POPULAR PAID TOOLS

Deemed essential by advertising professionals everywhere, Mintel is a market research firm that provides up-to-date insights, data and trends across major product categories and demographic groups.  

Simmons MRI is one of the largest and most comprehensive consumer surveys measuring thousands of points and providing that data in an easy to use database platform for marketing professionals. It's the best option for developing audiences in the US.  

YouGov polls their proprietary panel of consumers across the globe to develop a variety of data tools for marketers with the most popular being the audience profiling tool, which is similar to MRI/Simmons.  

A new alternative to MRI/Simmons that uses AI to help with forming audiences and insights. It's got a slightly better UX making it easier for strategists to use.  

GWI profiles consumers across 46 countries with a panel of 18m connected consumers and is generally the best profiling tool for multi-country global clients. 

Euromonitor is the world's leading provider of global marketing and business data. It's very similar to GWI in that it spans tons of countries and is great for anyone with a global client looking for local insights.

Kantar is a popular insights platform that provides reports and data solutions as well as access to data tables via their mTab offering. 

Another research and insight company that has a strong focus on technology and consulting. I've never used them but other people really like them.  

WARC provides intelligence, expertise, marketing case studies, benchmarks and guidance to help marketers. The paid version of WARC gives you a ton of access to great case studies. 

eMarketer is a subscription-based market research company that provides insights and trends specific to digital media usage and commerce adoption. 

Although there's a lot of content for free, YPulse has some of the best reports on Gen Z and young millennial culture and trending topics out there. 

Nielsen has a wide and varied option of services from media measurement, consumer segmentations and panel research. I've generally used it for industry insights and AdViews. I liked AdViews for comparing amounts spent on advertising between brands.  

SimilarWeb has a free trial version and a paid version that provides web analytics services and offers its users information on their clients' and competitors' web traffic and performance. 

Stylus is another cultural intelligence company that compiles research, trends and data across a variety of topics. Not my first choice, but it's really good for a few specific clients. 

Statista is a go to place to grab quick stats. They also provide the source information which makes it easy to then go back and explore more data and ensure validity of strong data. 

The paid version allows you more options and freedom when it comes to searching and downloading tv spots from brands.  

Relative is an interesting text analysis tool that can be used to understand conversation online or from an existing dataset and is helpful when it comes to comparing different sets of language, categories or brands.