Top 27 Market Research Tools

McKinsey reports that around 75% of Americans stick to familiar brands, even in uncertain times, showcasing our resistance to change. This brand loyalty, or rather resistance, affects new product launches. Many launches fail owing to insufficient research, which translates into wrong segmentation poorly planned features.

Market research is the compass that guides successful business decisions. By gauging the potential of new offerings and consumer sentiments, it minimizes costly missteps. Market research tools simplify the process, aiding in data collection and insight gathering for effective decision-making.

Whether a large enterprise or a small business, the right tools are essential. These tools help expedite data retrieval and analysis for different markets and products. Customer research, similarly, is crucial for adapting to the competitive landscape. Businesses of all sizes can access online tools and data sources to understand customer perspectives, avoiding expensive focus groups or consultants.

The Advantages of Using a Market Research Tool  

Steering Business Communication

Market research is what makes it easier for brands to effectively communication with existing and potential customers. With market research outcomes incorporated into the messaging, communication with customers gets more engagement. You gain comprehensive insights into customer preferences, preferences, and interests. This allows for refined targeting through segmentation that classifies customers based on their geography, age, gender, income, etc.  

Reduces Risk Exposure

Gathering data and insights via market research enables decision-makers to make informed decisions rather than relying on intuition. For instance, it aids in identifying areas where a specific product line or service may already be overly saturated. Market research would also shine a light on the segments of customers that wouldn���t resonate with the product or service.  

Recognizes Market Opportunities

Market research reveals the gaps in the market, which gives brands the opportunity to craft services or products to knit the gap together. Consequently, you can modify the product or service to suit the market's requirements better.

Predicts Sales and Optimizes Advertising Investment

Market research enables the sales teams to predict sales projections for upcoming products or services, aiding in the allocation of advertising budgets to maximize ROI.  

Evaluates Brand Perception and Customer Requirements

Competitor research enables brands to keep track of their competitors. The insights from competitor research can be then used to plan strategies in response or to skip ahead of competition.  

Identifies Customer Trends

Agile market research is what brands must be looking into right now. Continuous market research will enable brands to predict and prepare for customer trends.  

Benchmarks and Tracks Market Position Progress

Market research allows tracking and benchmarking of brand progress to determine market standing. This translates into decision-makers executing timely strategic interventions.  

Balances Intuition and Empirical Research Findings

While personal perceptions about products or services are crucial, market research real perspective. It validates customer insights by directly seeking opinions from the target audience, helping brands find a middle ground between the decision-makers' intuition and substantiated results.

Shapes Brand Promise Definition

Brand promises are an umbrella that covers a wide range of service effectiveness to product quality. Market research helps you clarify and emphasise your brand promise so that it has a strong emotional connection with your audience. This builds brand loyalty and ensure that your customers buy from you over your competitors.  

The Top 27 Market Research Tools to Make Your Lives Easier  

One-size does not fit all. All marketers and researchers know this. This applies to choosing a market research tool as well. With automation at the forefront of the digital space, there are plenty of market research tools that are out there to make lives easier for brands.  

However, choosing the wrong tools will do the opposite of help. To make it easier for you, we���ve put together a list of the best market research tools out there ��� 27 of them, and their key features ��� so you can pick and choose the market research tool that matches your market research requirements.  

1. Decode  

Decode is a comprehensive DIY integrated consumer research platform that facilitates both qualitative and quantitative research. It offers an intuitive user interface, flexible survey templates, and a repository to store all your customer feedback, reviews, documents, and insights. By simplifying the research process, Decode empowers brands to effortlessly gather, analyze, and extract valuable insights.

Marketing and research teams can capture the voice of the customer and leverage their emotional experiences to get actionable insights by using patented technologies such as Facial Coding, Eye Tracking, and Voice AI.

