Consumer Analyst

The Consumer Analyst is one of the five Research analysts. It builds the audience layer of the research dossier: 3-5 personas as Jobs-To-Be-Done archetypes, plus the decision drivers, barriers, and brand-controllable levers that describe how those audiences relate to your category.

What it does

The analyst produces an executive summary plus four main sections: Consumer Decision Drivers (the criteria and frictions that determine "will I buy this?"), Persona Ideas (3-5 personas framed by JTBD, barriers, decision criteria, and triggers), Activating Purchase Levers (brand-controllable mechanisms that ease buying decisions, with cost and ROI rationale), and Other Consumer Insights.

Tables carry much of the synthesis. Cells are concise: a phrase or short sentence, not a paragraph. Output length is roughly a one-pager equivalent of structured prose and tables.

When the campaign brief names a target audience, the analyst builds personas around that segment. Brand-profile audiences become supplementary personas when relevant.

Where to find it

Inside a brand or campaign, navigate to Research. After the Research run completes, the Consumer Analyst output appears as the third of five analyst tabs on the Research page.

How it works

When you start a Research run, all five analysts run in parallel. The Consumer Analyst reads the brand profile, the campaign brief if you're running campaign-scoped Research, and any attached documents. It then pulls additional consumer signals from web research: surveys, market research reports, government statistics, and journalism on consumer behavior.

The full Research run takes about 6-8 minutes.

What you can adjust

Target audience in the campaign brief — the most direct lever for shaping the personas. A precisely named target audience directs the analyst to build personas around that segment. A vague brief causes the analyst to fall back to brand-profile audiences and infer the segment. Sharpening the brief and re-running improves personas more than any other adjustment.

Document attachment — before starting a Research run, select documents from the Documents page (PDFs, Word files, Markdown, CSVs, Excel sheets) to attach. The analyst treats them as high-priority input. Previous audience research, segmentation studies, and customer interviews are particularly useful here.

Refine — after a run completes, submit feedback via the Refine button. The platform routes it to the analysts that need to re-run. Each Refine creates a new version. Prior versions stay in history and can be restored.

Limits and known issues

• Personas are constructs, not surveyed data. The personas synthesize available signals into representative profiles. Validate them against any first-party audience research you have before treating them as ground truth.
• English-first source bias. Web research draws primarily from English-language sources, which can underrepresent non-English-speaking audiences in the persona detail.
• Vague briefs produce vague personas. Without a sharp target-audience definition in the campaign brief, the personas trend generic. Tighten the brief, not the analyst.
• Beta software. Validate cited claims and persona assumptions before briefing teams or committing budgets.