Platform overview
Data quality
Analysis
By Use Case
Brand tracking
Consumer profiling
Market analysis
New product development
Multi-market research
Creative testing
Concept testing
Campaign tracking
Competitor analysis
Quant & qual insights
Seasonal research
By Role
Marketers
Insights professionals
Data storytelling playbook
2025 UK F&B trends report
2025 US F&B trends report
2024 UK media consumption report
Consumer Research Academy
Survey templates
Help center
Blog
Careers
Congratulations—your survey results are in!
You’ve reached a major milestone in your research project. But the fun’s not over just yet.
Next up, you need to dig into your data to find those all-important insights that you’ll take back to your colleagues.
Here are some essential steps to take when you’re ready to dive into your data.
If your research covers a broad audience, you’ll be able to search for outlying demographic groups.
With a wider population to compare each demographic to, you can toggle filters on and off to figure out which demographic groups vary the most from the overall results (or at least if the insights buck stereotypes or expectations).
Keep an eye out for results where demographics over- or under-index from the average. It’s these points that add color to your understanding of consumers, bringing them to life as people with real opinions that vary from the norm.
You can use this information in loads of different ways, but what it will reveal is the most interesting opportunities for you to explore—perhaps in relation to a certain demographic.
You might also figure out that you need to do some extra research to get an even clearer picture of your target market. If that’s the case you could use some of these demographic survey questions to dig a bit deeper.
Another way to spot points of interest is by using ‘crosstabs’.
If consumer attitudes or behaviors aren’t divided cleanly by their demographic segments then there might be insights lurking in the answers respondents give.
For this, you’ll need to review your insights at the question level, rather than the demographic level. Without meaning to blow our own trumpet, we actually built this feature into our platform. When you click a specific answer option, you’ll be able to see how people who chose that option (and therefore think or behave in a certain way) answered the rest of the survey.
Here’s an example of a crosstab—AKA results breakdown—on the Attest dashboard…
Because consumer attitudes and behaviors shift continually, it’s rare that a single survey will give you an accurate long-term view.
Consider ‘trackers’—replica surveys that are run at regular intervals. This generates data over a period of time, and allows you to witness fluctuations on consumer sentiment and behavior over time.
Use ‘line charts’ to track these fluctuations over time to create a clear sense of trends, or the ‘direction of travel’ of certain insights. You and colleagues can effectively see the way the market is moving (and plan for the future to stay ahead of it).
When you’re looking through your data, it can be super helpful to be able to see side-by-side how different groups of respondents differ.
This is where segmentation comes in. This gives you a way to combine conditions, such as demographics or answers to certain questions, and compare those groups next to each other.
If you’re looking for more on how to dig into your survey results and how segments can give you a better understanding of important nuances in your audience groups, check out our webinar from our Product and Customer Research teams 👇
No matter how much preparation you put into your research project, you can’t predict which insights will emerge.
If your research uncovers something really surprising, or leaves you with more questions than you started with—great! That means you’ve gathered some genuinely thought-provoking data that really challenges your hypothesis.
And it certainly doesn’t mean your initial research was pointless. The opposite is true! Often it’s the surprising learnings that end up being the most valuable. Scientists yearn for their work to open up more areas of exploration. So you’re basically a scientist at this point. Well done you.
The Consumer Research Academy is brought to you by the Customer Research Team—our in-house research experts. Any research questions? Email or chat with the team.