You can tell demand for a product is increasing when the outside event that makes people need it has been building for weeks and your own accounts begin to move in the same direction. Outside build-ups move first. Searches and new visitors in your accounts come next, and sales come last. The more of these point up together, the more you can trust what you see.
Most people check sales. Sales are the most honest number you have, and also the slowest. By the time a monthly total rises, buyers have been looking for a while.
What is the difference between leading and lagging indicators of demand?
A leading indicator of demand is a signal that moves before people buy. A lagging indicator is one that moves after they buy. You need both, for different jobs.
Leading indicators tell you when to act. Lagging indicators tell you what happened. Revenue, orders and return on ad spend are lagging, because they record purchases that already took place. The changes in a buyer's life before a purchase, and the searching they do before they choose, are leading.
| Signal | Leading or lagging | When it moves |
|---|---|---|
| An outside build-up, such as home sales climbing for a third month | Leading | Weeks or months before purchases |
| Searches for your category in your search campaigns | Leading | Days or weeks before purchases |
| First-time visitors to your site | Leading | Shortly before purchases |
| Add-to-carts, trial signups and demo requests | Leading, close to the sale | Days before purchases |
| Orders and revenue | Lagging | At or after purchase |
| Monthly return on ad spend | Lagging | After the month closes |
The earlier a signal moves, the noisier it tends to be, and the more work it takes to connect it to your product.
What are the signs of rising demand in your own accounts?
The signs of rising demand in your own accounts are more people searching for your category, more first-time visitors and more add-to-carts or signups while your spend and ads stay the same. That last condition matters most, since spending more will raise all of these numbers by itself.
Watch these in roughly the order they move:
- Search terms. More searches that match your category appear in your search campaigns, including phrasings you have not seen before.
- Search ad impressions climbing without a budget change. When more people search, the same budget reaches more of them until it runs out.
- Searches for your brand name. People who saw you earlier come back to look you up once they are ready.
- New visitors. A larger share of your site traffic comes from people who have never visited before.
- Add-to-carts, signups and demo requests. These climb a few days before orders do.
- Cost per click on your main search terms creeping up. Other advertisers have noticed the same buyers and are bidding for them.
All of these move after buyers have started looking. Your own accounts are good at confirming a rise and poor at giving you notice of one.
Which outside build-ups are leading indicators of demand?
The outside build-ups that lead demand are changes in buyers' lives or businesses that grow in one direction for weeks and end at a purchase. Each one adds more people who need a specific product.
Start by asking what has to happen before someone needs what you sell. Then look for the larger trend that makes that event more common. Some examples, each with the product and the reason:
- Home sales climbing for a third month, so new owners replace doorbells, locks and blinds in the weeks after they move in.
- Hiring rising month over month, so companies shop for onboarding software before a wave of new staff starts.
- Used car sales rising for several months, so new owners add dash cams and seat covers.
- Rents rising for consecutive months, so more households move and book movers and storage units.
- New business registrations climbing for several months, so first-time founders look for invoicing software before they bill a first customer.
- Restaurant prices rising month after month, so more people cook at home and buy meal prep containers and cast iron pans.
A single headline rarely changes how people buy. A trend that adds more people with a reason to act every week does. Verdius spots build-ups like these for you and lists them as the events behind each window. For how these build-ups turn into dated periods you can plan ads around, see what a demand window is.
Why do several signals together matter more than one?
Several signals together matter more than one because any single signal can move for reasons unrelated to buyers, while several unrelated signals rarely move the same way by chance.
Take a video doorbell. Doorbell searches in your campaigns might jump one week for no clear reason and fall back the next. Now suppose home sales have climbed for three months and mortgage rates have eased for several weeks. Doorbell searches are up week over week, and first-time visitors to your product page are rising. Those four signals have different causes and point the same way, so the rise is worth acting on.
