Glossary Of Market Research Terms

Welcome to the most practical market research glossary online, built for insight professionals, data-driven marketers, and anyone serious about turning research into results. This comprehensive resource covers over 100 essential market research terms, from ad hoc studies to zero-party data, designed to help both beginners and experienced practitioners grow their impact and commercial value.

Whether you’re just learning what market research is, benchmarking your research skills, or seeking clear, real-world definitions to support your next project, you’ll find actionable, jargon-free explanations here. Each glossary entry links to in-depth, practitioner's guides filled with examples, frameworks, and tactical insights—so you can move from “what is it?” to “how do I use it next week?”

Browse A–Z or search by keyword: Quickly find definitions for everything from behavioral segmentation and NPS to sample size and secondary research.

Instant context: Every term includes relatable business use cases, actionable tips, and cross-links to related concepts for deeper learning.

Fresh, frequently updated: New market research methods, analytics trends, and emerging best practices are added monthly.

Ready to break through the jargon and become a more commercial, influential researcher? Start exploring the glossary below, or jump to your topic of interest. And if you want new terms in your inbox weekly, join the ResearchGeek newsletter for free, tactical insights.

[A]

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Access Panels
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A market research panel, also known as a survey panel, is a group of individuals selected to participate in market research studies. These individuals are typically representative of a larger population and are chosen based on specific demographic, psychographic, or behavioural characteristics. The panel members provide feedback on various topics, products, or services, which businesses use to make strategic decisions.

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Accompanied Shopping
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Accompanied shopping, also known as shop-along or shop-along interviews, is a qualitative market research technique that involves researchers accompanying participants while they shop.

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Ad-Hoc Research
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Ad hoc research is one-time, custom research conducted to answer a specific business question – unlike continuous tracking studies or recurring panels.

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Aided Awareness
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Aided awareness is a measure of whether someone recognises a brand, product, or message when prompted or shown a reminder.

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Alternative Hypothesis
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In the realm of market research, the term 'alternative hypothesis' holds a pivotal role. It's a concept that forms the backbone of hypothesis testing, a method used to make inferences or predictions about a population based on sample data.

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Ambiguous Questions
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The term 'ambiguous question' carries significant weight. It refers to a type of question that is not clear in its intent or meaning, leading to potential misinterpretation and thus, unreliable data.

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Animatics
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Animatics, a term often used in the field of market research, refers to a series of images, often hand-drawn or digitally created, that are sequenced together to give a rough idea of how a final video or animation will look.

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Annotation Methods
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This technique involves adding notes or comments to text, images, or other forms of data to highlight important features or patterns.

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Area Sampling
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Area sampling, also known as geographical sampling, is a sampling method where the researcher selects certain geographical areas and then conducts a survey within these areas.

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Artificial Intelligence and Market Research
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AI has a wide range of applications in market research, from data analysis and prediction to customer segmentation and personalisation.

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Attitudinal Research
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Attitudinal research measures what customers think, believe, and feel about brands, products, and services. Unlike behavioral research, which tracks what people actually do, attitudinal research explores the opinions, values, and emotional drivers behind decision-making.

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Audience Profiling
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Audience profiling is the process of creating detailed descriptions of your target customers based on demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and needs. It answers: "Who is our ideal customer? What do they value? Where do they spend time? How do they make decisions?"

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Audits
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Audits are an integral part of market research, providing a systematic and independent examination of data, statements, records, operations, and performances for a specified purpose.

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[B]

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Behavioural Segmentation
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Instead of segmenting by demographics (age, location) or psychographics (values, interests), behavioural segmentation focuses on what they actually do.
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Brand Awareness Study
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A brand awareness study measures how many people in your target market know your brand—and how well.
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Brand Equity
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It's not the asset value of a company (that's financial equity). It's the customer perception and loyalty your brand commands.
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Brand Health Tracking
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Brand health tracking is continuous, recurring measurement of key brand metrics over time. Unlike one-off brand studies, tracking runs regularly (quarterly, semi-annually) to spot trends, measure campaign impact, and catch competitive threats early.
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Brand Positioning Research
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Brand positioning research identifies the unique space your brand occupies in customers' minds relative to competitors. It answers: "How do customers perceive us versus competitors? What's our unique value? What's our competitive advantage? What messaging will resonate?"
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Brand Tracking
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Unlike ad hoc research (one-time), brand tracking is continuous – you run the same questions repeatedly to spot trends.
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[C]
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Category Entry Point Research
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Category entry points are the first moments customers engage with a product category. They're the triggers, channels, or situations that introduce someone to the category—before they know specific brands.
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Churn Analysis

Churn analysis is the systematic study of why customers leave. It examines the characteristics, behaviors, and experiences of customers who cancel or stop using a product—identifying patterns and root causes so you can prevent future losses.

