What?
A comprehensive guide about audience research for marketers in 2025. The guide explains what audience research is, why it's essential, how it differs from market research, common myths, various methodologies, and how to future-proof audience research strategies.
Who?
From Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro.
Main Topic:
Audience research - the process of gathering and analyzing information about the people marketers want to reach. The guide positions audience research as critical for modern marketing success, especially as consumer discovery and engagement behaviors have fundamentally changed in recent years.
Main Insights:
Audience research is different from market research - the former is people-centric (micro) while the latter is landscape-centric (macro)
Current audience research practices are insufficient, with 41% of marketers admitting they don't do enough
Five major myths in audience research frequently lead marketers astray
Twelve different methodologies for effective audience research are outlined, each with pros and cons
SparkToro's tool has evolved to use search and clickstream data in addition to social data
There is a correlation between conducting audience research and career satisfaction among marketers
Future-proofing audience research requires staying agile, diversifying data sources, and focusing on first principles rather than trendy tactics
THE Excerpt:
Audience research is the process of gathering and analyzing information about the people you want to reach with your marketing. It’s understanding your target audience’s motivations, pain points, and behaviors. Everything you learn will inform your marketing strategies, messaging, and campaigns. Done well, your efforts will resonate with your audience.
I've listened to tens of Rand Fishkin's interviews, including some from when he was just getting started with Sparktoro. And THE sentence that resonated the most, which wraps up what he's aiming to achieve with Sparktoro, was this one:
Ask yourself: Who Can (and will) Amplify This?
Golden Nuggets:
The most crucial insight is that traditional audience research methods often fail because they rely on what people say they do rather than what they actually do. The marketing landscape has fundamentally changed:
Google answers two-thirds of searches without a click,
social platforms prioritize native content over links,
and audiences make decisions about brands long before reaching their websites.
This new reality requires more sophisticated audience research that captures actual behaviors rather than self-reported ones.
Top Stats & Data:
41% of marketers admit to not doing audience research "nearly enough"
19% of marketers conduct audience research monthly
There's a positive correlation between career satisfaction and frequency of audience research
Two-thirds of Google searches end without a click
Of searches that do end with a click, almost half are branded or navigational searches
100% of all visits from TikTok, Slack, Discord, Mastodon, and WhatsApp are marked as "direct" with no referral information
75% of visits from Facebook Messenger contain no referral information
Instagram DMs, public LinkedIn, and Pinterest posts miss 30%, 14%, and 12% of referral data respectively
What's in it for Marketers?
Combine multiple research methods: The most successful marketers use a combination of research methods to build a true understanding of audience behavior. Start with one or two methods that make sense for your situation and expand from there.
Focus on actual behavior, not self-reported behavior: People are terrible at accurately reporting their own behavior. Track what they actually do rather than what they say they do through tools like social listening, website analytics, and third-party research.
Look beyond your current customers: Your current customers represent only a fraction of your potential audience. Research should include those who haven't found you yet and people who influence your customers (creators, journalists, analysts, etc.).
Don't treat audience research as a one-time activity: Audience behaviors and preferences change regularly. Conduct audience research at least once a year (ideally multiple times) to stay current with shifting demographics, behaviors, and sources of influence.
Understand the difference between traffic sources and decision-making sources: Where people find you isn't necessarily where they make decisions. Focus on understanding the full customer journey, not just the final touchpoint that led to your website.
Wow, ok, so the fact that "100% of all visits from TikTok...are marked as 'direct' with no referral information" really stuns me. Given the massive purchasing potential from engagement with people on TikTok, the fact that referral information is not being captured from there is really surprising to me (that would frustrate any marketer / business owner). As for the correlation between marketer career satisfaction correlating with conducting audience research, that makes total sense. Marketers want to market to people; that's their job, so when they get to actually do their job instead of auxiliary things, it makes them feel like they're accomplishing something (kind of like doctors who spend more time dealing with paperwork, insurance companies and such than actually treating patients).