• 10+ Survey Templates to Simplify Research: Decode offers a selection of pre-designed survey templates that cover various research topics and methodologies. These templates provide a starting point for researchers, saving time and effort in creating surveys from scratch. Researchers can customize these templates to suit their research goals and gather insights more efficiently.

• Conduct Live Conversations on the Platform: Users can conduct live conversations and interviews within the platform itself. Researchers can engage with participants in real time, gather qualitative insights, and ask follow-up questions. With live conversation support, researchers are able to streamline collecting in-depth feedback and opinions.  

• Integration with Video Conferencing Tools: Decode has in-built integration with the most popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Teams, WebEx, etc. This way researchers do not have to step out of Decode to conduct qualitative studies. This integration eliminates the need for using disjointed tools.  

• Research Repository to Collate All Your Research Data: The research repository within Decode serves as a centralized hub to store and organize all research-related data, including surveys, interviews, reports, and findings. Researchers can also upload previous discussion recordings here as well. This ensures that researchers have easy access to their accumulated research data, making it simpler to review, analyze, and draw conclusions over time.  

• Generative AI for Automated Transcripts, Highlights & Summaries: Decode employs generative artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically transcribe audio and video interviews, generate highlights, and create summaries. This AI-powered feature accelerates converting qualitative data into structured insights, enabling researchers to focus on analysis rather than transcription.

• Access Control at Team Level and User Level: Decode provides access control features that allow administrators to manage user permissions and access levels. This ensures that sensitive research data is only accessible to authorized team members, maintaining data security and compliance in line with privacy regulations.

• Behavioural Analytics to Uncover Consumer Intent and Motivations: Decode incorporates behavioral analytics capabilities through its patented facial coding and eye-tracking technologies. It helps researchers delve deeper into consumer intent and motivations. Researchers can gain insights into participants' decision-making processes and preferences by analyzing participant behaviors within the platform, such as interactions with surveys and conversations.

• 80+ Million Online Panel for Targeting the Right Participants: Decode offers access to a substantial online panel comprising more than 80 million participants. This vast pool of potential respondents allows researchers to precisely target individuals who match specific demographic criteria, ensuring their research samples are representative and aligned with their study objectives.

{{cta-button}}

2. SurveyMonkey

As the name implies, SurveyMonkey gives its users the ability to create, distribute, and analyse surveys. It is suitable for both individuals and organisations thanks to its user-friendly design, variety of question kinds, and customizability possibilities.  Additionally, SurveyMonkey provides real-time data analysis. Although the name of the platform is SurveyMonkey, it can be used for a range of research purposes, from staff engagement to customer feedback.

• User-Friendly Interface: An intuitive interface to streamline the creation of surveys and analysing results.

• Question Types: A wide range of question types, including multiple-choice, open-ended, rating scales, and more.

• Customization: To match brand identify, users can customize survey themes, branding, and layout.  

• Logic and Branching: Advanced skip logic enables the researchers to tailor survey experiences based on respondent answers.

• Real-time Data Analysis: Real-time reports and analytics help track responses and trends as they come in.

• Collaboration: SurveyMonkey allows teams to collaborate on survey creation and analysis.

• Integration: It integrates with various third-party tools like Salesforce and Microsoft Teams.

• Mobile Compatibility: Surveys are optimized for mobile devices, ensuring a seamless experience for respondents.

3. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a cutting-edge platform for market research and customer experience management. Users can design intricate surveys, feedback forms, and research projects with Qualtrics. Due to the company's focus on business solutions, Qualtrics provides strong features such as sophisticated survey logic, CRM system connectivity, and in-depth analytics. It is advised for businesses looking to learn more about their consumers, staff, and product usage.  

• Enterprise-Grade: Qualtrics is known for its robust features tailored for large-scale enterprises and complex research needs.

• Advanced Survey Logic: Intricate branching and skip logic is available to create highly customized survey paths.

• Multimedia Integration: Allows embedding images, videos, and interactive elements within surveys.

• Integration with CRM: Integrates with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for seamless data synchronization.