Cognitive Biases

‍Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from rational judgment—mental shortcuts our brains use to process information quickly, but which often lead to errors in reasoning, perception, and decision-making.
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Comparative Analysis
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Comparative analysis evaluates how your brand, product, or metrics perform relative to competitors or industry benchmarks. It answers: "How do we stack up? What's our competitive advantage? Where are we losing ground?"
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Competitor Benchmarking
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Competitor benchmarking systematically compares your performance metrics (price, quality, brand perception, customer satisfaction, features) against direct competitors. It establishes: "Where do we rank? Are we winning or losing? What's our competitive gap?"
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Concept Testing
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It's validation on a budget – catch problems early, when changes are cheap.
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Confusion Matrix
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A confusion matrix is a table used to evaluate the performance of a predictive classification model. It shows how many predictions were correct versus incorrect, broken down by category.
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Conjoint Analysis
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The name comes from "joint" analysis – you analyze how customers evaluate attributes together, not in isolation.
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Cross-Tabs
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Cross-tabulation (or "crosstabs") is a statistical technique that breaks down survey or research data by two or more variables simultaneously. It reveals relationships between variables: "Do men and women have different purchase preferences? Do age groups have different brand perceptions?"
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Customer Experience
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CX research evaluates the entire customer journey—every touchpoint from awareness to purchase to support to advocacy. It measures emotions, pain points, satisfaction, and loyalty across all interactions.
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Customer Journey Mapping
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It answers: "Where do customers interact with us? What do they think/feel at each step? Where do we lose them?"
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Customer Lifetime Value
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CLV is the total revenue a customer generates over the entire relationship with your company. It answers: "How much is this customer worth to us across their lifetime?"
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Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
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CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) is a metric measuring how satisfied customers are with a product, service, or specific interaction – typically on a numeric scale (e.g., 1–5 or 1–10).
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Consumer Behaviour
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Consumer behaviour research methods include online surveys, focus groups, interviews, observation, and analyzing online behavior to understand purchasing decisions and preferences.
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Creative Testing

Creative testing validates marketing concepts with real data before launch, using methods like monadic testing and sequential monadic testing to reduce bias and optimize campaign performance.
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[D]
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Data Triangulation
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Data triangulation is using multiple data sources, methods, or researchers to validate the same conclusion. It answers: "Is this finding real or a statistical fluke? Does one method confirm what another reveals?"
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Desk Research
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Desk research (also called secondary research) is gathering insights from existing data sources – reports, databases, competitor websites, government statistics, academic studies – rather than collecting new data yourself.
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Discrete Choice Modelling
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Discrete choice modeling predicts which option customers will choose from a set of alternatives—based on product attributes, price, and other factors. It reveals: "Which features matter most? How price-sensitive are customers? What's the optimal product configuration?"
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[E]
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Ethnography in Market Research
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Ethnographic research is observing and studying how customers actually behave in their natural environment – at home, in stores, at work – rather than in artificial research settings.
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Eye Tracking
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Eye tracking is a biometric research method that measures where respondents look and for how long – using specialized equipment to track eye movements across a screen, product, or advertisement.
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[F]
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Focus Group Moderator
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A focus group moderator is the professional facilitator who guides a 6–10 person group discussion – asking questions, encouraging participation, managing group dynamics, and ensuring rich data is captured.
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[G]
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Gamification in Market Research
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Gamification in research applies game mechanics (points, badges, leaderboards, challenges, progress bars) to surveys and research tasks – making them more engaging and motivating respondents to provide better data.
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[H]
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Halo Effect in Market Research
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The halo effect is a cognitive bias where a person's positive impression of one aspect of something influences their perception of other aspects – causing them to rate things higher (or lower) than warranted.

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Heuristic Evaluation
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Heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method where experts assess a digital product (website, app, interface) against established usability principles—looking for design flaws and friction points. It's faster and cheaper than user testing but highly effective for identifying problems.

