Insights

heatseekverb

A market research method that uses AI and live in-market experiments to gather real evidence of customer behavior and purchase decisions — without recruiting survey panels.

New podcast · Finding the Heat

The CMO of L'Oréal on bridging the art and science of marketing.

Episode 1: Lex Bradshaw-Zanger — Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, L'Oréal SAPMENA — on de-risking creativity and why what customers say is only 20–30% of the story.

Watch the episode · 30 min
“You're bringing the ability to de-risk amazing creativity — in a space that's needed it for hundreds of years.”
Lex Bradshaw-ZangerLex Bradshaw-Zanger / CMO & CDO, L'Oréal SAPMENA · 39 global brands
Featured · Research8 min read

Your biggest risk isn't the market. It's your customer research model.

If your understanding of customers is built on what they say, you're steering with a compass you can't rely on. Here's why behavior-based research is rewriting how teams find truth — and the exact workflow to switch.

Steven Brennen · VP Research · Nov 21, 2025
The number that should worry you
20–30%

How often a survey's stated intent matches what people actually buy. Stack five decisions on that and you're at 0.1% confidence.

Strategy · 6 min

Marketing budgets are down 30%. The winners won't have the best AI stack.

Every CMO has an AI mandate. But the teams that pull ahead will own behavioral ground truth — not the flashiest tool stack.

Kate O'KeeffeNov 18, 2025
Research · 5 min

Why surveys quietly compound into 0.1% confidence.

Surveys predict purchase intent at 20–30% accuracy. Stack five decisions on that foundation and the math falls apart fast.

Steven BrennenOct 22, 2025
Product · 7 min

How real and synthetic data work together to outlearn your market.

Fast is not useful if it is wrong. Why grounding synthetic personas in live experiments beats survey-trained bots.

Rutger CoolenNov 4, 2025
Podcast · 30 min

Bridging the art and science of marketing — with the CMO of L'Oréal SAPMENA.

Lex Bradshaw-Zanger, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer of L'Oréal SAPMENA, joins Heatseeker CEO Kate O'Keeffe to discuss de-risking creativity, why surveys mislead, and bringing the consumer off the PowerPoint slide.

Finding the Heat
Series · 7 min

Defensible by design: how Heatseeker serves the CMO.

CMOs run on defensible confidence. How Heatseeker turns fast, rigorous experiments into board-ready evidence you can defend to the CFO.

Heatseeker
Series · 7 min

Prove it before you spend it: how Heatseeker serves the Performance Marketer.

Validate creative before spend and turn results into VP-ready reports. How Heatseeker serves the performance marketer.

Heatseeker
Series · 8 min

Test the bold idea before you pitch it: how Heatseeker serves the Brand Marketer.

Build conviction, understand why an idea wins, and walk out with something worth sharing. How Heatseeker serves the brand marketer.

Heatseeker
Series · 8 min

The rigor doesn't leave the room: how Heatseeker serves the Insights Lead.

Inline sourcing, behavioral data, IP ownership, and speed that makes rigorous research survivable. How Heatseeker serves the insights lead.

Heatseeker
Guides · 7 min

B2B market research: test the message on the buyers who sign.

Validate positioning and value props against real B2B decision-makers, not panels.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

B2C customer segmentation built on behavior, not personas.

Find the segments that actually respond differently — and message each one right.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

B2C market research that predicts what shoppers actually buy.

Move past stated preference to revealed behavior — what real consumers choose in market.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

Business validation: prove the demand before you defend the budget.

Validate a business case against real buyer behavior — not a survey or a room of opinions.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

Product innovation: prioritize the roadmap by real demand.

Validate which concepts real buyers want before engineering commits a quarter to them.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

SaaS conversion rate optimization starts with the message.

Before you tune the funnel, validate the promise that earns the click.

Heatseeker Team
Straight answers

The questions teams ask before they switch.

Everything worth knowing before you put surveys behind you — no jargon, no hedging.

What is behavioral ground truth?

Evidence of what customers actually do — verified clicks, purchases and choices observed in live markets — rather than what they say they'll do in a survey or focus group.

How accurate is behavioral testing vs. surveys?

Surveys predict real purchase behavior only 20–30% of the time. Heatseeker calibrates its predictions to up to 95% correlation with verified behavior.

What is a synthetic persona?

An AI model of a customer segment trained on verified behavioral data and your own first-party data — not scraped web text. You can question it directly and get an answer in minutes.

How is heatseeking different from A/B testing?

A/B testing optimises one asset for one metric. Heatseeking reveals the deeper drivers behind a decision — jobs to be done, pain points, pricing, language-market fit — and feeds them into a private model of your market.

How fast can I get an answer?

Synthetic experiments return a behavior-backed read in minutes. Live in-market experiments return statistically significant proof in days, not weeks or months.

Is my data used to train shared models?

No. Your synthetic audience is trained only on your tests, your first-party data and your behavioral signals. No one else gets access to it.

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