Convergence works in the other direction too. If searches jump but no outside build-up explains it and add-to-carts stay flat, treat the jump as noise until something else backs it up.
A workable rule is to act when at least one outside build-up and at least one signal in your own accounts have both pointed up for several weeks.
How long should a rise last before you trust it?
A rise should hold in the same direction for several weeks before you trust it. One busy week is weak evidence, and a steady climb over three or four weeks is much stronger.
Direction matters more than size. A small rise that continues every week says more than one big jump followed by a drop. Compare each week with the few weeks before it, since last year's timing may not repeat.
Check that you did not cause the rise yourself. If you raised spend, launched a new ad or ran a discount in the same weeks, your numbers will climb whatever buyers are doing. Lean on signals your ads cannot touch, such as the outside build-up, and on rates that hold spend constant, such as conversions per dollar spent.
Is a jump in my ad clicks a sign of rising demand, or did my ads just get better?
A jump in clicks alone cannot tell you which, so check what else changed in the same week. If you changed the ad, the audience or the bid, the ad is the likely cause. If nothing in your account changed and searches for your category rose too, buyers are the likely cause.
What should I do if outside build-ups point up but my own accounts have not moved yet?
If outside build-ups point up and your own accounts have not moved, prepare before you spend. Build the audience, write ads that speak to the reason people are buying and test them at low spend. Your accounts usually start to move once buyers begin looking, and you will be ready when they do. Verdius gives you that audience by age, income, location and interests, so you can build it before your accounts move.
How do I tell a rise in demand for my product from a rise across the whole category?
Compare your own numbers with the category's. If searches for the category are up and your share of clicks holds steady, the category is rising and you are keeping pace. If searches for your brand and your conversions rise faster than the category, buyers are choosing you in particular.
Which approaches tell you demand is rising, and what does each miss?
Tracking outside build-ups and confirming them in your own accounts gives the earliest reliable read. Each approach used alone answers only part of the question.
| Approach | What it answers | What it misses |
|---|---|---|
| Watching your own sales | Whether buyers purchased more last period | Demand that has started but not yet reached checkout |
| Watching your ad account metrics | Whether more people are searching and clicking now | Why they are, and how long it will last |
| Tracking outside build-ups | Whether more people will soon need the product | Whether they will find and choose you |
| Combining outside build-ups with your own accounts | When a rise starts, what is behind it and whether it reaches you | Hour-by-hour patterns, which you tune afterward |
What should you do once demand for your product starts rising?
Once demand for your product starts rising, raise spend on that product in steps and aim your ads at the people entering the market. Set a stop as well, so you pull back when the build-up levels off.
The people entering a rise are often a narrower group than your usual audience: new homeowners, companies that are hiring, founders who just registered a business. Describe them in the terms ad platforms use, such as age, income, location and interests. The guide on when to increase ad spend covers how to add spend once buyers start looking.
Following outside build-ups by hand is slow, and harder still when you sell more than one product. Verdius does that tracking for you. For each product it finds windows with a start and a stop, ranks them against each other, lists the events behind each one and sends an alert when a window opens and when it closes. You can read how the windows are found.
What tool tells you when demand for your product is rising?
Verdius is software that predicts when demand for a product will rise and who to target then. It follows the outside build-ups in this guide so you do not have to track them yourself.
For each product it gives you:
- Optimal windows to run ads, each with a start and a stop, ranked against each other
- The events behind each window
- The audience to reach, by age, income, location and interests
- Alerts when a window opens and when it closes
Verdius connects to Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Microsoft Advertising and ChatGPT Ads, plus Google Analytics and Search Console, where the signals in your own accounts live. It only reads that data, and you run the ads. The pricing page shows how far ahead each plan sees.
So how do you know if demand is increasing?
You know demand is increasing when an outside build-up tied to your product has grown for several weeks and your own accounts begin to follow. Use leading signals to decide when to act and lagging ones to check the result. Wait for more than one of them to agree before you commit more spend.