6 ways to plan with Google Insights for Search
Since launching Insights for Search in 2008, Google have been providing daily insight into what the world is searching for. Looking at search volume trends across categories, geographic regions and time can help you understand when, where and how the world's interests have changed. This data can help to provide quick, real time insights when planning your marketing campaigns. Here are just a few ways to use Insights for Search.
1) Regional Targeting
By looking at regional data you can analyse the location of your target audience, or do a comparison of different regions to help decide where to target your campaign. This can help to answer questions such as “Where are my target audience located?” and “Which are the most important areas to focus my marketing budget?”
Let’s say, you want to sell snow boots in the UK. Typing ‘Snow boots’ into Insights for Search shows that England has had the highest search volumes over the last 12 months. If you use the sub regional filter of England you can see that popularity is highest in places such as Thames Ditton, Reading, Milton Keynes & Manchester so you may want to up-weight your campaign in these areas.
2) Seasonal Insights
Analysing search volume over time can highlight some important seasonality insights. Often these insights are intuitive and Insights for Search can help back up that hunch. You can look into seasonality of a particular topic such as summer holidays to see that there are a clear spikes of interest in January and then again in April before the June-July last minute rush.
3) Category Insights
You can also look into seasonal patterns for an industry or category, for instance, you work in the retirement and pensions business, a quick search over time shows that there is a spike in search volumes Jan – March. You can also see from rising searches that people are looking for information on what they are entitled to, pension’s forecasts & calculators and benefits. This can help structure both when you target your campaign but also what message may resonate best with your audience.
4) Competitor Insights
Quickly compare interest in your brand vs your competitors. Simply add a search term for each brand and you can compare the search volumes within a given time, region and category. You can also view search volume growth relative to the given category, so you may find that a brand with the smallest search volumes is actually growing at a faster rate than the rest. Keep an eye on the top searches within the category too as this list can be a good indicator of popular brands within your category.
5) Product Insights
For companies with many products under one brand, Insights for Search can show you which product have higher search ‘interest’. This can provide insights to help structure your portfolio, which products to focus your budget on and when.
6) Online/Offline marketing
Insights for search can be used to indicate whether there is a correlation between your offline media activity and online search patterns. Simply map your offline investment by month against a relevant search for the same time period and you can quickly see if a pattern emerges. Use this tool to gauge success of your campaign – have search volumes changed since the campaign start date?
So much real time information at your finger tips. So next time you’re planning a marketing campaign, thinking about budgeting, or just trying to gauge public interest, try Insights for Search. It’s amazing how much can be achieved for free!