Internet marketing research is the process of searching the internet for the purpose of gathering information about your niche market segments, so that you can further analyze it to explore new opportunities in the market. It can further help in identifying problems, potential challenges and monitor the performance of a company. Internet contains vast amounts of information and data, but the problem is not the volume but finding necessary relevant information required is a big challenge.

There are challenges that are very unusual from traditional research methods that internet marketing research has to overcome to get the desired quality results. As there is a vast amount of data and subject material is extremely wide in variety on the internet, processing this data into reliable information presents a big challenge.

Internet is easy and convenient platform to publish information for profitable or non-profitable purposes. Absence of regulation on the internet content makes the matter worse. Given the enormous amount of information which is available on internet, major challenge in doing marketing research is credibility of the source and accuracy, reliability, and value of the data. It implies that in order to determine the suitability of information it is very important to evaluate the data.

The Internet has already evolved as favorite tool of marketing research and the benefits are many. However, depending upon the requirements, it is important to figure out the research methodology which will suit you best and will help you deliver more value.

Here are three types of market research

Exploratory Research

It is an unstructured form of research and findings are based mainly on secondary data, case studies, pilot projects etc. and gathers general information about market and its various segments. Exploratory research is used to search the market for new ideas and explore potential market opportunities.

Descriptive Research

Descriptive research is more structured and it provides detailed analysis about the markets. Though it requires larger volumes of data collection and accurate analysis, it provides specific answers to multiple point questions.

Casual Research

Casual research helps to identify potential problems, locate its specific causes and guide you to formulate effective solutions and eliminate the root cause of the problem altogether. It in fact helps you to understand the relationship between the market, business and its target audiences.

Challenges of Internet Marketing Research

Although Internet Marketing Research has many advantages like, cost effective and time saving, there are challenges in doing market research, which are as follows:

Outdated Data: Considerable amount of data found in web pages can be outdated, either published well in past or become outdated very quickly due to the pace of change within in industry itself.

Credibility: Many a times, the data collected may not be credible. It is possible that information is published by someone who is not an expert on the industry trends. Because important decisions based on information, its credibility is always important. There are several tests which will help you to judge the credibility of the information, like author's credentials, accuracy test, timeliness of the work, and comprehensiveness of information etc.

Accuracy of data: Overall quality of research is directly related to the accuracy of information source. There are many websites and blogs that generally provide incorrect information. A researcher has to identify reliable sources related to the subject and analyze and crosscheck from various sources to validate its accuracy. Factual, detailed, exactness and purpose reflect intentions of completeness and accuracy of information.

Limited Useful Data: Sometimes it can take days or weeks to gather the desired data because the publishers are reluctant to give away the complete details freely online or information and data are restricted and incomplete and required data may not be available from the same source and has to be replaced with data from other qualified sources.

Internet is evolving growing in size every moment and though the vast information available on internet is free of cost, it requires lot of effort, skill and technique to filter out information. There are various internet tools and search engine techniques that enable to find the qualified data useful for research.