Understanding consumer behavior is only becoming more and more important as personal values, shopping and spending habits, and more, continue to shift. Where do consumers look for information? How are they searching online, on social media? 

As PwC mentioned in their most recent consumer insights survey, “By the time they (consumers) unload their shopping cart—either at the end of an in-store queue or on an e-commerce website—they have already made a lot of crucial decisions.” 

How can brands stay competitive in understanding their customers? Our community members shared some of their favorite tips and tools for understanding consumer insights: 

Heather Melcer shared that ad comments can be helpful. When used in conjunction with resources like the Facebook Ad Library, TikTok Creative Center, and YouTube Ads Library to get inspiration and explore successful campaigns from other brands, you could learn a lot about your own program and opportunities on social media. 

Emanuel Moura mentioned that surveys to customers or inviting them for a discussion/questionnaire or user-testing is a great way to get testimonials for social proof and market data to validate assumptions. Market research resources and tools like Google Trends, Qualtrics, and Talkwalker could prove valuable.   

 Dave Sachs recommends Enterpret as a useful tool to help unify all customer feedback across various data sources and platforms. Once it collects the data, it “builds adaptive AI models custom to your feedback architecture to accurately extract granular insights.” 

Shara Felix shared that gamification could be a fun way to gather data but for the customer, it’s a game. Experiences like “scratch off your style to win” or “swipe left/right if you like or don’t like” could be a fun, engaging way to reach your customers and learn more about their wants and needs. Platforms like Wyng could allow you to build robust, fun, and informative gamification campaigns.  

Jim Poon said that seeing product and/or site behaviors can help provide hypotheses (or validate existing ones). He shared that even a handful of consumer interviews help with surfacing ideas and hypotheses to validate quantitatively. Testing via paid media can also help validate value props and messaging and benefits from actual behavior versus self-reported. 

Through a better understanding of what your customers are thinking, feeling, and doing, you can get closer to them and foster even more loyalty.