The 12 Best Market Research Tools For Startups

SurveyMonkey is a great market research tool if you want to create and send out surveys, collect responses, and analyse their results. It's user-friendly and has many pre-made survey designs that you can use or customise. You can share these surveys through different channels like email, social media, or your website. When people answer, it also helps you analyse the collected responses and make sense of them. This makes it easier for you to gather and understand information from your target audience.

This tool provides many features and utilities, such as

• There are survey templates for multiple uses. You can pick one you like and change it to fit your brand and questions.
• As people answer your survey, SurveyMonkey shows you results right away. This can help you spot trends and make quick decisions.
• If you're working with others, SurveyMonkey lets you team up easily. You can all work together on making, sending, and understanding surveys.
• SurveyMonkey works well with other tools you might use, like email or any other CRM or productivity software. This means you can easily use your survey results in your other work.

SurveyMonkey is a great tool for conducting market research, but it has a few limitations. The free version limits the number of questions and responses. If you want to access advanced features, you’ll have to opt for a paid plan.

SEMrush is for digital marketers, SEO experts, or just anyone who wants to stay ahead of their competitors. With SEMrush, you can conduct a competitive analysis to understand what your competitors are doing and how you can outperform them. You can easily track keyword rankings and access advertising data. This tool helps you optimise your own strategies by learning from the successes and mistakes of others.

With SEMrush,

• You can get detailed insights about how your competitors are doing online. You can see which keywords they rank for, the backlinks they have, and their traffic sources.
• You can find the best keywords to target for your SEO and PPC campaigns. It shows search volume, competition level, and trends for each keyword.
• You can also see what ads your competitors are running. SEMrush shows you what their ads say, how much they might be spending, and what their display ads look like. This can help you improve your own ads.
• You can see who's linking to your website and your competitors' sites. Knowing this helps you make better plans to get more good links to your site.
• SEMrush also helps you discover trending topics and popular content in your niche so you can create content that resonates with your audience and ranks well on search engines.

SEMrush is definitely a very useful tool for market search and digital marketing, but it has a few limitations. Since it has a lot of features, it can be quite overwhelming for new users. There are many helpful free features, but advanced features are only available to paid users. The pricing tiers can be expensive if you’re on a tight budget.

Google Trends is the perfect tool for you if you want to find popular search queries and know what's trending online. With this tool, you can spot market trends, understand what consumers are interested in, or find popular topics for your content. Simply enter any keyword or topic, and you’ll be able to see how often people search for that on Google over time. It even shows you charts and graphs to help you understand the search term's popularity trends. 

• You can adjust filters like location, time range, and type of search (e.g., web search or image search) to get tailored results.
• It also suggests related queries and topics to help you discover new keywords and content ideas you might not have considered.
• You can look at past search data to see long-term patterns and seasonal changes. This information can help you plan your marketing and product ideas better.
• You can also compare up to five search terms to see what their popularity looks like against each other.

Google Trends is a useful market research tool, but it does have a few downsides. The data you get is only from Google, so it doesn’t cover trends from any other online platform. It also doesn’t provide any in-depth analysis or advanced features.

If you're looking to simplify your market research and get reliable information without having to go through endless search results, Perplexity is for you. It is an AI-powered search engine that takes care of the research part for you. Simply ask your question, and the AI will search through the internet to provide you with relevant results in a few seconds. It has up-to-date information from various online sources, making sure that you get concise and accurate answers to your queries.

This market research tool offers many benefits like

• Perplexity uses advanced AI technology to help you find exactly what you're looking for. You don't have to deal with any irrelevant results or read lengthy articles.
• Instead of just giving you links, it gives you detailed summaries and clear explanations as well. This makes it easier to understand the information you find.
• You can also get charts, tables and graphs to help you visualise any data easily.

Perplexity is undoubtedly a great research tool that might eventually replace search engines like Google one day; however, if you want better and more advanced research, you’ll have to opt for a paid plan.

