Data Product SparkToro

Election Polls vs. Results Can Help Explain How SparkToro’s Data Works

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent the last 48 hours frantically refreshing the NYTimes, Politico, the Washington Post, Five Thirty Eight, & Memeorandum far more times than is healthy. This American election, more than any news event in my lifetime, has induced massive anxiety, fear, hope, and emotional turmoil (at least in those who understand how systems influence behavior…
Data Product Psychology SparkToro

Analyze Your Audience’s Political & Media Behavior in SparkToro

In our ongoing quest to provide unique, valuable audience intelligence, we’re launching a brand new feature in SparkToro today: Media and Political Insights. You’ll find this data available in the Audience Insights section of any SparkToro search. Any timing of this release with major, upcoming political events is purely coincidental… 😉 ABOVE: Media and Politics Insights for users of the…
Data Marketing Psychology

Too Much Creative Marketing is Stifled by Attribution

You’re listening to a podcast. The guest describes a product that sounds compelling, alluring, something you’ve been looking for… What happens next? Yup. You search Google. And then what? Google shows you the website for that alluring product, and you click. Maybe you explore the site a bit, perhaps give them your email address or even buy the product. Next…
Data Hiring Marketing

Survey: 734 Marketing Professionals Share How They’re Hiring in the 2020 Recession

If you’re a marketing student about to graduate, a job-seeker considering the field of marketing, or someone who’s looking to advance in their marketing career, this report is for you. Marketing is an immense, growing, and well-paid field, and is one of the few where credentials and alma mater mean far less than quality of work and level of knowledge.…
Data Marketing

The Dirty Secret to Ranking #1 in Google (Part 3 of 3)

Years ago, one might reasonably separate the elements of Google’s results into distinct entities: Google News, Books, Videos, Images, Local… But today it’s near-impossible. The list of elements Google might show for a given query are so vast and varied that at the macro-level there’s really only three kinds of search results that matter: 1) Google-owned properties and answers (where…
Data Marketing

Marketers Say Most of Google’s Public Statements Are False or Misleading

In July and August of 2019, 1,589 web marketers completed an online questionnaire as part of SparkToro’s Google Ranking Factors Survey. The survey aggregated marketers’ perceptions of the ranking elements used by Google’s search engine. But… it also asked a set of questions around the level of trust in Google’s public statements. Those results are shared for the first time…
Data Marketing

Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden. In June of 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google.com resulted in zero-clicks. Throughout this post, I’ll be using numbers from the clickstream data company, Jumpshot. They are, in my opinion, the best, most reliable source of information on what happens inside…