In our previous article, we walked through the most widely used approaches to online market research.

Online research is fast, affordable, and remarkably convenient. But in the real world, we see a recurring problem: businesses trust the numbers at face value — and end up with a completely distorted picture of the market.

Watch out for thinking like this:

  • ▶“High search volume means a big market.”
  • ▶“Lots of page views means there’s demand.”
  • ▶“Most survey respondents said they’d buy it, so it’ll sell.”

Each of these sounds perfectly reasonable on the surface — but none of them can be taken straight to a business decision.

In this article, we revisit each of the research methods covered previously and break down where things go wrong in practice — and how to actually use these tools to inform sound business decisions. This comes straight from the FinMark Edge consulting floor, where we use these tools every day.





1. Don’t Take Keyword Planner Search Volumes at Face Value

Google Keyword Planner is a handy tool for checking search volumes and the competitive landscape for paid ads. But in practice, it requires a lot of care. The accuracy of the data you get out depends heavily on the accuracy of the keywords you put in.

Take a metal fabrication company exploring B2C product ideas. If they search broad terms like “metal goods,” “storage,” or “home décor,” the volumes will look huge — but the vast majority of those searches will have nothing to do with their products.

Go too narrow — “CNC-milled aluminum desk organizer” or “brass pet accessories” — and the volumes will look almost nonexistent, leading to the false conclusion that there’s no market at all.

Keyword Planner is not a market sizing tool. What actually matters in practice isn’t the volume number itself, but questions like these:

  • ▶Are people searching by use case, problem, or lifestyle context — not by technical specification?
  • ▶Do the high-volume keywords actually reflect purchase intent?
  • ▶Are there lower-volume niche terms that signal strong buying intent?

Instead of reading “big number = big demand,” ask yourself: “What problem is the person searching this term actually trying to solve?”



2. “It’s Trending — Let’s Launch a Product!” Is a Dangerous Leap

Google Trends is another tool that’s easy to misuse. The numbers it shows are not actual search counts — they represent relative interest within a specified time period and region. A high score does not mean a big market. And seasonal keywords can spike sharply for a short window, making a niche trend look much bigger than it really is.

Google Trends cannot be used on its own to assess market size.

In practice, it works well for the following purposes:

  • ▶Comparing relative interest across multiple potential markets
  • ▶Determining whether a spike is a short-lived trend or sustained interest
  • ▶Identifying whether a category is driven by seasonal demand

Especially in new product development, the most practical use of Google Trends isn’t to answer “Is there a market?” — it’s to decide which themes are worth investigating further. Think of it as research before the research.



3. Are You Just Glancing at GA4 and Calling It Analysis?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the go-to tool for understanding how people use your website. But if your process is “check the most-viewed pages and move on,” you’re not actually doing analysis.

High page views do suggest that content is attracting attention — but that alone tells you almost nothing useful for business decisions. The real questions are:

  • ▶Where do visitors go after viewing that page?
  • ▶Does it lead to inquiries or document downloads?
  • ▶Is the traffic coming from search, paid ads, or existing customers browsing?
  • ▶When visitors drop off, is it because the content is lacking or the user journey is broken?

GA4 offers a lot — and what you should be looking at depends entirely on what you’re trying to answer. But getting there requires actually using GA4’s more advanced features, like Exploration reports, rather than just reading the default dashboard.

GA4 is not a tool for passive browsing — it’s a tool for testing hypotheses. “This page gets a lot of views, so there must be demand” is not a business insight. “People who view this page — what do they do next?” is the question that actually leads somewhere.



4. Checking Only “High Impression” Keywords in Search Console Is Pointless

Google Search Console lets you see which keywords are bringing up your site in search results and which ones are getting clicked. Useful — but easy to misread.

High impression counts don’t necessarily mean those are the keywords that matter to you. Your site may simply be surfacing for broad queries from people who will never become customers.

Similarly, high click counts can be misleading. If most clicks are coming from branded searches — people who already know your company name — that’s not evidence that your SEO is working to attract new customers. Treating it that way leads to overestimating your reach.

Here’s where to actually focus your attention:

  • ▶Separate branded searches from non-branded searches
  • ▶Find keywords with high impressions but low click-through rates
  • ▶Identify low-ranking keywords that look like they’d convert if you ranked higher
  • ▶Spot topics people are searching for where your site has no relevant content

Search Console isn’t a tool for patting yourself on the back about current performance. It’s a tool for finding the demand you’re currently failing to capture.



