I’m sure many in the industry are already utilising some of the unbelievable insights in SparkToro, but for those in marketing who have never heard of this tool before, I PROMISE you, you’re going to want to read the rest of this post!
We’re all seeing the same story this year: implementing strong SEO tactics but finding that the impressions and clicks graph just isn’t looking the same as it used to.
Whilst for us marketers this poses a challenge, it’s not the first time “SEO doomsday” has circulated. We’ve all sat in despair wondering how to combat it, and it certainly won’t be the last!
(For anyone who wants to book in a 121, by the way, and discuss how we’re still seeing great results as an agency, give me a shout! I could talk about this all day long. And honestly, whilst it’s making the landscape a little harder to navigate, these changes are keeping things interesting and forcing us to think outside the traditional SEO box when it comes to generating results for our clients.)
Anyway, this leads me nicely onto the point of this article… to tell you about SparkToro and one of its key features we’re using to find where our clients’ audiences are spending time online, how to generate great backlinks, improve AI citations, and even spark inspiration for advertising opportunities.
For full disclosure, this is a paid platform, but you can access a free trial to give it a go. And to be honest, for the level of insight it provides, the paid subscription is pretty great value.
Once you’ve signed up for an account, click “Custom Audiences” in the top banner.
Here, you can describe a new audience and start gathering data. We approach this in two ways:
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Using our persona developer spreadsheet, where we work with clients to combine their insights around target customers.
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A useful GA4 report under “User attributes > Demographic details”, where you can filter existing website data by interests, age, gender, etc., and extrapolate your higher-performing audience groups.
Next, select your desired location (currently, the options are UK, United States, and Canada).
Using persona data or existing audience data, add the description and create the report.
This then gives you a range of insights you can deep dive into: who these users are, where they spend their time online, how they search, what podcasts they listen to, and more.
This kind of insight helps you strategise in real time, using data about where your customers actually are, giving you fresh ideas on how best to reach them.
In addition, you can explore in even more detail: topics they’re engaged with, keywords they search for, audience affinities, etc.
When used correctly, this really can become your golden ticket to getting your business seen online by the right people, and to building an SEO/AIO strategy based on generating backlinks and references from the places your audience is already spending time online.
No brainer!
Want to find out more?
Book a 121 consultation, it’s free and we’ll tailor to the needs of your business.