Top 10 Marketing Research Resources on the Web

As I’ve looked across the web for resources on marketing research and consumer insights, I’ve found lots of sites devoted to marketing in general and online advertising, as well as numerous sites focused on search engine marketing and social media marketing. However, when it comes to sites that focus on the consumer research that hopefully informs all these activities, the resources are much more limited.

I have found, however, some sites that do a good job of providing consumer data and insights. The ones listed below are those that I found the most useful, but I’m always open to any suggestions out there that can point me to ones that I may have missed. While this is a Top 10 list of what I think are the best marketing research resources on the web, they are in no special order:

1. Research Brief is a regularly posting blog on Mediapost by Jack Loechner that always has an interesting stat or data table, mostly focused on consumers and their interaction with digital media.
2. Trendwatching.com bills themselves as “an independent and opinionated trend firm, scanning the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas”. And they do a very good job of doing just that.
3. As a definitive source on Behavioral Targeting and Web Analytics, Anil Batra’s Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising blog is a great source to subscribe to.
4. Jim Nail at Cymphony’s Influence 2.0 covers consumer insights as they relate to social media and conversational marketing.
5. Many times a good graphic can say more than a deck full of words. Which is why Marketing Charts is a great resource for charts, graphs, and tables that convey quickly and clearly consumer insights related to digital media and internet marketing.
6. eMarketer has a huge amount of internet marketing research information. Some parts, like their excellent daily articles, are free. However, there is even more information, including analyst reports and white papers, for those willing to pay for their total access subscriptions.
7. Another trove of good insights along the lines of eMarketer is the iMedia Connection pages focused on Research & Metrics. There are also other sections on the site that cover media, search, and other digital marketing channels.
8. Another excellent blog centered on web analytics, is Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik. His blogroll linking to other web analytic sites is the most comprehensive I’ve seen out there.
9. Although it is a more a general news site covering online marketing, Marketing Vox always has some consumer centric articles as it covers the pulse of digital media.
10. Finally, while his beat is more marketing in general and branding, Seth Godin’s blog is probably the most innovative and consumer centric writing out there. If you can’t get three good insights reading a month’s worth of his posts, you aren’t reading with your eyes open.

Well, that’s 10. Again, if there are any other good marketing research resources that people can recommend, please post them in the comments.