Market research goes hand-in-hand with digital marketing. Some of the best digital marketing and marketing strategy is based on sound market research. Conducting market research as a first step prior to a new campaign or prior to a new year of marketing strategies, pays huge dividends.
There are reasons why many organizations plan and budget for market research prior to launching a new digital marketing strategy. Refining a campaign after it has started means you are already willing to accept wasted dollars.
Whereas with market research first, it more like an investment to eliminate risk. By spending a little up-front it could increase the ROI of your advertising by 3X, 4X, or 10X.
Using market research to inform digital marketing strategy is a sound approach. The custom data assists with messaging, target audiences, appropriate channels, and content.
Here’s how to understand the ROI of market research for advertising.
Digital marketing is fast-moving and a super competitive environment. With constant algorithm changes, new platforms, and shifting consumer expectations it’s important to stay up-to-date. Without data and insights to rely on, digital strategies can miss the mark and overspend tons of marketing dollars. Market research can help fill in the gaps that give digital marketing teams the clarity they need to build campaigns that actually resonate and give a positive ROI.
Market research helps digital marketers understand their audience at a deeper level. Instead of just looking at numbers or guessing what messages or channels will work, research uncovers how customers search, shop, and engage online. This can include things for example like content types, purchasing motivators, and even the barriers that keep them from converting. With these insights, marketing firms can refine targeting, personalize messaging, and design creative that speaks directly to the right people.
Another reason market research is essential is competitive awareness. The digital space is crowded, and standing out requires more than just a bigger ad budget. Research allows agencies to track trends, benchmark against competitors, and identify gaps where a client’s brand can differentiate itself.
Whether it is testing ad concepts before launch, measuring brand sentiment across social channels, or mapping out buyer personas, research provides the roadmap to make campaigns more efficient and impactful.
For digital marketing companies looking to deliver stronger results, market research becomes the foundation for results. When paired with the right research partner, agencies can provide their clients with measurable results and the confidence that their marketing dollars are driving real growth.
Guessing is not something you want to do with your budgets. A/B tests often turn into A/B/C/D/E/F tests to help you understand the idiosyncrasies of the data as you build towards an optimal advertisement. This takes a lot of time and money, and you still may not end up at the best potential ad to showcase which offers the highest return.
Market research can provide answers for your advertising strategy. It can answer several key questions such as:
(1) What differentiates the product over others?
(2) Why do customers choose the product?
(3) What would it take to get customers to purchase more?
Not exactly sure who the highest value customers are? Services such as a customer insights analysis or CRM analysis can help identify these buckets for you and segment your demographics. Other ways to tackle and segment audiences is through a simple customer survey. The survey can help clarify the type of customer and prospective customer you should be targeting.
Tactical strategies can be created to use message B to target to audience D, use message C to target audience A, and so on. Not all customers purchase your product for the same reason so why should your advertising use only 1 message to 1 audience?
Have you taken a step back to understand which channels are most effective to spend your dollars? You want to spend your marketing budget where your customers spend their time. This could be a combination of digital (SEM, SEO, social media) and traditional (television, trade shows, radio).
A survey inquires about these channels and how often the customers use/go to each. The survey can also inquire about source(s) of awareness from your advertising in the past 3 months. Where have your customers seen or heard your brand recently?
This is helpful as you plan a higher level strategic budget.
Digital marketing is intended to push users to your website. Whether it is SEM, SEO, or social media, you likely want visitors to go to your website to purchase your product, or if it is a B2B sale, to complete some additional research.
Conducting a survey helps you understand exactly what customers want to see and read on a website. What factor(s) most influence the choice of a product? Do customers have a misconception of your product or brand you need to touch on with your website?
The surveys can also be used for content marketing research. The data and insights can be used for blogs, whitepapers, infographics, and compare cards.
Market research in digital marketing is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. Cookie cutter approaches and templates don’t work to find the insights that bring results. We always use a custom approach that helps agencies and brands uncover what their audience wants, how they behave online, and what competitors are doing to win attention.
Every research project starts with a clear goal. For digital marketing, this might mean testing ad creative before launch, understanding how customers move through a sales funnel, or measuring brand awareness on specific channels.
The objective should always tie back to business outcomes like more qualified leads/sales, higher conversion rates, or stronger engagement. Setting a goal upfront ensures the research is focused, actionable, and helps you achieve the goals set for your campaigns.
The right audience is the key to quality insights. For digital campaigns, you might need to find specific buyer personas, industry decision-makers, or even competitor customers. Once you know who you need to reach, the next step is selecting methods.
Surveys, interviews, focus groups, social listening, and advanced analytics are all options. The key is choosing the method that aligns with your goals. For example, if you want feedback on ad concepts, focus groups may work best. If you need broad sentiment data, a survey or social analysis could be more effective. Picking the right method is the next step to making sure the campaign achieves all its goals.
With goals and methods defined, it’s time to collect data. Depending on the methods chosen, the next step would be fielding online surveys, running A/B tests, or tapping into existing digital analytics like Google Analytics, CRM data, or social insights. At this stage, it is important to ensure quality. A strong research partner (like us at Drive Research) will make sure your sample is representative, responses are reliable, and data is cleaned before analysis. The more rigorous the collection process, the more confident you can be in the results.
The real value of digital marketing research comes from turning insights into recommendations. We go beyond showing raw data points. Our analysis can reveal which messages resonate, which audiences are most likely to convert, and where campaigns may be underperforming. Beyond reporting numbers, a good analysis should show what’s working, what isn’t, and what steps to take next. For marketing agencies, this is where you can connect research back to client outcomes and provide a clear plan for improvement.
Drive Research is a market research company. We partner with advertising agencies and marketing companies across the country to help their team and their clients optimize their marketing strategies.
Interested in learning more about how market research can assist with digital marketing? Questions? Need a proposal? Contact us below.