• Experience Management: Beyond surveys, it offers tools for measuring customer, employee, and product experiences.

• Powerful Analytics: Provides in-depth analytics, trend analysis, and predictive insights.

• Customization: Highly customizable templates, themes, and survey designs to match branding.

• API Access: Enables integration with other systems through APIs for enhanced functionality.  

Have a look: How to Create Engaging Reports with Data Visualization

4. Discuss.io

Discuss.io is a platform for market research that concentrates on qualitative insights. It allows researchers to interact with participants through online forums, focus groups, and communities, providing them with deep insights into their opinions and perceptions. By engaging in rich discussions, businesses can discover nuanced insights, refine their concepts, and explore customer motivations. Discuss.io fosters meaningful conversations using an interactive approach, leading to valuable qualitative data that can enhance strategic decision-making.

• Online Focus Groups: Discuss.io enables businesses to conduct online focus groups, fostering interactive discussions among participants to uncover qualitative insights.

• Community Engagement: The platform facilitates building and managing communities, allowing ongoing conversations that provide a more profound understanding of consumer perspectives.

• Rich Qualitative Insights: Researchers can capture detailed opinions, emotions, and motivations through in-depth conversations and open-ended discussions.

• Participant Collaboration: Participants in Discuss.io can engage in collaborative activities, enabling co-creation and ideation sessions for product development and innovation.

• Moderator Tools: Discuss.io equips moderators with tools to facilitate discussions, manage participants, and guide conversations toward valuable insights.

• Media Sharing: The platform supports media sharing, allowing participants to upload images, videos, and other media to enrich discussions and provide context.

5. Google Surveys

Google Surveys is one of the Google ecosystem's tools for conducting market research. It is made for quick and economical surveys that allow users to target particular populations. Businesses can learn more about the tastes and behaviour of their customers by using Google Surveys. It's primarily helpful for people who wish to swiftly and effectively reach a broad and diversified audience.

• Quick and Cost-Effective: Designed for rapid data collection and insights, particularly for smaller budgets.

• Demographic Targeting: Allows targeting specific demographics for more relevant results.

• Wide Audience Reach: Leverages Google's extensive network to reach a diverse and large audience.

• Customizable Survey Appearance: Basic customization of survey appearance and branding.

• Integration with Google Analytics: Connects with Google Analytics for more comprehensive data analysis.

• Easy Sharing: Simple sharing options for distributing surveys via email, links, or embedded on websites.

• Real-time Results: Offers real-time survey response tracking and data analysis.

• Pay-as-You-Go Model: Payment based on the number of completed responses, offering flexibility.

{{cta-button}}

6. Toluna

Toluna helps businesses conduct market research by providing a range of tools for surveys, recruiting respondents, and analyzing data. With a large online panel of millions of participants from various demographics, Toluna offers targeted insights for businesses. The platform allows for real-time surveys with quick results and advanced analytics, making it easy for businesses to collect consumer feedback efficiently. Toluna's customizable research solutions and diverse participant profiles make it a flexible choice for companies seeking data-driven insights to inform their strategies.

• Survey Creation: Toluna offers a comprehensive suite of tools for crafting surveys, encompassing various question types and design options to suit research needs.

• Online Panel Access: With Toluna's extensive online panel, businesses can select from millions of participants to ensure representation of diverse demographics.

• Quick Surveys: Toluna's QuickSurveys feature enables rapid survey deployment and data collection for time-sensitive research projects.

• Advanced Analytics: The platform provides advanced analytics tools for in-depth data analysis, empowering researchers to uncover trends, patterns, and correlations.

• Customization: Toluna offers customizable research solutions, allowing businesses to tailor surveys and research approaches to specific objectives.

• Real-Time Reporting: Toluna's real-time reporting capabilities enable researchers to monitor survey responses and insights as they are collected, facilitating iterative decision-making.  

