Market Query
Market query is how you ask one question across a whole area instead of checking locations one at a time.
You draw the area you're planning against, tell the GrowthFactor Agent what you're looking for, and every location in that area is evaluated at once. What comes back is a ranked shortlist on your map.
This happens inside a study. See Studies Overview to start one.
What it's good for
Questions about a whole market rather than a specific address:
"Find the 20 best spots in S1 for a drive-thru."
"How many of my deals are in markets with median household income above $85,000?"
"Which of my stores have the weakest demographics in their trade area?"
"Show me every location in this boundary with population over 12,000 and no Starbucks within half a mile."
"Compare my Dallas areas to my Houston areas on daytime population."
Single-address questions are faster through the site tools. Ask for a score, demographics, or foot traffic on one location and the agent goes straight there. See GrowthFactor Agent.
What you can screen on
Candidate locations
An even grid of locations covering the area you drew. This is what you get back when you ask for spots, sites, or places to consider. Ask for a finer grid when you want smaller locations.
Your stores and deals
Everything in your portfolio and pipeline. Use them as the thing you're ranking, or as a constraint on candidates.
Demographics
The demographic metrics your workspace is configured for. See Demographics.
Competitors
Locations of a brand or category you name. See Competitors and Complements.
Shapes in the study
Any area or trade zone drawn in the open study, referred to by its label. See Shapes.
Major roads
Highways and trunk roads running through the area.
Drive-time and walk-time areas
Routed service areas around a point. See Trade Zones.
You can combine any of these in one question. "Locations in S1 with population over 12,000, within a 10-minute drive of the interstate, at least 500 meters from my nearest store" is a single search.
Telling it what you're ranking on
A search comes back ranked, and the ranking follows the criteria you give it.
Ask for "the 20 best spots" on its own and a measure gets chosen for you, usually the largest population. That's a reasonable starting point. It's rarely the measure you would have picked.
Say what "best" means and you get your ranking instead:
"Find the 20 locations in S1 with the highest median household income."
"Rank locations in this area by daytime population, at least half a mile from my existing stores."
"Best 20 for a drive-thru: population over 10,000, income over $75,000, ranked by income."
Check what a search ranked on before you act on the order. Ask if the answer doesn't say.
Describing the area
A search needs a bounded area to work in. Three ways to give it one:
A shape you drew — "in S1", or "inside the North Austin boundary". Refer to it by its label.
A distance from a point — "within two miles of 500 5th Ave".
A drive time — "within a 15-minute drive of my flagship".
"Anywhere in Texas" is too broad to run. Narrow it to a market first.
What comes back
A ranked table in the chat, showing the measures you asked about.
A layer on the study map with the locations that qualified, each labeled by rank or by a name you asked for.
Locations are drawn as cells, so you can see the area each one covers, with a point at the center. They behave like anything else on your map. Drop a pin on the ones worth pursuing, draw a trade zone, or create a deal.
A search returns up to 1,000 locations, or 10,000 if you ask for more. The top 200 are summarized in the chat and the full set lands on the map.
Limits worth knowing
Demographics come from your workspace configuration. A single search covers up to 25 metrics across 500 areas. Ask for fewer metrics or a smaller area if you hit that.
Name competitors exactly. "Starbucks" bounds the search. "Coffee shops, roughly" doesn't.
One routed drive-time or walk-time area per search. "Everything within a 15-minute drive of my flagship" works. Routing out from thirty candidates at once doesn't. Straight-line distances have no such limit, so ask for a radius when a ring will do.
A search runs for up to a minute. Too broad and it times out, with a suggestion to narrow the area.
One correction. If a request can't be assembled into a search, the agent gets a single retry and then tells you what went wrong rather than guessing.
What a search can't change
Market query only reads. It doesn't drop pins, draw zones, or touch your portfolio. Acting on a result is a separate thing you ask for, and creating or updating anything still pauses for your approval first. See Approving sensitive actions.
Results are scoped to your own access. If you can't see a store, deal, or study in the app, it isn't in them.
Where it fits
A search is the fastest way through step 2 of Market Planning. Instead of placing candidate pins one at a time, screen the market first and pin the shortlist that comes back. From there the rest of the workflow is unchanged: draw trade zones, read the data, and compare.
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