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Solution

Search Intelligence

The language of demand, observed in the wild

Demand signals from public search behavior

Search queries are the largest honest survey on earth: people describing what they want, in their own words, without knowing they're being aggregated. Heroku's search intelligence practice analyzes publicly observable search signals to map demand language, category structure and emerging interest.

We connect that language to the rest of the picture — assortments, pricing tiers, product naming — so you can see not just that interest is rising, but whether the market is positioned to meet it.

What's included

The moving parts

Demand language mapping

How your category is actually searched: term clusters, modifiers, comparison patterns and the vocabulary customers use before they buy.

Trend detection

Emerging queries separated from seasonal noise, with velocity and persistence scoring to flag durable shifts early.

Category structure

Search demand organized against product hierarchies — revealing where customer language and merchant taxonomy disagree.

Content & assortment inputs

Structured outputs that feed SEO roadmaps, product naming and assortment decisions.

Practice notes

How the discipline is applied

Aggregated & anonymized

We work with aggregate public search signals — never personal query data.

Cross-referenced

Search signals are always read against supply-side data: what the market actually offers in response.

Decision framing

Outputs are organized around the questions teams ask: what's growing, what's saturated, what's missing.

Live monitoring view — category price index
Observed signal
Client console view — category price index, trailing 12 months. Every practice ships with monitoring like this.
48htypical pilot setup
3gate outcomes: pass / degrade / quarantine
1canonical schema contract

Program defaults from current enterprise engagements.

FAQ

Common questions about search intelligence

What data sources are used?
Publicly available aggregate search tools and interfaces, combined with our own public-web signals. No private logs, no personal-level data, ever.
Can this tell us what to build?
It tells you where interest is growing and what language people use. Combined with product intelligence, it highlights white space — the build-or-buy decision remains yours.
How often is analysis refreshed?
Trend panels refresh monthly by default; launch-specific studies can run weekly through the launch window.
Related

Pairs well with

Web Data

Collection, normalization and delivery of public-web data your systems can build on — with quality controls and full lineage.

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Market Intelligence

Continuous market monitoring that turns competitor moves, category trends and public signals into decision-ready intelligence.

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Competitive Intelligence

Professional competitor monitoring built on publicly available business information, with the rigor your strategy reviews expect.

Explore

See search intelligence applied to your market

A 45-minute discovery call and a written feasibility note will tell you more than any brochure. Sample scopes included.

2 comments

Derek Wong

The aggregate-only stance on query data is the correct call. It’s also the only version of this product that would pass our privacy review.

Elena Rossi

(Team note) The Insights post on search language and category structure walks through the full method with examples.

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