5. SMBs Should Think Twice Before Signing a Similarweb Contract

Similarweb is a powerful tool for estimating competitor traffic, traffic sources, and search keywords. It shows up in virtually every “top digital marketing tools” list — and for good reason.

That said, it is not realistically priced for freelancers or small businesses. The website pushes free trials, and when you ask for commercial pricing, the quotes can be eye-watering.

On top of that, Similarweb’s figures are estimates — not actual data. For smaller websites with lower traffic, the margin of error can be significant.

The real question is whether the cost is justified. If what you’re actually trying to do is:

  • ▶Get a rough sense of a competitor’s traffic keywords
  • ▶Ballpark a competitor’s traffic volume
  • ▶See which pages and topics rank well for competitors

…then lower-cost tools like Rakko Keyword can often get you there. Of course, for mid-sized or larger companies running serious digital strategy, e-commerce analysis, or international competitive research, a tool like Similarweb can absolutely be worth it. But for a small business that just wants to “do some competitive research,” it’s not the right starting point.

Before committing, ask yourself honestly:

  • ▶Could a cheaper tool cover 80% of what I actually need?
  • ▶Do we have the team and plan to act on the insights — in ads, landing pages, product, or sales?
  • ▶Or will this just become an expensive source of numbers we look at and do nothing with?

Powerful tools are weapons in the right hands. In the wrong hands, they become expensive sources of false confidence.



6. Asking “Would You Buy This?” in a Survey Is an Amateur Move

Online surveys — through tools like SurveyMonkey, Questant, or Freeasy — have become far more accessible than they used to be. You can get responses quickly and cheaply. But there’s a trap built right into how most people write their surveys.

“People don’t answer surveys as themselves — they answer as the person they’d like to be.”

Of all the people who say “yes, I’d buy that” in a survey, only a small fraction — often just a few percent — will actually open their wallets when the product launches. Humans are notoriously bad at predicting their own behavior. If you make product or inventory decisions based on stated intentions alone, you’re likely headed for a warehouse full of things nobody buys.

What you should be trusting isn’t survey responses — it’s behavioral data: did money actually change hands in a test sale?

A well-designed survey focuses not just on why people would buy, but on why they wouldn’t. Try asking questions like:

  • ▶Are you currently using something for this purpose? What is it?
  • ▶Where did you buy it, and how much did you pay?
  • ▶What would need to be true for you to switch to something new?
  • ▶If you wouldn’t switch, is it the price? The weight? The design? Maintenance? Or simply that you don’t need it badly enough?

Good survey design is about asking questions you can actually make decisions from — not collecting numbers that feel reassuring. “70% expressed interest” means nothing on its own. What matters is: at what price point, under what circumstances, and what would that 70% have to give up to actually buy?



7. Social Listening Gets Hijacked by the Loudest Voices

Social media and review analysis is a genuinely useful way to surface what consumers actually think — but it comes with a major built-in bias. The people who post are disproportionately those who feel strongly, either very satisfied or very frustrated. The people who bought something, used it, and thought “yeah, fine” rarely say anything at all.

What’s buzzing on social media also doesn’t reliably predict purchasing behavior. A product can generate enormous online conversation and still sell poorly. A controversy can seem massive in the feed and barely register in actual sales data.

Tools like Brandwatch and Mieruka Engine are effective for tracking volume, sentiment, trending keywords, and related topics. But what they show you is “what got posted” — not “what buyers think” or “what the market looks like.”

In practice, social listening is most valuable when used for:

  • ▶Surfacing the specific language customers use to describe their frustrations
  • ▶Understanding natural, unfiltered consumer vocabulary
  • ▶Spotting weaknesses in competitor products
  • ▶Generating ideas for ad copy and landing page messaging
  • ▶Building hypotheses to explore further through surveys or interviews

Social media voices are not answers. They’re starting points — material for asking the next question: “Is this frustration really widespread? And does it actually drive purchasing decisions?”



8. Conclusion: The Biggest Danger in Online Research Is Thinking You Understand When You Don’t

The greatest risk in online market research isn’t a lack of information. It’s that information comes too easily.

Run a search and

you get numbers.

Open a tool and

you get charts.

Send a survey and

you get percentages.

The result? Businesses that haven’t actually validated anything — but feel confident saying “the market is there,” “we can beat the competition,” and “this will sell.”

That’s not to say online research is useless. Solid quantitative data beats gut feeling and wishful thinking every time.

But online research has to be paired with getting out into the field, talking to real customers, and combining multiple methods — then doing the hard work of thinking it all through to reach an actual conclusion. And above all else: the final judgment should be whether customers actually paid.

There is no shortcut to selling.



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