Using Clarisights for Research: A Practical Guide

Why Use Clarisights for Research?

When you're conducting marketing research or analyzing competitive landscapes, you're often drowning in data from multiple sources. One moment you're pulling Facebook Ads metrics, the next you're wrestling with Google Analytics exports, and before you know it, you've got fifteen spreadsheets open and no clear picture of what's actually happening.

This is exactly where Clarisights becomes invaluable for research work. As a unified analytics platform, it aggregates data from 200+ marketing channels and data sources into a single dashboard. For researchers, this means you can analyze cross-channel marketing performance without the tedious work of manually combining datasets.

You'll find Clarisights particularly useful when you're:

• Analyzing market trends across multiple advertising platforms and need comparative data
• Conducting competitive analysis where you need to track performance metrics across channels
• Researching marketing attribution and understanding how different channels contribute to conversions
• Building data-driven reports for clients, stakeholders, or publication
• Benchmarking performance against industry standards or historical data

The platform eliminates the most frustrating part of marketing research—data collection and normalization—so you can focus on what actually matters: finding insights and answering your research questions.

Getting Started with Clarisights

Before you dive into your research project, you'll need to set up Clarisights properly. The initial setup takes about 30-60 minutes, but it's worth doing right.

Create Your Account and Connect Data Sources

Start by signing up for Clarisights and identifying which data sources matter for your research. The platform supports major platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, TikTok, and many more. You'll want to connect at least 2-3 sources to see the real benefit of unified analytics.

Navigate to the Integrations section and use the one-click connectors. You'll authenticate each platform through OAuth—it's straightforward, but make sure you have admin access to the accounts you're trying to connect. For most research purposes, you'll want to import at least 90 days of historical data to establish meaningful trends.

Set Up Your Workspace Structure

Think about your workspace structure before importing data. Are you researching a specific brand? Multiple competitors? Different market segments? Create separate workspaces or use tags to organize your data logically. This organizational groundwork saves hours of confusion later when you're deep in analysis.

Configure Your Data Fields

Clarisights automatically maps standard metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions. However, you'll want to customize field mappings for research purposes. Go to the Data Dictionary section and ensure custom fields from your platforms are correctly categorized. For instance, if you're tracking specific campaign tags or custom conversion events, map these explicitly.

Step-by-Step Workflow

Let's walk through a typical research workflow using Clarisights. We'll use the example of researching marketing performance trends for a specific industry segment.

Step 1: Define Your Research Question

Start with a clear question. For example: "How did social media advertising performance change in the fitness industry during Q4 2024 compared to Q3?" Having a specific question helps you avoid getting lost in the data.

Step 2: Build Your Initial Dashboard

Create a new dashboard specific to your research project. Use the "Create Dashboard" button and start with a blank canvas. This gives you full control over which visualizations matter for your analysis.

Add your first widget by clicking the "+" icon. For timeline analysis, start with a line chart showing your primary metric (like ROAS or CPA) over time. Select your date range and add comparison periods—this is crucial for research where you're looking at trends.

Step 3: Apply Filters and Segments

Here's where Clarisights really shines for research. Use the filter panel to narrow down to exactly what you need. Apply filters for:

• Specific date ranges
• Channel types (Instagram vs. Facebook, for example)
• Campaign objectives
• Geographic regions
• Device types

You can save these filter combinations as "views" so you can quickly switch between different research segments without rebuilding everything.

Step 4: Create Comparative Visualizations

Add multiple widgets to compare different dimensions. For research, you'll typically want:

• Time-series charts showing trend lines
• Channel comparison bar charts
• Performance scatter plots (plotting spend vs. conversions, for instance)
• Funnel visualizations for conversion path analysis
• Pie charts for budget allocation insights

Position these widgets on your dashboard so you can see relationships at a glance. The drag-and-drop interface makes reorganization easy as your analysis evolves.