Have a look: 9 Ways to Create a Collaborative Research Environment

7. Typeform

Typeform stands out with its interactive and engaging survey design. It's often used for creating visually appealing surveys and forms that feel like conversations. Typeform's unique approach involves one question at a time, reducing survey fatigue and increasing response rates. It's suitable for businesses looking to create memorable user experiences and collect valuable insights.  

• Conversational Experience: Uses an interactive, one-question-at-a-time approach that feels like a conversation.

• Engaging Design: Highly visual and appealing designs enhance respondent experience.

• Customizable Themes: Allows full customization of themes and styles for branding consistency.

• Advanced Question Logic: Offers branching, logic jumps, and conditional logic for tailored experiences.

• Multimedia Integration: Embeds images, videos, and GIFs directly within the survey.

• Mobile-Friendly: Surveys are optimized for mobile devices, ensuring a seamless experience.

• Data Visualization: Provides visually engaging data visualization and reporting.

• Integration with Other Apps: Integrates with various tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, and Slack.  

8. QuestionPro

QuestionPro is a versatile market research tool offering various features for survey creation, distribution, and analysis. It provides a wide range of question types, templates, and customizable designs. QuestionPro is notable for its additional research capabilities, such as conjoint analysis for product optimization and sentiment analysis for understanding customer emotions. It caters to diverse research needs and audience types.

Each of these tools has its strengths and is suited for different types of research and data collection needs. The choice between them depends on factors like the complexity of your research, your target audience, and the specific features you require. Always consider your research goals and the features provided by each tool before making a decision.  

• Diverse Question Types: Offers various questions, from essential to advanced options.

• Customization: Highly customizable survey design, layout, and branding.

• Conjoint Analysis: Unique feature for product optimization by understanding trade-offs in preferences.

• Sentiment Analysis: Analyzes open-ended responses to gauge respondent sentiments.

• Collaboration: Supports teamwork with features like shared access and collaboration on surveys.

• Advanced Reporting: Provides advanced reporting tools for in-depth data analysis.

• Multilingual Surveys: Supports surveys in multiple languages for global reach.

• Interactive Questionnaires: Creates interactive and engaging questionnaires for higher respondent engagement.  

{{cta-button}}

9. Dscout

Dscout is a research platform that captures real-world, in-the-moment insights through mobile technology. It allows researchers to create 'missions' where participants document their experiences using photos, videos, and notes. Dscout is valuable for understanding user behaviors, attitudes, and contexts. Its key features include remote ethnography, multimedia data collection, advanced analysis tools, and the ability to gather insights over time.

• Real-World Insights: Dscout focuses on capturing genuine, real-world insights by enabling participants to document their experiences as they happen, and save them as diary studies.

• Mobile Ethnography: Researchers can create "missions" where participants use their smartphones to share photos, videos, and notes about their experiences.

• Rich Multimedia Data: Participants provide context-rich data, offering a deeper understanding of behaviors, attitudes, and the context in which decisions are made.

• In-Context Understanding: Dscout allows researchers to observe users' behaviors and thought processes in their natural environments.

• Longitudinal Studies: Researchers can gather insights over time by having participants contribute to missions at different points, uncovering changes and trends.

• Advanced Analysis Tools: The platform provides tools for coding, categorizing, and analyzing the collected multimedia data.

• Participant Interaction: Researchers can interact with participants in-app, providing guidance and asking follow-up questions.

10. UserTesting

UserTesting specializes in user experience (UX) research by providing a platform for remote usability testing. It enables researchers to watch and listen to real users interacting with websites, apps, and prototypes. Users' interactions and feedback offer insights into usability issues, pain points, and opportunities for improvement. UserTesting features include remote testing, moderated and unmoderated sessions, screen recording, and options to recruit target user demographics.

• Remote Usability Testing: UserTesting enables researchers to remotely observe users interacting with digital products, websites, and prototypes.

• Screen Recording: Session recordings capture users' actions, mouse movements, and spoken thoughts, revealing their decision-making process.

