Market Research vs. Marketing Research

Market research vs. marketing research – they may look similar, but there are distinct differences you should know.

By the end of this post, you’ll understand exactly what differentiates market research from marketing research. And be confident in explaining each and how they serve a business.

What is market research?

Market research examines a target market, looking at a marketplace and the people within it. Most market research types can be either primary, secondary, qualitative, or quantitative.

It’s a type of research that typically gathers information tied to a specific research objective.

The process collates, analyzes, and interprets data relating to:

• A target market (or several)
• A service or product
• A target audience – be it past, present, or forward-looking.

A company can use market research to determine many things. A few examples are:

• Whether to take a new product to market.
• Assess the viability of a business within a market.
• Uncover opportunities for growth.
• Decide on investment.
• Develop strategies to enter a new market.

What is marketing research?

Marketing research addresses a broader set of questions than market research. It goes beyond simply looking at the marketplace – considering pricing, product features, positioning, go-to-market strategy, channels, branding, customer journeys, and more. It seeks to answer a more broad set of questions than market research – as it covers the conception, development, delivery, and evolution of a product or service within a market.

The process collates, analyzes, and interprets data relating to:

• Different marketing channels.
• Opportunities for growth.
• Ad-spend for various channels or products.
• The types of creatives and content to use.
• Organic and paid traffic analysis.
• Website traffic and engagement metrics.
• Social media analysis.

A company can use marketing research to determine many things. A few examples are:

• Which channels deliver ROI for others in the same market.
• Audience demographics, including geography, age, gender, loyalty, search interests, and cross-shopping behaviors of a target audience.
• The most popular pages, content, products, and campaigns.
• The ad creatives and content resonate most with a target audience.
• The levels of pricing, promotions, and packages offered by others in a market.
• Customer journey mapping.

Market vs marketing research similarities

Both marketing and market research are crucial to the success of a business. Although both are different, here are a few areas and ways they can overlap.

• A tool to inform decisions about the type of products or services to offer.
• Types of online market research take the form of a project.
• Seek to provide answers to organizational questions.
• Used to uncover optimal markets or geographical locations to enter.
• Gather information using qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Differences between marketing research and market research

Marketing research looks at products, pricing, positioning, and promotions (the four Ps of marketing), whereas market research focuses mainly on the marketplace.

Market research informs marketing research. However, some believe marketing research is part of market research, whereas others think market research is part of marketing research. To clarify things, I spoke with various leaders in Similarweb – and asked each to explain marketing research vs. market research in their own words.

Here’s what they had to say…

Definition of marketing research vs. marketing research

Marketing research is research around the marketing process. Market research is research around the market/marketplace – sometimes, it’s called business research. Under market research, you have market positioning, market sizing (PAM, TAM, SAM), demand analyses, and comparing different geographies.

There is an overlap between consumer needs, audience demand, and consumer trends are interesting from both a market and marketing perspective. But market research is done when you plan to enter a new market or think about creating a new product when you launch a company or acquire via an M&A/partnership.

Marketing research is done once you already have a product and region, and you need to run marketing activities for this product efficiently and effectively. So I would say the purpose is the most significant difference.

Definition of market research vs. marketing research

Market Research is analyzing the ‘macro’ environment in which your company exists: audiences, major player moves, emerging industries trends, and competitor benchmarking across business impact metrics, e.g. (sales, revenue, job hires, ad spend, customers), etc

Marketing Research is analyzing more at the micro level. So, reviewing either specific or multiple marketing channel activity (PPC, SEO, Referral, Advertising), campaign efficacy, and looking for opportunities to drive ROI on your marketing budget to become more efficient.

As you can see, each person answers the same question with a slightly different sentiment, but fundamentally, they all say the same thing. Market research addresses the marketplace, and marketing research takes a broader view that considers many factors relevant to the marketing mix.

Similarweb: A tool for marketing and market research

Both types of research deliver value to organizations that help shape strategy, uncover opportunities, and enable a razor-sharp focus on efficient growth.

Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence is designed to help you measure the digital world. With coverage that spans web, mobile web, and app data, you can evaluate an entire market in an instant.

• Market research tools
• Company research
• Audience analytics
• Consumer journey Analyzer
• App Intelligence
• Benchmarking tools

Here’s a quick example of how Similarweb Research Intelligence is being used to do market research.

For market research, you’d look at things like market distribution, market size, and perhaps industry leaders and emerging players too. 

Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence helps you get granular and uncover the tactics, tools, techniques, and channels used in a market or company at any time.

• • Competitive analysis tool

• Keyword research suite
• Ad & Media Intelligence
• Affiliate finder

Wrapping up….

Whether you’re doing market or marketing research, you need up-to-date data, relevant to your research objectives. The information you use must be timely, trustworthy, and telling. What’s more, you need a way to analyze an industry, company, or market fast so you extract the most telling of insights, relevant to your market or marketing strategy.

Similarweb’s suite of Digital intelligence solutions gives you immediate access to timely market and marketing data you can trust. Showing you what’s important, and helping you find insights, trends, and opportunities to leverage in your business.

FAQs

Is market research and marketing research the same thing?

Marketing research is an element of market research. Market research is focused on the market and its consumers. In comparison, marketing research looks deeper into the product, pricing, positioning, and promotion.

Can you do marketing research without market research?

You need to do market research to evaluate things like pricing, positioning, promotions, and product. So, you can do market research without marketing research, but you cannot do marketing research without first conducting market research.

Is market research or marketing research best for a start-up?

Both can be important, depending on the industry and stage of the start-up. If it’s pre-launch, you need market research to inform you of the marketplace, and its consumers. Marketing research will help you determine the best opportunities to leverage your market if you’ve already launched.

by Liz March

Digital Research Specialist

Liz March has 15 years of experience in content creation. She enjoys the outdoors, F1, and reading, and is pursuing a BSc in Environmental Science.