How to do market trend analysis: Types, examples and a step-by-step guide

You can’t stay competitive if you’re not paying attention to where the market is heading. While gut instinct has its place, the brands that lead are the ones that back decisions with data.

That’s where market trend analysis comes in. It helps you track shifts in behaviour, sentiment and demand so you can spot patterns early, understand what’s changing and take action before your competitors do. 

Whether you’re launching a product, refining your messaging or exploring a new market, trend analysis gives you the confidence to move quickly and make smarter decisions.

Below, we’ll break down how to run an effective market trend analysis, which tools to use and how to turn insight into action. We’ll also share real-world examples to show what this looks like in practice and how you can apply it to your business.

What is market trend analysis?

Market trend analysis focuses on spotting what’s changing in your industry and figuring out what it means for your business.

It involves digging into data like sales numbers, customer feedback or industry publications to uncover patterns in how people behave and what they value, and forecast future trends. It can even help identify emerging competitors. 

This analysis can encompass different types of trends, including upward, downward, horizontal, short-term, long-term and seasonal, each offering unique insights for planning. 

For example, you might spot long-term upward trends (like growing demand for sustainable products), a seasonal pattern (like a spike in gym memberships every January) or a downward trend (like declining foot traffic in physical retail stores). 

It’s important to remember that trends don’t always move in a straight line. But overall, trend analysis helps organizations to turn signals into strategy so they’re not just keeping up, but staying a few steps ahead.

Why should you conduct a market trend analysis?

Understanding market trends is essential for businesses looking to stay competitive, meet customer needs and drive growth. Here’s how market trend analysis can benefit your business.

1. Stay ahead of the competition

We mentioned this above, but it’s worth repeating. By identifying emerging industry trends early, you can adapt strategies proactively rather than reacting to market shifts when it’s too late. Reliable data helps maintain a competitive advantage to ensure long-term success.

2. Make data-driven decisions

Market trend analysis provides valuable insights that help you make informed decisions about product development, marketing campaigns and resource allocation. This minimizes risk and maximizes return on investment.

3. Identify consumer preferences and behavioral shifts

Understanding customer needs and preferences allows brands like yours to tailor offerings to meet demand. Trend analysis helps uncover new customer expectations and changing behaviors to ensure that products and services remain relevant.

4. Spot opportunities for innovation

Recognizing shifts in consumer behavior and industry patterns can inspire innovation. You and your business can identify gaps in the market and develop new products or services that align with emerging demands.

5. Improve long-term business strategy

A well-executed market trend analysis informs strategic planning and helps you future-proof your marketing and product development. These reliable insights ensure that companies are investing in the right areas and positioning themselves for sustainable growth.

By consistently analyzing market trends, consumer brands like yours can make proactive decisions, enhance customer engagement and strengthen your market position — and of course win market share from your competitors.

Types of trend analysis (plus examples) 

Not sure what trends to look for? These types of trend analyses will help you narrow it down.

Consumer trends 

This type of target market analysis focuses on understanding changes in consumer behavior, preferences and purchasing patterns. It can help you identify new opportunities for growth and develop targeted marketing campaigns to reach your ideal customer.

ℹ️ Example: In our 2025 US Consumer Trends report, a clear gender divide emerged around financial confidence and spending. Women are feeling significantly more financially insecure than men — with 63% spending cautiously and 41% opting for cheaper brands to save money. 

They’re also more likely to want reassuring messaging and for brands to take a stand on issues like women’s rights. For companies, this quantitative data is a signal to show empathy, build trust and speak to what really matters.

Historical trends

By analyzing historical data, you can identify patterns and trends that have emerged over time. These can be all types of patterns and market trends. This data can help you make more informed decisions and predict future trends to prepare for them.

ℹ️ Example: The name “Alexa” was once among the top 50 baby names in the US, but after Amazon launched its voice assistant in 2015, its popularity plummeted. By 2024, it had dropped to 806th — its lowest rank since 1985. This (fun) historical trend shows how cultural and technological shifts can influence personal choices — and why tracking historical data can reveal unexpected brand impacts.

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Geographic trends

Analyzing trends across different regions can help you understand how consumer behavior and preferences vary across different regions. This can help you tailor your marketing strategies and product offerings to meet the unique needs of each region.

ℹ️ Example: McKinsey found that 18–24-year-olds in markets like India and Saudi Arabia are up to three times more optimistic about their economies than their Western peers — and twice as likely to spend on premium products. Understanding this trend can shape everything from pricing to messaging and help brands decide where to launch premium lines, how to position value or which markets to prioritize for growth.

Seasonal trends

Some industries experience seasonal fluctuations in demand and analyzing seasonal trends can help you adjust inventory levels, pricing and marketing strategies to maximize sales during peak seasons.

