Now in its fourth year, the barometer has been redeisgned by London-based agency Hive in an effort to make is easier to navigate across both mobile and desktop while the data pool has increased to provide a wider array of inights.
Data pooled from 150,000 consumers across 46 countries (previously it was 25 countries with circa 3000 respondents per country) can be accessed and customised and can be segmented by market to glean insights into how consumer habits are across sectors such as mobile, video and shopping.
Google has also made it possible for marketers to build downloadable reports out of the data.
Marketers can delve into areas such as how often people go online, to how many connected devices they may have, how people research and purchase online, the influence of online video on their shopping habits or the differences between generations and their online behaviour.
Peter Cory, agency sales director at Google, explained that it was developed to help marketers understand what channels and activities are the most effective, particularly when dealing with multiple markets and products.
“Our latest Consumer Barometer captures a vast array of new consumer research and enables anyone to easily explore how consumers are behaving in this brave new digital world,” he added.
Vertical sectors currently profiled within the Barometer include clothing and footwear, home appliances, flights, hotels, cosmetics and groceries. with new vertical sectors set to be added as Google extends the insights.
Chris Binns, managing partner and joint head of planning at Mediacom explained that comparing insights across different countries and categories has become increasingly important to planners.
He continued: “The new Google Consumer Barometer offers vast sample sizes and complete data sets for a huge range of markets - a level of detail I’ve never seen before. The fact this is all available for free in a simple-to-use format means it will certainly play a valuable role in Mediacom’s planning going forward.”