Choosing the best marketing research company

Marketing research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data about customers, markets and competitors to inform business decisions. It includes methods such as surveys, interviews, and data analysis to understand customer needs and test ideas. Learn more about our approach to branding research, pricing research and buyer journeys.

Marketing research for financial services is the practice of analyzing how consumers and businesses make decisions across banking, lending, payments, insurance and wealth management. It uses quantitative and qualitative methods to understand customer needs, price sensitivity and product preferences, helping financial institutions design offerings, set pricing, communicate offerings, and improve customer experience in financial and regulated markets.

Fintech marketing research analyzes consumer and business behavior at the intersection of technology and financial services. It focuses on digital products such as mobile banking apps, digital wallets, buy-now-pay-later platforms, robo-advisors, cryptocurrency and embedded finance, helping companies understand adoption, usage and decision drivers.

Firms that specialize in market research provide methodological rigor that general consultancies or in-house teams often cannot replicate. They use advanced survey design to reduce bias and measurement error, ensure data and sample quality, and apply robust sampling methods to produce more representative, reliable and decision-ready data.

Qualitative research is used to understand the “why” behind consumer and business behavior through methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups and online discussion boards. Sample sizes are typically small and selected very intentionally. Qualitative research is especially valuable when hypotheses are not yet well defined, or when quantitative or survey data reveals unexpected patterns that require deeper exploration.

Quantitative research uses structured methods, including surveys and behavioral analytics, to measure the frequency, magnitude and distribution of attitudes and behaviors across large populations. Findings are expressed numerically and analyzed using techniques ranging from cross-tabulation to multivariate modeling. With sufficient sample sizes, results can be generalized to the broader population and used to support data-driven decisions.

Consumer research is the study of the preferences, attitudes and behaviors of individual customers within a marketplace, used to understand needs, decision drivers and purchase behavior.

B2B (business-to-business) market research is the process of gathering and analyzing data on businesses, industries and professional decision-makers to help one company market and sell products or services to another. See an example of B2B market research in action here.

Data quality in market research refers to the extent to which data accurately reflects respondents’ true attitudes and behaviors, free from errors introduced by poor survey design, inattentive responses or sampling issues. Key dimensions include validity, reliability and representativeness, ensuring insights are accurate, trustworthy and decision-ready.

Improving data quality in financial services research requires stricter controls than typical market research. Because financial topics are sensitive, respondents are more likely to misreport income, assets, product ownership or behaviors. Best practices include using numerical ranges for sensitive questions, applying behavioral screeners to verify product ownership and incorporating third-party data validation to improve accuracy, reliability and representativeness

Ensuring data quality in B2B research depends on two foundational requirements: reaching the right business decision-makers and verifying that their responses reflect genuine professional knowledge and authority. Screening should confirm not only job titles but also respondents’ specific roles and involvement in relevant decisions, helping ensure accurate, reliable and decision-ready data.

Buyer journey research maps the stages customers go through from awareness to purchase and post-purchase, identifying key touchpoints, behaviors and decision drivers. Buyer journey research helps organizations understand how and why customers move through the funnel and where to optimize marketing, product and customer experience.

Go-to-market research informs how a product is positioned, launched and delivered to target audiences. It analyzes customer needs, target segments, messaging and channel strategy to guide positioning, sales enablement, media planning and distribution. In financial services, go-to-market research must also account for regulatory constraints on claims and communications.

Brand equity research measures how a brand is perceived in terms of awareness, trust and differentiation. It helps organizations understand competitive position, brand strength and long-term brand value. Brand equity research is used to track performance over time and inform positioning, messaging and growth strategy.

Product development research evaluates concepts, features and prototypes to ensure they meet customer needs before launch. Product development research identifies demand, tests product-market fit and reduces the risk of product failure by informing product design, prioritization and go-to-market decisions.

Marketing communications research evaluates how effectively messaging, advertising and content resonate with target audiences. Marketing communications research measures clarity, relevance and persuasive impact to inform messaging, creative development and campaign performance.

Thought leadership research generates original, data-driven insights that position a company as an authority in its industry. Thought leadership research findings are designed for external audiences, including journalists, industry analysts, policymakers, potential clients and the broader business community, to support content, PR and brand positioning.

Public relations (PR) research measures public perception, media impact and brand reputation to support communication strategies. It analyzes audience sentiment, message effectiveness and media coverage to help organizations understand how they are perceived and improve visibility, credibility and reputation.

Pricing research determines how customers perceive value and what they are willing to pay for a product or service. It analyzes price sensitivity, demand and trade-offs to optimize pricing strategy and maximize revenue. Advanced methods for pricing research include survey-based conjoint analysis and discrete choice experiments, which test price alongside other attributes, while simpler approaches include the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter and Gabor-Granger testing.

Segmentation research divides a market into distinct groups based on shared characteristics such as behaviors, needs or attitudes. It identifies meaningful customer segments to enable more targeted marketing, product development and customer experience strategies.

Conjoint analysis and discrete choice modeling are quantitative research methods used to understand how consumers make trade-offs between products or services. Respondents evaluate sets of options that vary across attributes such as brand, features and price, and select their preferred option. Statistical analysis quantifies preference drivers and identifies optimal product configurations and pricing.

MaxDiff (maximum difference scaling) is a quantitative research method used to measure the relative importance or appeal of items within a list, such as product features, messages or brand attributes. It forces respondents to make trade-offs between options, producing clear, reliable preference rankings and stronger discrimination between items.

Message testing evaluates how well different marketing messages resonate with a target audience. It measures factors such as clarity, relevance, and persuasiveness. Message testing can be implemented as monadic tests (each respondent evaluates one message), sequential monadic tests (each respondent evaluates multiple messages in a controlled order), or forced-choice comparisons.

An attitudes and usage (A&U) study is a comprehensive quantitative research study that establishes a baseline understanding of how consumers think about and interact with a product or service category. It analyzes behaviors, attitudes and needs to provide a detailed view of market dynamics and customer segments, informing segmentation, product development and marketing strategy.