What is SparkToro's Audience Intelligence Tool?
Why was SparkToro created?

- There is a space in the market for this sort of tool. It aligns with the future of marketing and could be very successful. That’s the business argument.
- Everyone has bills to pay, even those who have set up companies such as Moz. Both Rand and Casey don’t seem like they would be content lounging about the house in their PJs. That’s the personal finance (and potentially renewed purpose) argument.
- Prove those on the other side of the investment table wrong. Avoid the substantial pitfalls of raising large sums of institutional money. Do it differently, and make it successful. That’s the ‘f*ck you’ argument.
Update: I contacted Rand prior to publishing this article as I felt that it was the right thing to do, considering some of the conjecture above. He confirmed that there are personal and emotional elements involved. In addition their “biggest goal was to help folks answer the question: ‘where can I go do marketing to my audience(s) without just throwing money at Google and Facebook’.”
Our Expectations
First Impressions of SparkToro
Surprise #1: Opportunities for amplification and contribution
- Social accounts
- Websites Visited & Shared


Those are great and ones for you to target strategically. However, if you operate in a very busy industry such as SEO, that might prove to be incredibly hard.
We found more value in the ‘hidden gem’ sections for both social accounts and websites. It’s exactly the same theory but the surprise was to see it separated out clearly on the platform. The description for these sections are that those listed will have good numbers, but may not be mainstream yet.
I know what you’re thinking, you can get these sites through backlink analysis on SEMrush, or any other similar platform like Ahrefs. The difference here is that it tends to remove your biases. Instead of navigating to websites or social accounts that you or your client know, this is aggregated data from a keyword or topic. It gives you a birds’ eye view of a subject and allows you to dig past the usual suspects.


Surprise #2: Discovery.

Maybe the stresses of running a business had meant I had strayed away from my own personal development. Alternatively, I hadn’t considered the possibilities of multiple channels being included as part of the features. Call me naive, whatever the case I can see this being very useful for a lot of people in different circumstances. Personal development, agencies researching new industries, companies looking to connect with their peers.
Surprise #3: Language

Surprise #4: Competitor Analysis (Profile Search)



Surprise #5: Price
This product has been released in the middle of a global pandemic which is almost certainly going to be followed by one hell of a recession. The timing is unfortunate, especially since their planned release was in March 2020. Regardless of circumstance, when we looked at the pricing, it seemed….well….as my friend would say ‘a tad lumpy’.

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