Liam Moroney

Measure Category Health, Not Just Internal ROI

As you take on 2026, many will be looking at their full prior year of performance metrics to answer "what worked best that we can lean more into?" I think there's a critical view to add, and it's a highly accessible one: Category health and demand trends. Using brand search data, aggregated across all of the players in a category cohort, we can build critical pictures about whether the category itself looks to be growing, and where. And this picture can, and often does, look very different to the performance and ROI data of our internal efforts. We can get much better at efficiently converting in-market buyers, driving more pipeline for lower costs, but the category itself could be trending in a different direction with fewer buyers entering the category. Eventually that reality catches up, as the competitors within the category are all competing for a smaller overall pie. On the other side it could be trending up, as seen in the example below from the Storybook platform, which gives confidence that continued growth targets can come from a healthy growing category instead of from the much harder source of stealing competitor share. The real beauty is that this view can be built quickly in ways that fit the budget of all teams, and it gives the marketing team a view of the world outside that determines our success more than any individual channel or tactic. Of course, past is not prologue, and market trends can change, but search data updates frequently enough to see the changes before they become problems. And, it's a view that gives marketing a view and story that nobody else in the org has, and which very well might be one the most important in where future growth will come from. If you have questions about building your own view, shoot me a DM.