Large adoption figures say little about a particular buying journey. Look for evidence from your own audience: the questions asked, sources consulted and routes to an enquiry. Keep broad market trends in context when prioritising work.
Bring the idea into your business.
Separate the observation from the conclusion. A brand mention, a cited page, a website visit and an enquiry each describe a different event. Record the source of each signal and its limits. Review the pattern across a consistent set of questions rather than treating the strongest screenshot as the whole story.
Make the review concrete.
Use “choose useful signals over headline numbers” as a prompt for your next review. Choose one customer journey, collect the relevant pages and observations, and write down the gap you want to understand. Keep the original evidence so you can explain the decision to someone who was not involved.
Decide what would change your mind before making the update. A useful review includes evidence that challenges the idea as well as evidence that supports it. If the signal is unclear, narrow the question or gather a better sample before extending the work.
A practical exercise
Start with one customer conversation
Ask a recent customer to describe how they first understood the problem and compared possible providers. Let them explain the sequence before offering channel names. Record the account as one person’s experience. Use it to form a question for further investigation rather than treating a single interview as a market-wide finding.
Put it into practice
Choose one useful next step.
Apply the idea to a real customer question. Record what you see today, make a focused change and compare the evidence before broadening the work.