Introducing Lens: your automated eye into market analysis

Market conditions are more uncertain than ever: visibility is fragmenting, rising costs mean marketers can't entertain investment without strong data, and rapid AI development means businesses are at risk of adoption without clear direction or guidance.  

Digital strategy needs prioritisation and insight more than ever. IDHL’s answer? Lens – the newest innovation in the Labs arsenal, offering a zoomed-out view of entire markets from an SEO perspective.  

Lens

Part of the IDHL Labs Intelligence Platform (Labs IP), Lens is an internal market and gap analysis tool that creates a single, evidence-led picture of SEO performance across markets. Powered by the 20 years of insights across hundreds of clients, it shows where visibility, coverage, and opportunity gaps exist, so teams can focus on the areas with the greatest potential impact.

How does it work?  

Lens starts at the market level, not an individual client. It aggregates tens of thousands of known search phrases into defined markets and sub‑markets, then calculates who is winning visibility, who is under‑represented, and where meaningful gaps exist. 

The component that transforms Lens from just an automation tool is the unique data that fuels the analysis. Depending on size, we rank up to 500 domains for each market using proprietary performance data, layered over industry insights and intelligence.  

What is the benefit for teams? 

Lens is designed to solve a very specific analysis problem: pinpointing where genuine opportunity exists before investing time, budget, or resource. By surfacing market share, top phrases, and estimated traffic, teams can accurately assess how their brands can slot into identified gaps and what additional optimisation is likely to pay off.  

In short, it removes the guesswork from early-stage decision-making. No more slow, manual competitor analysis – this technology empowers brands to move away from guesswork when it comes to where focusing SEO activity, championing a quality over quantity approach.  

While Lens doesn’t prescribe solutions, it provides clarity and focus, helping teams ask better questions and answer them with evidence quickly and efficiently.  

Where is it used?  

Lens supports SEO and organic search teams by enabling a clearer understanding of market structure, competitive positioning, and seasonality at scale. 

 What does Lens produce?  

• Market dashboards showing relative visibility, comparative traffic estimates, and ranking presence across markets and sub‑markets. 
• Competitive comparisons, including who leads a market, who is climbing, and the size of the gap to move up. 
• Top phrase views, revealing which keywords carry the most weight. 
• Trend views, a future capability showing how visibility changes over time. 
• Exportable data visualisations, suitable for use in reports and presentations 

This is just the beginning for Lens – planned future versions will include more report-style assets generated from on-screen data, designed to be shared directly with stakeholders.  

Discover IDHL Labs 

Built on decades of SEO insight, Lens brings clarity to organic markets and guides smarter strategy. Lens is one component in IDHL Labs' Intelligence Platform, an AI-powered system that gives IDHL clients a connected view of digital performance, visibility and market context, so they can see what is changing, where gaps exist and where to act. To find out how our developing technology can support your brand, get in touch with our experts.