[I]
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Implicit Association Testing
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An Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a research method that measures unconscious attitudes and biases by testing how quickly people associate words or images with concepts – revealing what they truly think, separate from what they consciously say.

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In-Depth Interviews
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In-depth interviews are one-on-one conversations between a trained interviewer and a participant, typically lasting 30-90 minutes. They explore topics in rich detail—motivations, emotions, decision-making processes, barriers—that surveys can't capture.
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Incidence Rate in Research
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Incidence rate is the percentage of people who qualify for a research study – used to calculate how many people you need to screen to find enough target respondents.

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Insight

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An insight is a deep, actionable understanding of customer behavior, needs, or motivations that reveals the "why" behind the data—and directly informs business decisions.

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Insight Activation

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Insight activation is the process of turning research findings into tangible business decisions, actions, and measurable outcomes. It's the bridge between "interesting finding" and "this changed our strategy."

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[K]
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Key Driver Analysis
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Key driver analysis is a statistical technique that identifies which factors most strongly influence an outcome (satisfaction, loyalty, purchase intent). It reveals: "Of 20 factors we measured, which 3 actually drive customer loyalty? Where should we invest?"

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Key Performance Indicators
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KPIs transform research from a "nice-to-have" to a measurable business asset. Track them religiously and you'll build a case for research investment.
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[L]
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Likert Scales
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A Likert scale is a rating scale used in surveys where respondents indicate their level of agreement (or opinion) on a statement – typically ranging from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree."
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Longitudinal Studies
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A longitudinal study is research that tracks the same respondents over time – measuring how opinions, behaviors, or circumstances change – revealing trends and cause-and-effect relationships.
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[M]
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Market Basket Analysis
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Market basket analysis examines which products are purchased together by customers. It answers: "What products are frequently co-purchased? What bundles should we create? Which products should be placed near each other?"
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Market Penetration
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Market penetration is a growth strategy focused on selling more of existing products in existing markets. It answers: "What percentage of the available market do we currently serve? How can we capture more?"
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Market Segmentation
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Market segmentation is dividing a broad market into smaller, distinct groups (segments) of customers with similar needs, behaviors, or characteristics – so you can target each segment with tailored strategies.
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MaxDiff Analysis
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MaxDiff (Maximum Difference) is a research technique where respondents repeatedly choose the best and worst options from a list – revealing which features/attributes customers value most (without asking directly).
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Median, Mean, Mode
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These are three measures of central tendency (average) used to summarize data.
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Mixed-Methods Research
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Mixed-methods research combines qualitative (exploratory, open-ended) and quantitative (numerical, statistical) research in a single study – leveraging the strengths of both.
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Mobile Ethnography
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Mobile ethnography combines ethnographic research (observing real behavior) with mobile technology. Participants use apps or messaging to document experiences in real-time, photos, videos, journal entries, revealing how customers actually behave, not how they remember behaving.
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[N]
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Net Promoter Score (NPS)
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Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a loyalty metric measuring how likely customers are to recommend your product/brand to others – calculated on a 0–10 scale, categorized into Promoters (9–10), Passives (7–8), and Detractors (0–6).

[O]
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Omnibus Research

‍Omnibus research (also called omnibus surveys) is a cost-sharing survey model where multiple clients purchase space to include their own questions on a single, regularly conducted survey sent to a representative sample.
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Online Survey Tools

Online survey software has become an indispensable tool for market researchers, like myself, who wish to uncover valuable insights and make informed business decisions.

[P]

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Primary Research

‍Primary research is original data collection conducted directly with your target audience, through surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments—to answer specific business questions.

[Q]
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Qualitative Research
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Qualitative research explores why people think, feel, and behave the way they do. It collects non-numerical data through methods like interviews, focus groups, and observations—revealing motivations, emotions, and context that surveys miss.

[R]
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Research Fieldwork
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Fieldwork is the execution of in-person market research – conducting interviews, surveys, focus groups, or observations in the real world (not online) with respondents.

[S]
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Sample Size Calculator

Calculate how many respondents you need to have representative results with this free sample size calculator.

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Statistical Significance
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Statistical significance is a measure indicating whether a result from your research is likely real, or could have occurred by random chance. It gives you confidence that the pattern you're seeing reflects a true difference, not random noise.
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Survey Response Bias
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Survey response bias occurs when respondents answer questions in ways that don't reflect their true opinions, behaviors, or experiences skewing your data and leading to inaccurate conclusions.

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