An audience-research company founded by Rand Fishkin, known for its audience-intelligence tools and widely cited research on search behaviour and zero-click results.

What is SparkToro known for measuring?

Audience attention and search behaviour — especially studies, with data partners, on how many searches end without a click.

How should I use SparkToro's research?

To understand structural shifts like zero-click search, reading each study's methodology and date rather than treating a single figure as fixed.

Growth Marketing Glossary

SparkToro

proper noun

Rand Fishkin's second act — the audience-research tool whose zero-click studies reframed how SEOs think.

Source mark — SparkToro

Type: audience research tool
Founder: Rand Fishkin
Known for: zero-click search research
Primary site: sparktoro.com

Forms & parts of speech

SparkToro · proper noun (a source)

A named publisher of marketing benchmark data.

"SparkToro's zero-click studies are a staple citation in modern SEO."

What it is

SparkToro is an audience-intelligence company founded by Rand Fishkin, who previously co-founded Moz. Its software helps marketers discover where an audience pays attention, and its research arm publishes influential studies on search and web behaviour.

What it measures

Its benchmark and research contribution is behavioural data — most notably analyses, produced with data partners, of how many Google searches end without a click, the zero-click phenomenon, alongside audience-discovery insights.

Cadence and how to use it

SparkToro publishes major research studies periodically rather than on a fixed calendar. Use its zero-click and search-behaviour findings to size the structural shift away from website clicks, reading each study's methodology and date.

RGM cites SparkToro's research as a search-behaviour input in its benchmarks compendium.

Worked example. An SEO lead building the case for investing in brand and answer-engine visibility cites SparkToro's zero-click research to show a large share of searches never reach a website.

That reframes the strategy conversation away from chasing rankings alone and toward being the cited answer — a structural argument the team could not make from its own analytics, which only see the clicks that did arrive.

Failure modes to watch. Quoting a zero-click figure without its methodology and date; generalising aggregate search behaviour to every query type; and treating audience-discovery signals as precise audience counts.

Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

View interest-over-time on Google Trends →

Common questions

What is SparkToro?: An audience-research company founded by Rand Fishkin, known for its audience-intelligence tools and widely cited research on search behaviour and zero-click results.
What is SparkToro known for measuring?: Audience attention and search behaviour — especially studies, with data partners, on how many searches end without a click.
How should I use SparkToro's research?: To understand structural shifts like zero-click search, reading each study's methodology and date rather than treating a single figure as fixed.

Related tools & calculators

toolRGM benchmarks compendium

Resources & people to follow

referenceSparkToro — zero-click search research
referenceRGM benchmarks compendium — search behaviour

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

Sources

referenceSparkToro — primary site
referenceCited by the RGM benchmarks compendium
trendsGoogle Trends — "sparktoro"