BuzzSumo is for those who want to stay on top of what's popular in their industry and create content that resonates with their audience. With this tool, you can discover the most shared content on any topic across social media platforms. You can see what kind of content is getting attention, find top-performing influencers in your niche, and keep track of what your competitors are doing. This helps you understand your audience and make better content strategies.

BuzzSumo offers many features and benefits to its users like

• You can search for trending topics and see what content people like most. This includes articles, videos, blogs or social media posts.
• You can analyse your competitor’s strategies and see which of their content is most popular, who's sharing it, and get alerts when they post new content.
• You can search for influencers by industry, where they are, or what websites they use.
• The tool can also track when people mention certain words, brands, or products online. This helps you know what people are saying about you and what's new in your field.

BuzzSumo is a great market research tool for tracking industry trends and monitoring popular content. However, getting used to all its features can take some time, and it can be a bit pricey for people with a limited budget.

If you want to get insights into the types of ads your competitors are running and see how they’re performing, Meta Ad Library is the tool for you. As the name suggests, it’s a library with a collection of all active ads running across Facebook and Instagram. You can view detailed information about each ad like the ad copy, impressions, etc., and get ideas for your own ad campaigns. Simply type in the name of a business, keyword, or topic to see all related active ads.

• You can filter ads by country, audience size, language, and ad category, making it easier to find relevant ads in your industry. All ads are easily accessible to the public.
• You can also track changes in ad strategies over time and see how different ads performed in the past.
• You can use the Ad Library Report to see ads related to politics and social issues and get details about them.

Meta Ad Library is a useful tool for analysing industry ads and studying competitor strategies. Its only limitation is that it doesn’t cover ads on other platforms except Facebook and Instagram. You also won’t get in-depth metrics like click-through rates or conversion rates.

Statista is a useful market research tool if you’re looking to get reliable market data, facts and statistics. It has a huge collection of statistics, reports and data on various topics. Simply enter your search term, and you can access charts, graphs, and reports on many industries and markets. You can download data in different formats, find forecasts and trends, and get information on consumer behaviour as well.

Statista has many features and benefits that you can use, such as,

• You can access more than one million statistics from over 22,500 sources. This covers many topics and industries, helping you find the data you need.
• You can get detailed industry reports, market studies, and forecasts. These give in-depth analyses of various sectors and keep you informed about market changes.
• Statista creates easy-to-understand infographics that simplify complex data. These are useful for presentations, reports, and marketing materials.
• The platform is user-friendly and easy to navigate. You can quickly search for specific statistics, look through categories, or explore trending topics.
• You can also customise data tables and charts to suit your needs and easily download data in various formats, like Excel or PDF.

Statista is a great tool for market research, but it has a few downsides. You’ll have to opt for the premium subscription to access some data and advanced features. It can also be overwhelming for new users.

If you want to track your brand mentions and know what people are saying about your brand online, Brandwatch can help. You can use it to find mentions of your brand on social media, see if people are saying positive or negative things, and track what's popular in your industry. It shows you how well your social media posts are doing and if any influencers are mentioning your brand.

You can also compare your brand to competitors and get alerts if there's a sudden change in your brand mentions. This helps you make better marketing decisions and improve your online presence.

• You can identify popular topics related to your brand and industry. This helps you stay updated by knowing what's trending and relevant.
• Not just yours; you can also monitor the mentions and sentiments of your competitors. This gives you insights into their strengths and weaknesses, helping you improve your own strategies.
• The tool offers customisable dashboards where you can see all your social media data in one place. You can easily create reports that fit your specific needs.
• It also provides data in real-time, allowing you to respond quickly to any important changes in your brand's online presence.

Brandwatch is a great social media listening tool, but it's not without limitations. It can be quite expensive, especially for small businesses or startups. Sometimes, data overload can happen if it’s not managed properly. Also, it can be complicated for new users.

Prisync is for retailers, e-commerce businesses, and market analysts who want to monitor competitor prices and optimise their own pricing strategies. The tool automatically tracks other sellers' prices, so you don't have to do it manually. It gives you updated information about any price changes and even suggests the best prices to set. This helps you decide how to set your own prices to make the most money and stay competitive.

