Google’s 3 Tips to Boost Digital Marketing with Trends

Google has provided practical advice on utilising Google Trends to gain insights into competitors, analyse brand awareness, and predict product demand. This tool offers valuable data that can help businesses navigate the competitive landscape and tailor their strategies accordingly. By tapping into search trends, companies can better understand what consumers are looking for, enabling them to adjust their offerings to meet market demands.

In a recent discussion, Daniel Waisberg and Omri Weisman from Google outlined three key strategies for enhancing marketing efforts, both online and offline. These tips focus on leveraging Google Trends search data to inform decision-making processes. By analysing the search behaviours of potential customers, businesses can identify emerging trends and adapt their strategies in real-time, which is crucial in today’s fast-paced market.

One important aspect highlighted by Waisberg and Weisman is the significance of understanding consumer behaviour through search data. This understanding allows businesses to optimise their marketing strategies based on what consumers are actively searching for. By aligning their marketing efforts with current trends, companies can effectively capture the attention of their target audience, ultimately leading to increased engagement and sales.

Additionally, the speakers emphasised the importance of focusing marketing activities to achieve a higher return on investment (ROI). By using insights gained from Google Trends, businesses can allocate their resources more effectively, ensuring that their marketing initiatives are both cost-efficient and impactful. This strategic approach not only enhances brand awareness but also strengthens a company’s position in the market, paving the way for long-term success.

 

Google offers three tips:

1. How To Benchmark Against Competitors
2. Analyzing Brand Awareness
3. Forecasting Product Demand

 

How To Benchmark Against Competitors

Google’s Daniel Waisberg shared valuable insights on researching competitors using Google Trends. He outlined a straightforward method for conducting a head-to-head comparison of search terms related to your company and its competitors. By entering your company name or website in one panel of Google Trends and your competitor’s name or domain in another, you can visually analyse the differences in search interest. This approach provides a clear view of how your brand measures up against others in the same market, helping you identify strengths and weaknesses in visibility.

To enhance the comparison further, Waisberg suggested using the “categories” drop-down menu in Google Trends. By selecting a specific category, you can refine the data to focus on user intent that aligns with particular niches or topics. This allows for a more targeted analysis, as you can see how consumers are searching for terms related to your industry. However, Waisberg reassured users that it’s entirely acceptable to leave the category unselected if a relevant option does not exist. This flexibility ensures that businesses can still gather useful insights without being restricted by category limitations.

Moreover, while Waisberg did not highlight this in his presentation, there is another useful option for segmenting users by the type of search they conduct. Google Trends offers the ability to analyse various search types, including web search, image search, Google Shopping, and YouTube search. This feature can provide additional layers of understanding, allowing you to see how potential customers engage with different forms of content. For example, comparing image search results to web search results can shed light on how people prefer to consume information about your products or services.

By leveraging these capabilities within Google Trends, businesses can make more informed marketing decisions. Understanding not just how your brand compares to competitors but also the nuances of how consumers search for related content can enhance your overall strategy. This comprehensive approach can lead to better targeting of marketing efforts, ultimately resulting in improved brand awareness and higher returns on investment.

 

Step 1: Choose A Category

Google Trends provides a trend line that reflects how frequently users search for different company names. This line indicates whether a company’s search interest is increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable over time. Additionally, spikes in the trend line can suggest seasonal variations, while sharp increases may indicate successful marketing campaigns or promotions that are resonating with customers.

Waisberg advises users to explore search trends by subregion, metropolitan areas, and cities. He highlights this feature as a useful tool for assessing the demand for potential store openings. However, I find this information particularly valuable for identifying geographical areas with higher demand. By focusing online marketing efforts in these locations, businesses can enhance their return on investment (ROI). This targeted approach can apply to various marketing methods, such as link building, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, or email campaigns.

 

Step 2: Analyze Subregions

Daniel Waisberg begins his explanation at the 03:11 minute mark, highlighting the value of Google Trends in competitive analysis. He notes that by examining the results, businesses can gain insight into how well they are performing compared to their competitors over time. This trend analysis allows companies to identify whether they are gaining market share or losing ground in relation to their rivals.

Waisberg elaborates that as you scroll down the Google Trends page, you can delve deeper into specific metrics. Here, you can compare your performance against competitors across various subregions, metropolitan areas, and cities. This granular data is crucial for businesses looking to expand, as it helps them understand regional demand and market strength. 

Waisberg emphasises that this information can play a significant role in strategic planning, particularly when deciding on potential locations for new stores. By pinpointing areas with higher demand and stronger market presence, businesses can make informed decisions that ultimately enhance their chances of success. This approach not only optimises marketing efforts but also ensures resources are allocated effectively to achieve maximum return on investment.

 

2. Analyzing Brand Awareness

Waisberg explains that Google Trends is a useful tool for tracking brand awareness. By filtering results over specific timeframes, such as the past 30 or 90 days, businesses can gain insights into public perceptions of their brand. 

He highlights that related search terms, particularly those that are rising or among the top terms, provide valuable information about how consumers view the brand and what associations they make with it. This approach can also be applied to YouTube search trends; by selecting “YouTube Search” from the Categories dropdown menu at the top of the Google Trends page, users can see how their brand is discussed across different platforms.

Omri Weisman elaborates on this point starting at the 4:37 minute mark. He advises that to monitor public sentiment, businesses should check their brand name in Google Trends. By scrolling down to the related search terms section, users can examine both the rising and top terms associated with their brand. It is important to navigate through the results using the pagination arrows below the table. This process helps businesses understand the terms that consumers are using in relation to their brand, offering critical insights for marketing strategies.

 

3. Forecasting Product Demand

An effective method for predicting product demand using Google Trends involves identifying the most frequently searched products and observing how their demand fluctuates over time. It’s important to monitor seasonal trends so that businesses can adjust their inventory based on expected changes in demand.

Waisberg provides an example at the 6:44 minute mark by researching cheese. He points out the seasonal patterns associated with cheese demand, but goes further by exploring related search terms. This can uncover other products with growing interest that might be worth selling or reviewing.

He explains, “If you scroll down, you’ll find the related topics and related queries sections. Here, you can view the top topics to discover what has generated significant interest, as well as the rising topics that highlight what’s gaining traction recently. Remember to use the pagination arrows to see more results.”

Waisberg also notes that “charcuterie” appears on both lists. He suggests adding this term to your analysis, as it shows significantly more interest than “cheese platters.” This insight may indicate a potential opportunity to diversify your offerings and explore products related to charcuterie further.

 

Google Trends For Successful Online Marketing

Daniel Waisberg and Omri Weisman from Google provided an insightful overview of how businesses can leverage Google Trends to enhance their marketing strategies. They outlined its usefulness in various areas, including online marketing, competitor analysis, and brand research, which can significantly contribute to understanding customer preferences and behaviours. 

By examining search trends, businesses can identify what products consumers are interested in and when demand peaks, allowing them to adjust their marketing efforts accordingly. This capability is particularly valuable for planning promotional campaigns and optimising product launches. Furthermore, the insights gained from Google Trends are not limited to the digital space; they can also inform offline marketing strategies, ensuring that businesses can align their messaging and offerings with consumer interests year-round.

Waisberg and Weisman stressed that utilising these tools can lead to more informed decision-making, ultimately improving overall marketing effectiveness. By recognising which products to focus on and understanding seasonal trends, companies can enhance their market positioning and drive better results, making these insights essential for staying competitive in today’s fast-paced market environment.