ℹ️ Example: Trend analysis by Statista found that in the United States, video game market sector sales exhibit a pronounced seasonal pattern. Monthly sales consistently peak in November and December, coinciding with the holiday shopping season. This quantitative data provides hard evidence for showing the importance of the holiday period for the gaming industry and highlights the need for strategic planning around product launches and marketing efforts during this time.

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Technological trends 

With new technologies emerging all the time, businesses need to keep up with the latest trends to stay relevant and competitive. Analyzing technological trends can help you identify new opportunities for innovation and show you ways to automate processes or save time and money. 

ℹ️ Example: In our 2025 Consumer Adoption of AI Report, we uncovered that 47% of consumers are likely to use generative AI tools to research purchases, with 43% trusting the information provided by these tools. This shift indicates that brands need to adapt their strategies to ensure visibility and credibility within AI-driven search environments.

Demographic trends

Analyzing demographic trends, such as age, gender, income and education level can help you understand your target audience and develop marketing strategies that resonate with different demographics.

ℹ️ Example: In the US, the population is ageing fast, with 1 in 5 individuals expected to be over 65 within the next five years. That shift comes with big opportunities. Consumer research shows that older adults are looking for products and services that support their ambitions and lifestyles — not just their caregiving needs. 

Brands like Dyson, Apple and Viking Cruises are getting it right by designing accessible, desirable products that appeal across age groups. Studying demographic trends like this helps you spot new areas for innovation and adapt your offer to match what people really want.

Social media trends 

Social media has become an integral part of many people’s lives and your business can benefit from analysing what’s gaining traction. By monitoring conversations, hashtags and emerging formats, you can spot new opportunities to engage your audience — and stay culturally relevant.

ℹ️ Example: A great example of the power of tracking social trends is Pringles. In 2025, they launched a limited-edition Spicy Pickle flavour inspired by viral TikTok trends like the “pickle challenge.” The campaign sparked nearly 6,000 online guesses — with fewer than 1% getting it right — and drove huge engagement. It’s a reminder that when you listen closely to what’s happening on social media, you can turn trends into brand moments.

Economic trends

Economic shifts — like changes in inflation, interest rates or trade policies — can reshape what people buy and how they buy it. Tracking these trends helps you make smarter decisions about pricing, inventory, messaging and market positioning. Don’t wait for the headlines to catch up.

ℹ️ Example: Our research on US consumer sentiment in 2025 revealed that over 90% of consumers were concerned that tariffs would lead to price increases, particularly on everyday items like groceries and clothing. More than half expected a negative impact on their personal finances, with many already noticing price hikes in essentials such as food and energy. 

In response, nearly half of the consumers reported switching to cheaper or local brands and many delayed large purchases or opted for second-hand goods. This underscores how economic policies can directly influence consumer behavior, highlighting the importance for businesses to stay attuned to such trends and adapt accordingly.

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Competitive trends 

A market trend analysis that focuses on the strategies and performance of your competitors can help you identify new opportunities for growth and stay ahead of the competition. Competitive trend analysis can also help you identify emerging threats and adjust your strategy in an agile way.

ℹ️ Example: Remember Nokia? They dominated the mobile phone market, until they didn’t. While Apple and Android brands focused on touchscreens and software, Nokia stuck with what had worked in the past. By the time they tried to adapt, they had already lost ground. It’s a sharp reminder that trend analysis isn’t just about your customers; it’s also about understanding how the whole market is moving.

Environmental trends

With increasing concern about environmental issues, you can certainly benefit from analyzing trends related to sustainability and eco-friendliness. By incorporating eco-friendly practices and products into your business strategy, you can appeal to environmentally conscious consumers and reduce their environmental impact.

ℹ️ Example: Another insight from our 2025 US Consumer Trends Report, climate change has taken a backseat to the economy for many consumers. Only 25% disagreed with the idea that growing the economy and jobs is more important right now than worrying about climate change. This sentiment echoed across all demographics. 

Interestingly, sustainable behaviors remain strong, with no drop across any of the nine eco-friendly actions tracked. For brands, this kind of insight is a valuable reminder that attitudes and actions don’t always move in sync, and that staying close to environmental trends can help shape smarter messaging, product development and long-term strategy.

How to perform a market trend analysis

Let’s look at the steps you need to take to perform a market trend analysis.

1. Define an actionable goal for your market trend analysis

Don’t start looking for trends without having a goal in mind. So, start by defining what you want to learn. Are you trying to: 

• Spot new product opportunities?
• Understand changing consumer behaviors?
• Gauge demand in a new market?
• Track long-term sentiment shifts?

Your goal will shape everything, from how you collect data to how you interpret it. Without it, you risk chasing noise instead of trends you can act on.

