Google has launched a new tool designed to help marketers keep up with which products are in high demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Rising Retail Categories tool marks the first time Google has provided this type of insight on the product categories people are currently searching for.
Consumer interest is rapidly shifting from one month to another and, as Google notes, marketers are “hungry” for more data.
“Last month, there were spikes in search interest for household supplies and jigsaw puzzles as people spent more time at home.
This month we’ve seen surging interest for sewing machines and baking materials in the U.S., and tetherball sets and chalk in the United Kingdom and Australia.”
Up to this point, businesses have been using resources such as Google Trends, social listening, surveys, and their own proprietary data to understand changing consumer interests.
However, relying on those resources means you need to know what to look for in the first place.
Google Trends, for example, is a useful source of data as long as you already know which product categories you want to look up.
What if you don’t know what to look for, but still want to stay on top of trending product categories?
That’s where the Rising Retail Categories tool comes in.
Rising Retail Categories
Rising Retail Categories is an easy-to-use tool that is designed much like Google Trends.
It presents a list of top trending product categories and how much consumer interest in that category has changed month over month.
Using drop-down menus you can filter the data by different countries, as well as change the measurement period from monthly to weekly or yearly.
Clicking on a product category will present a list of trending queries related to that category.
Scroll down the page and you’ll see a map indicating where the highest volume of searches for a given product category are coming from.
Currently, Rising Retail Categories only surfaces data for searches in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.
Google notes that the Rising Retail Categories data will update daily to reflect changes in search interests.
How to Use This Data
Google offers several ideas, based on real-world examples, for how businesses can take this data and apply it to their marketing efforts.
- Content creation: A rising interest in “flour” inspired a cookware company to partner with a local chef to create content about recipes that incorporate flour.
- Promotion: A rising rising interest in “free weights” prompted a jewelry and accessories company to partner with fitness influencers who could help promote their products.
- Product ideas: An apparel company with a fast and flexible production model said its team would use this data to inspire new product line ideas.
Google intends to update this tool with fresh data every day for the next few months.
Online businesses can regularly reference the data to inform which products to feature on their homepage throughout the pandemic.
Source: Google