• Targeted User Recruitment: UserTesting allows researchers to select specific demographics for testing, ensuring relevant user feedback.

• Moderated and Unmoderated Testing: Researchers can choose between moderated sessions with real-time interaction and unmoderated sessions for flexibility.

• Feedback and Annotations: Participants can provide feedback through written responses and annotations on specific elements of the interface.

• User Experience Feedback: UserTesting helps identify usability issues, navigation challenges, and opportunities for improving the user experience.  

Have a look: UX Content Testing: Unlocking the Potential of Your Content

11. Suzy  

Suzy is a market research platform that links companies with consumers for fast insights. It utilizes AI-powered surveys to offer prompt feedback from consumers, allowing brands to make informed decisions swiftly. Suzy's user-friendly interface, extensive consumer network, and fast results have made it a popular choice for agile market research, aiding businesses in obtaining effective insights to enhance their products, campaigns, and strategies.

• AI-Powered Surveys: Suzy utilizes AI-driven surveys to rapidly collect real-time consumer insights, enabling businesses to make data-informed decisions quickly.

• Consumer Network: Suzy provides access to a large and diverse consumer network, ensuring that brands can target specific demographics for their research needs.

• Agile Research: With Suzy, businesses can conduct agile market research to validate concepts, refine strategies, and gather feedback.

• Quick Turnaround: Suzy's platform offers rapid response times, allowing brands to receive actionable insights within a short timeframe for timely decision-making.

• Customizable Surveys: Users can create tailored surveys with various question types, ensuring that research objectives are met with relevant and insightful data.

• Data Visualization: Suzy's data visualization tools present research findings clearly and visually appealingly, aiding in the interpretation of insights.  

12. Hotjar

Hotjar is a tool that offers visual feedback on user behavior through heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys. It helps researchers and businesses understand how visitors navigate websites, where they click, and how far they scroll. Heatmaps show areas of high activity, session recordings provide insights into user journeys, and surveys gather direct feedback. Hotjar is valuable for optimizing website usability and conversions.

• Heatmaps: Hotjar generates heatmaps that visually represent where users click, move, and scroll on a webpage, highlighting areas of high activity.

• Session Recordings: Recordings capture users' interactions with a website, allowing researchers to replay their journeys and actions.

• User Behavior Insights: Hotjar provides insights into user behavior, such as how far users scroll, where they drop off, and where they encounter issues.

• Feedback and Surveys: Researchers can create on-site surveys to collect direct feedback from users about their experiences and preferences.

• Conversion Funnel Analysis: Hotjar's funnel analysis tracks users' progression through a series of pages, helping identify drop-offs and optimization points.

• Usability Testing: The tool offers insights into user frustrations, allowing for targeted improvements in website usability.

• Responsive Design Testing: Hotjar helps assess how users interact with a website on different devices, aiding in responsive design optimization.

{{cta-button}}

13. Nielsen

Nielsen is a well-established market research company that provides insights into consumer behavior and media consumption. Their data and analytics help businesses understand audience demographics, preferences, and consumption patterns across various media channels. Nielsen's services cover television, radio, online, and retail data, providing a comprehensive view of market trends.  

• Media Consumption Data: Nielsen gathers data on media consumption, providing insights into TV, radio, online streaming, and other media channels.

• Audience Measurement: Nielsen measures audience demographics, viewership, listenership, and engagement for TV shows, radio programs, and digital content.

• Market Research: Nielsen offers comprehensive market research, enabling businesses to understand consumer preferences, trends, and brand performance.

• Cross-Platform Insights: Nielsen provides insights across various media platforms, helping marketers make informed decisions on advertising and content distribution.

• Consumer Behavior Analysis: Nielsen's data-driven approach helps businesses understand how consumers engage with media and make purchasing decisions.

• Retail Measurement: Nielsen provides data on consumer purchases, helping manufacturers and retailers understand market share and trends.  

Have a look: