Annual | $79 |
Expert | $199 |
5. SimilarWeb
Apart from your primary research, stalking your competitor is also vital.
SimilarWeb helps you analyze the competitor’s website.
For example, I am taking the Zoom brand.
You get so many metrics to study, as seen in the left side panel.
- Ranking – Get the global, country, and category ranking of the website.
- Audience – Data on total traffic every month, geographic, demographic, and interests.
- Competitors – Who are the top competitors and some other competitive metrics?
- Marketing channels – What are the traffic sources?
- Outgoing links – The outbound links from your website to others.
- Technologies – What technologies does the brand use?
Not only the websites, but you can also do a competitive analysis of the apps.
Isn’t that great?!
Unlock more data and dive deep by using the paid version.
SimilarWeb offers different pricing plans for different departments. Check out their pricing page for more details.
- Research Intelligence
- Digital Marketing Intelligence
- Sales Intelligence
- Investor Intelligence
6. SEMrush
If you want to make your online marketing easy, SemRush is the solution.
It not only helps you analyze your website but your competitor’s website as well.
SemRush is an all-in-one digital marketing solution.
Brands like Tesla, Amazon, Samsung, etc., trusted SemRush for their digital marketing strategy.
You can use it for the following purpose:
- SEO
- Competitor research
- Paid ads
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
It covers everything that comes under the above topics.
So, organic or paid, whichever path you take to grow your business, SemRush will help in every step.
Unlike Google Keyword Planner, it is a paid tool.
You need to buy one of their plans to reap its benefits.
Here are the SemRush pricing plans:
Plans | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual) (per month) |
Pro | $119.95 | $99.95 |
Guru | $229.95 | $191.62 |
Business | $449.95 | $374.95 |
*Save up to 17% in the annual plan.
7. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is an alternative to SemRush.
With Ahrefs also, you can create SEO, paid marketing, content strategies, keyword research, and check backlinks.
But unlike SemRush, Ahrefs is much better for organic growth strategies.
You might get different website traffic numbers in Ahrefs and SemRush. But with that, you get an estimate of the total traffic coming to your website.
Whether you are a blogger or run an enterprise, Ahrefs fits all.
Brands like Facebook, Netflix, Uber, and LinkedIn trusted Ahrefs as a perfect tool for digital market research.
It is not a free tool. You’ve got to buy the paid version to use it.
Following are the pricing plans offered by Ahrefs:
Plans | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual) |
Lite | $99 | $83 |
Standard | $199 | $166 |
Advanced | $399 | $333 |
Enterprise | $999 | $833 |
In annual plan, you get 2 months free access.
8. Spyfu
Are you blank on where to start and what to do?
No worries.
Spyfu helps you find a point to start.
At times when I am clueless about where to start, I watch the other people in my field understand what they did.
Similarly, Spyfu helps you take a sneak peek at the competitor’s website.
You can know what keywords they are using, where they took the backlinks from, etc.
Not only organic but you can also check how their paid ads are performing.
Which platform they are running ads on, its history, some Google ads advice, etc?
From these insights, create a successful and winning ad strategy for your business.
Hence, Spyfu helps you build a pathway for your website.
It is also a paid tool trusted by brands like Adobe, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Here’s the pricing plan offered by Spyfu:
Plans | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual) (per month) |
Basic | $39 | $33 |
Professional | $79 | $58 |
Team | $299 | $199 |
9. TubeBuddy
If you are a creator or have your brand channel for promotion, then use TubeBuddy.
It is like Google Keyword Planner.
Install the TubeBuddy extension and log in.
After that, when you play any YouTube video, you will see many competitive data.
You can use it for YouTube SEO.
Also, TubeBuddy helps you to have a sneak peek into the competitor’s video. Like the keywords and tags they use on their videos, video analytics, etc.
Not only the video but you can also see the channel analytics.
Apart from these, they offer:
- Keyword explorer
- Click magnet
- Thumbnail generator
- Channel health report
- Video A/B testing
- Bulk processing
- Video analytics
The free version has some limitations. You can use it for basic optimization.
For more analysis, the paid version is recommended.
TubeBuddy offers three pricing plans.
Plans | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual) (per month) |
Pro | $3.50 | $2.80 |
Star (most popular) | $11.50 | $9.20 |
Legend | $26.50 | $21.20 |
10. Google Analytics
Another best way to know and understand your market is through Google Analytics.
To analyze your website traffic, connect Google Analytics to your website.
When you start getting enough traffic, you can check out the following insights:
- Audience – Demographic, interest, and behavior.
- Page funnel – From which page to which page the user is going.
- Website performance – Real-time traffic, total time spent, bounce rate, total sessions, sessions per page, etc.
- Traffic source – Where is the traffic coming from?
- SERP rankings – where are your pages ranking, and what are the total impressions, and clicks?
These were only a few metrics.
You will get many more data that can get interpreted. After that, use those data to make a growth strategy.
You also get the report option to download.
Customize and download it based on the need.
Google Analytics is a free tool. Use it for as long as you want.
11. Survey Monkey
For primary research, Survey Monkey is the best tool.
Create a survey form with a few clicks and it’s ready to capture the audience details.
You can either create a survey form from scratch or select from the range of templates they offer.
They even have niche-based templates.
After the survey gets filled by the people, you get the auto-generated report for analysis.
It helps replace the manual process of analyzing each report and drawing a conclusion from it.
Hence, the tool is easy to use and time-saving.
Survey Monkey can be used for free. But if you want some extra features, buy the paid version.
11. Statista
If you are not ready for primary research, Statista is the best tool to collect secondary data.
Statista is a German company that has expertise in collecting market and consumer data since 2007.
I always rely on their data to prove any of my points.
They have created 1 million+ statistics across 80k different topics.
Statista collects data from more than 22.5k sources and 170 industries.
So, for example, if you want to know the global search engines market share, you get the following result without any effort:
You can also search for statistics on a region-based basis.
But the more specific data you want, the less free data access you get.
Statista has some premium statistics. Those are accessible in the paid version.
So, if you run an enterprise, it is best to go with paid plans.
What type of reports do you get access to?
- Digital and trend report
- Industry and market report
- Companies and products report
- Consumer and brand report
- Politics and society report
- Country and region report
Here are the pricing plans for Statista:
Plans | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual) (per month) |
Basic | $0 | $0 |
Starter | $59 | $29 |
Project | $1950 | $1950 |
Conclusion
Gone are the days when market research was difficult.
You have to spend huge time and cost to understand your market and the customers.
But now, in the digital era, everything is possible and easy with a click.
The market research tools I mentioned above will give you useful insights into your market.
Good luck!