Search data is valuable for search marketers for obvious reasons, but when this data travels to other parts of the marketing department and beyond, it can guide a company's broader marketing strategy in the right direction and offer a better experience for the customer. eMarketer’s Lauren Fisher spoke with Wes MacLaggan, senior vice president of marketing at ad management platform Marin Software, about why marketers need to keep mining search and other types of data to stay competitive. MacLaggan was interviewed as part of eMarketer’s August report, "Using Marketing Data for Merchandising: Optimizing Inventory Levels and Launching New Products."

Search is one such source of data. For example, Google’s search query report tells you exactly what people have searched. That’s a fire hose for any company to see what their customers are really looking for.

People don't usually search for the exact product. They search for something broader. Understanding and mining that data can be a valuable source of insight, both for the marketer and deeper in the organization.

The rise of voice search makes this even more of an opportunity. With voice, searches tend to be much longer, and that gives you more detail and more information to work with.