With Prisync,

• You can set dynamic pricing rules, which basically means that your prices can adjust automatically based on what your competitors are charging.
• You’ll have an easy-to-use dashboard where you can see all your pricing information in one place. This makes it simple to compare and analyse prices.
• You can also set up alerts that tell you when competitors change their prices. This helps you respond quickly to market changes.
• The tool creates detailed reports on pricing trends and what your competitors are doing. These reports help you improve your pricing strategies.
• You can also integrate Prisync with other e-commerce platforms and tools.

While Prisync is a great market price research tool, it has some limitations you should consider before using it. It can be costly if you’re on a limited budget. It may also need some time to set up properly, and the accuracy of the data is completely dependent on the data online.

If you want to grow your business, find potential markets, or enter new markets, Google's Market Finder can help. This tool provides you with valuable information about potential markets based on your business or product. It includes data on the number of people searching for your product, popular trends, and how much money the consumers have to spend. You also get insights into internet usage in different countries and how much you might have to spend on ads. Using Market Finder, you can compile a list of promising new markets and figure out where your brand might do well.

• Market Finder gives you details about different markets, like the market size, growth potential and consumer behaviour. This helps you choose the best markets to sell your products.
• It shows you who your main competitors are in each market and what are their strengths and weaknesses.
• You also get practical tips on how to enter a new market, including shipping, payment methods, and what laws you need to follow.
• You can get recommendations to help you set up Google Ads to reach new customers in different countries.

Market Finder is a useful tool for finding new business opportunities in different countries, but it has some limitations. It works best only for businesses that are already up and running or want to expand to other countries. The tool mostly uses information from Google, which means it might not show you everything about a market.

You'll also probably need to use other tools and sources too if you want to fully understand and plan how to enter a new market. So, while Market Finder is a good starting point, it shouldn't be the only thing you rely on when making decisions about expanding your business internationally.

Similarweb is perfect for those who want to understand their own site’s traffic or analyse their competitors. With this tool, you can get a detailed overview of a website’s traffic, including the number of visits, average visit duration, pages per visit, bounce rate, and more. This helps you understand any site's overall performance. You can also get insights for apps.

With Similarweb,

• You can see where the website’s visitors are coming from, giving you insights into geographic trends and opportunities for market expansion.
• You can analyse different traffic sources, such as direct visits, referrals, search engines, social media, and display ads.
• You can also get demographic data about the website’s audience, including age range, gender, and interests. This helps you tailor your marketing strategies to better target your audience.
• You can compare your website’s performance with competitors by analyzing their traffic, engagement metrics, and top-performing pages. This can help you identify gaps and opportunities in your strategy.
• You can also discover keywords driving traffic to a website. This helps you optimize your SEO and PPC campaigns to capture more organic and paid traffic.

Similarweb offers many useful features and benefits, but it has a few limitations. You'll have to get a premium subscription to access its advanced features and data. Also, the information it provides might not be as accurate for smaller websites as it is for bigger ones.

AnswerThePublic is a helpful tool for those who want to understand what their customer wants and create content that resonates with them. It shows you what people are searching for on the internet about any particular topic. You can get questions, long-tail keywords, and phrases that people are searching for on different platforms like Google, Bing, YouTube, TikTok, etc. You can use this information to come up with better content that your audience is genuinely interested in.

• It presents the search data in visually appealing formats, like charts and diagrams. This makes it easy to understand the questions and topics people are searching for.
• You can find specific questions people ask by using modifiers like "what," "how," "why," etc.
• You can also select your desired country and language to get more relevant results.
• It helps you come up with ideas for blog posts, articles, and other content that directly caters to your audience interests.
• You can also get the search volume and CPC of keywords.

Like any other tool, AnswerThePublic has some drawbacks as well. The free version only lets you do a few searches per day, and the way it shows information can sometimes be confusing because there’s so much data. Also, not all the search queries it shows are relevant, so you'll need to spend time picking out the ones that matter to you.