💡Pro tip:  Start with a “how might we” question. For example: ”How might we spot changing flavor preferences in Gen Z’s snack choices?” or “How might we track declining brand relevance in the US market?”

2. Make a plan to conduct market trend analysis regularly

You can’t spot trends by just looking at one moment in time. Ideally, you will regularly conduct market research to uncover trends and find patterns in the data you collect.

Planning monthly, quarterly or yearly surveys on the same topic helps you do that, while getting data straight from the most valuable source: your customers and target market.

3. Choose the right tools for your research

You don’t need a crystal ball to spot emerging trends, you need the right techstack. Modern trend analysis is powered by tools that help you surface, track and interpret patterns across search behavior, consumer sentiment and brand perception.

The best tools make it easy to:

• spot patterns at speed with clean, visual dashboards
• run recurring studies to identify shifts over time
• segment audiences for deeper insight into what different groups care about
• share findings across teams to drive decision-making

👇Here are some tools to consider:

Tool	What it’s best for
Attest	Running large-scale, targeted consumer surveys with built-in trend tracking. With Attest, you can collect fresh data from your exact audience, run recurring waves and visualize results instantly. Segment by demographics or behaviors, compare responses over time and build trendlines without spreadsheets. Perfect for insights, brand, marketing and innovation teams who want always-on access to what consumers are thinking — right now.
Google Trends	Tracking interest in specific search terms across time and geography. Great for gauging public awareness or comparing the relative popularity of topics.
Exploding Topics	Surfacing early signals of emerging trends before they go mainstream. Useful for product innovation or thought leadership.
Semrush / Ahrefs	Analyzing search behavior and SEO trends. Ideal for identifying rising keywords, content gaps and competitor performance.
Tableau / Looker Studio	Aggregating and visualizing large, multi-source datasets. Best for teams who want to combine internal data (e.g. sales, CRM) with external trends.
Sentiment analysis tools like Brandwatch and Sprout Social	Monitoring sentiment and themes across social media. Useful for detecting emerging conversations and brand buzz in real time.
YouGov	Accessing syndicated audience and behavioral data across categories. Best for benchmarking trends in larger markets.

Want to explore your options? Check out our in-depth guides to the best market research tools and brand tracking platforms.

4. Ask the right questions to the right people

Who you ask is just as important as how you ask. For your trend analysis to be meaningful, you need to hear from the people who actually matter to your business, like current customers, future buyers or a specific segment of your target market.

Asking them the right survey questions is essential when it comes to uncovering trends in your market research. The way you frame a question can influence not only the quality of the responses but also the kind of insights you uncover.

It also pays to mix your question types:

• Closed questions help you measure consistency and spot patterns across a large group.
  
• Open-ended questions give respondents space to share what’s top of mind, which can reveal unexpected themes or emerging behaviors.
  
• Ranking questions help you understand what matters most to your audience such as which product features, benefits or values they prioritize.

5. Analyze the data

Once you’ve gathered the data, it’s time to analyze it. This is where you can identify trends, analyze consumer behavior and understand the current market.

When analyzing the data, you should look for patterns and correlations. Play around with different parameters and filters to uncover these. This will help you identify emerging trends and understand the current market behavior. 

✅ When analyzing your data, look for:

• Steady growth in behavior or interest: for example, rising demand for secondhand fashion across multiple quarters.
  
• Shifts across segments: like younger consumers embracing a new product category or channel before others catch on.
  
• Changes in sentiment: such as increased concern about sustainability, even if it hasn’t yet translated into changed behaviors.

⚠️ Watch out for:

• One-off spikes: often the result of viral moments or short-lived hype.
  
• Flat data: where interest or behavior remains stable but isn’t showing meaningful growth.
  
• Contradictions between sentiment and action: like consumers saying they care about health, but still prioritizing convenience in their purchases.

6. Act on your findings

Once you’ve analyzed the data, it’s time to implement it! This is where you can use the data to make informed business decisions.

You should also consider how the data might affect the future of your business. This will help you make sure your business is always ahead of the curve.

7. Regularly check back in to spot trends

The final step is to regularly check back in to spot trends over time. This will help you identify any shifts in the market and make sure your business is always ahead of the competition. Remember to account for external factors and recent changes in the market.

Use tools to make your next trend analysis easy

The most valuable insights don’t come from a single data point — they come from actively tracking trends. With Attest, you can monitor evolving behaviors, test assumptions and uncover the trends that can make an impact on your business.

Take Acast. The podcast platform used Attest to analyze listening habits across markets like Mexico, Canada and Germany. By running multiple waves of research, they identified key shifts — including rising trust in podcasts as a source of political news and growing openness to podcast advertising. These trends helped their teams tailor messaging, refine commercial strategy and open new doors with advertisers.

With the right tools and a repeatable process, market trend analysis becomes more than a nice-to-have; it becomes a growth lever.