Exploring the World of Alternative Data: Top Platforms to Consider
In the financial world, alternative data has revolutionized how investors and businesses make decisions. Unlike traditional datasets such as earnings reports or market performance metrics, alternative data draws insights from unconventional sources like geolocation tracking, social media trends, app downloads, and e-commerce transactions. This unique approach allows analysts to uncover hidden patterns and anticipate market movements before they are reflected in traditional data. Whether it's tracking foot traffic to retail stores, analyzing consumer / news sentiment online, or monitoring keyword search trends, alternative data offers a competitive edge in an increasingly data-driven investment landscape. With countless platforms now providing these insights, we’ve analyzed 10 leading alternative data providers, evaluating their pros and cons to help you navigate this rapidly growing sector.
1. Placer.AI
Description:
Placer.AI specializes in geolocation data, offering insights into foot traffic trends for retail stores, malls, and other physical locations. Its tools are widely used by investors and businesses in the real estate, retail, and hospitality sectors.
Website: https://www.placer.ai/
Pros:
A leader in geolocation-based analytics, offering valuable insights into foot traffic trends to various physical locations.
Strong focus on retail and real estate, making it an excellent choice for investors targeting these sectors.
Cons:
Recent privacy changes in mobile operating systems location sharing permissions have disrupted geolocation data accuracy.
Primarily limited to physical foot traffic insights, with less relevance for purely online-focused companies, which in an increasingly online world can severely limit actionable market data insights in many cases.
2. YipitData
Description:
YipitData aggregates e-commerce and transactional data to offer deep insights into consumer spending patterns and revenue trends. The platform is popular for its focus on high-growth sectors like online marketplaces and subscription-based businesses.
Website: https://www.yipitdata.com/
Pros:
Known for its expertise in aggregating transactional and e-commerce data, offering detailed revenue insights for covered companies.
Focuses on actionable data, including revenue trends and consumer spending patterns.
Cons:
Coverage is limited to a few hundred tickers, which restricts its utility for broader portfolio analysis.
Subscription costs can be prohibitive for smaller firms or individual investors.
3. TickerTrends
Description:
TickerTrends combines social and digital data sources to help investors identify emerging trends tied to over 30,000 global tickers. With features like “Exploding Trends” and auto-mapped keyword-to-ticker relations, the platform stands out for its innovative approach to trend discovery.
Website: https://www.tickertrends.io/
Pros:
Broad coverage of over 30,000 tickers globally, catering to both niche and large-cap companies.
Unique features like "Exploding Trends," which surfaces rapidly growing consumer interests.
Auto-mapped ticker-to-term relations make research efficient—users can type a keyword like "yogurt" and instantly see related companies.
Comprehensive datasets spanning Google Trends, TikTok hashtags, Reddit subscribers, Amazon search volumes, Website Traffic data, Mobile data, and more, ensuring a holistic view of societal trends.
Cons:
While comprehensive, TickerTrends' reliance on social and digital data may not appeal to investors looking for traditional financial indicators like PE ratios.
Depth of insight depends on user familiarity with alternative data interpretation.
4. Apptopia
Description:
Apptopia is a market intelligence platform focused on mobile app performance. It tracks app downloads, revenue, and usage statistics, making it a go-to resource for investors monitoring mobile-first businesses.
Website: https://apptopia.com/
Pros:
Specializes in app performance data, making it ideal for tracking mobile-first companies.
Provides granular insights, such as downloads and in-app revenue metrics.
Cons:
Limited to app-based businesses, with minimal coverage for traditional or offline industries.
Expensive for investors who don’t prioritize the mobile app sector.
5. Edison Trends
Description:
Edison Trends provides e-commerce transaction data derived from email receipts. It helps investors track online sales performance and identify revenue trends across a variety of consumer categories.
Website: https://trends.edison.tech/
Pros:
Focuses on e-commerce transaction data, providing robust insights into online sales trends.
Particularly strong in tracking Amazon and direct-to-consumer brands.
Cons:
Heavy reliance on transactional email scraping raises potential data privacy concerns.
Limited sector coverage compared to broader alternative data platforms.
6. AlphaSense
Description:
AlphaSense is an AI-powered search engine designed for corporate research. It allows users to search through earnings calls, filings, and reports to extract relevant insights efficiently.
Website: https://www.alpha-sense.com/
Pros:
Offers AI-driven search tools for quickly extracting insights from earnings calls, reports, and filings.
Strongly focused on corporate research, making it a favorite for fundamental analysts.
Cons:
Lacks broader alternative datasets such as consumer trends or geolocation data.
Primarily text-based, with limited integration of non-traditional data sources.
7. Second Measure
Description:
Second Measure provides transactional data from credit and debit card purchases, offering insights into revenue trends for consumer-facing companies. It is highly regarded for its near real-time data updates.
Website: https://secondmeasure.com/
Pros:
Provides near real-time transactional data from credit and debit card purchases.
Highly accurate in tracking revenue trends for consumer-facing companies.
Cons:
Coverage is limited to the U.S., with little international reach.
Data is concentrated on consumer companies, leaving gaps in coverage for other sectors.
8. Thinknum
Description:
Thinknum collects alternative data from online sources such as job postings, employee reviews, and social media to uncover corporate trends. The platform is designed to highlight hiring practices and sentiment shifts, providing unique angles for investment analysis.
Website: https://www.thinknum.com/
Pros:
Offers unique datasets such as job postings and employee reviews to track hiring trends and corporate sentiment.
Strong visualization tools for analyzing historical trends.
Cons:
The platform’s user interface can feel less intuitive at times.
Data reliability issues have occasionally surfaced with user-generated content sources.
9. Quandl
Description:
Quandl offers a wide array of datasets, blending traditional and alternative data. It appeals to quant-driven investors with its integration-friendly design and access to premium datasets.
Website: https://data.nasdaq.com/
Pros:
Offers a mix of traditional and alternative datasets, appealing to quant-driven investors.
Strong integration capabilities with tools like Python and R for advanced analysis.
Cons:
Broad datasets may lack the granularity needed for specific trend analysis.
Platform navigation can be overwhelming for new users.
10. Similarweb
Description:
Similarweb provides digital intelligence by analyzing web traffic and engagement metrics. Its insights are particularly valuable for e-commerce and SaaS businesses looking to benchmark their online performance.
Website: https://www.similarweb.com/
Pros:
Provides web traffic data, enabling users to analyze online engagement metrics.
Particularly useful for evaluating e-commerce and SaaS companies.
Cons:
Limited insights into offline trends and companies with a small digital footprint.
Data accuracy may vary for smaller websites or regional players.
Conclusion
Each platform offers distinct advantages, catering to various investor needs. After a comprehensive, holistic view of all platforms, we believe TickerTrends stands out for the most cost effective, while still thorough way to analyze tickers and trade / invest in stocks. While some others are notable such as Placer.AI for geolocation and YipitData in transaction analysis connected to tickers, TickerTrends offers far more ticker discovery potential and uncovers new societal trends for users at a much lower price. When choosing an alternative data platform, investors should consider their priorities — whether it's niche sector insights, global breadth, or innovative trend discovery — as it will affect which vendor they ultimately decide on.
Ultimately, the right tool can provide a competitive edge, and TickerTrends' versatility and depth make it a strong contender in the alternative data space.