Google Market Finder
A tool to assess the potential of export markets. Google Market Finder, by evaluating the content of your e-store, can understand to which sector your store belongs to and show the strength of competition among e-stores in different target markets. To use the service, you need to grant access to the Analytics. In addition, Google has linked there a number of articles – which may be elementary for the experienced exporter, but there are also a number of more specific case-studies available.Google Trends
A very exciting tool and thanks to Google for making it available to everyone for free! With Google Trends you can see the amount of what is searched for on Google and how it has changed over time and by geographical areas. What is searched is important. Good idea to test potential target markets and see what people are more interested in. We tested how long it takes for people to start looking for Adobe instead of Magento – see the Magento Open-Source vs Adobe Commerce post for more details. A Google representative from one of the training sessions suggested that we should use more specific (e.g. apple) than general (e.g. fruit) search terms in Google Trends – people are looking for a specific solution to their problem rather than the big picture. Also – the bigger the markets, the longer/specific the search terms.
I Search From
I Search From, as the name suggests, allows you to display search results specific to the country (even city) you are investigating. You can see what’s coming up in the search and who’s advertising – a great tool to see who’s competing in the market, or investing in Google Ads. In the case of foreign competitor reconnaissance, it is also recommended to go through their whole shopping journey.
Google Ads Keyword Planner
Log in to your Google Ads account, select “Planning” and “Keyword Planner”. From there, you can select a keyword and see what words might be used to search for your e-commerce product. It also shows you search keyword prices – a good tool for budgeting and testing your marketing strategy.Sparktoro
Sparktoro combs through different social media accounts (mainly Twitter) and looks at which phrases they are using with the search keywords you are interested in (e.g. typing PWA Venia brings up JavaScript, Progressive Web Apps, etc.). Sparktoro shows “Sources of Interest”, i.e. which websites and which social media accounts the audience is following. You can do quite a lot with a free account.Grammarly
The next step in automatic translation – a browser-based plugin that helps to find grammar mistakes, as well as to improve wording. A suggestion is to run advertisements and why not also the more important business e-mails, through it.
Analysis of competitors’ Google Ads
Google also lets you see what your competitors are advertising – just type in a keyword that’s relevant to you and start analysing. We didn’t know about this before, but we’re definitely going to take advantage of it – thanks to Andrus for the tip! Below is also a short step-by-step guide.
Tiktok
Tiktok Creative Center – gets ideas for creative solutions (for your target market). Andrus and other advertising professionals have recommended keeping an eye on Tiktok. As a parent, I can confirm that it is almost the most popular social media channel among the younger target group.Three final thoughts
- There are certainly many more opportunities to explore exporting. In any case, you are at a disadvantage in a new market – no one is waiting for you, no one wants to help you, and the best way to learn is to reverse engineer what the successful ones are doing.
- The best things in life are free! The internet is full of free tools, just pick up and start using.
- Nothing works unless you do! Passion and curiosity about both customers’ needs and competitors’ operations drives you forward. No software does things for you.
Homework done, what next?
One of the biggest pluses of the Adobe/Magento solution is its scalability in terms of products and markets. Once you’ve got the wind in the sails of an e-store in Estonia, you can mirror it to markets in different countries at low cost, or simply display part of your assortment on a separate domain = manage multiple e-stores/brands from one platform. There are merchants (including our clients) who have started exporting in a very cost-effective way. Read the success stories in our portfolio and come and meet us to talk more!
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