Step 5: Dig into Anomalies

When you spot interesting patterns, use Clarisights' drill-down capabilities. Click any data point to see the underlying campaign or ad set data. This is particularly valuable when you notice unusual spikes or drops—you can quickly identify whether they're driven by a specific campaign, creative, or external factor.

Step 6: Export and Document Findings

As you discover insights, export data for further analysis or reporting. You can export widgets as images (perfect for presentations) or raw data as CSV files (when you need to do statistical analysis in other tools). Schedule automated reports if you're tracking metrics over an extended research period.

Tips and Best Practices

Use Custom Metrics for Deeper Insights

Don't limit yourself to standard metrics. Create custom calculated fields for research-specific KPIs. For example, if you're researching engagement efficiency, create a custom metric like "Engagement Rate per Dollar Spent" by dividing total engagements by spend. These custom metrics often reveal insights that standard reports miss.

Leverage Cohort Analysis

When researching user behavior or campaign performance over time, set up cohort analysis. Group campaigns by launch date or user acquisition period, then track how performance evolves. This is particularly powerful for understanding long-term trends versus short-term fluctuations.

Save Templates for Recurring Research

If you conduct similar research regularly, save your dashboard configurations as templates. This dramatically reduces setup time for your next project. You can clone dashboards and simply update the filters and date ranges.

Cross-Reference Multiple Data Sources

The real power of Clarisights for research comes from combining data sources. Don't just look at individual platforms—analyze how Facebook Ads performance correlates with Google Ads, or how organic social metrics relate to paid campaign performance. These cross-channel insights are nearly impossible to spot when data lives in silos.

Set Up Data Quality Checks

Before drawing conclusions, verify data integrity. Check that all sources are connecting properly, metrics are calculating correctly, and you're not seeing duplicate data. Create a simple widget that shows total spend across all sources and cross-reference it with your source platforms to ensure accuracy.

Use Annotations to Mark External Events

Add annotations to your timelines marking important external events—product launches, competitor campaigns, seasonal events, industry news. This context is invaluable when you're trying to explain why metrics shifted at specific times.

Collaborate with Comments

If you're working with a research team, use Clarisights' commenting features. Tag team members on specific widgets to discuss patterns or ask questions. This keeps all context-specific discussions tied to the actual data rather than scattered across email threads.

When Clarisights Isn't the Right Fit

While Clarisights excels at marketing analytics research, it's not ideal for every research scenario. You should consider alternatives if:

Your Research Requires Deep Statistical Analysis

Clarisights provides visualization and basic analysis, but if you need advanced statistical methods—regression analysis, significance testing, or complex modeling—you'll need to export data to R, Python, or specialized statistical software.

You're Working with Non-Marketing Data

If your research focuses on product usage data, customer support metrics, or operational analytics beyond marketing, Clarisights isn't designed for this. It's specifically built for marketing performance data.

You Need Real-Time Data Processing

While Clarisights refreshes data regularly, there can be delays of several hours depending on the source. If you're researching real-time trends or need second-by-second updates, you'll need a more real-time solution.

Budget Is Extremely Limited

Clarisights is a premium platform. If you're conducting one-off research with tight budget constraints, manually collecting data or using free tools might be more practical, even if more time-consuming.

You're Analyzing Primarily Qualitative Data

The platform excels with quantitative metrics but isn't designed for qualitative research like sentiment analysis, user interviews, or focus group findings. You'll need different tools for those research methods.

Conclusion

Clarisights transforms marketing research from a data collection nightmare into a focused analysis exercise. By centralizing your data sources and providing powerful visualization tools, it lets you spend your time finding insights rather than wrestling with spreadsheets.

The key to success is setting up your environment thoughtfully from the start—connect the right sources, organize your workspace logically, and build dashboards around your actual research questions rather than just recreating standard reports. When you do this, you'll find patterns and correlations that would be nearly impossible to spot across disconnected platforms.

Start with a focused research question, build incrementally, and use the comparative analysis features to their full potential. The time investment in learning the platform pays dividends when you can answer complex research questions in minutes rather than days.

Compare Clarisights with alternatives on ToolSpotter.