Customer Segments · Data Sources
Thousands of official variables, mapped to the exact place you searched
Good market research is only as trustworthy as its data. Koyote is built on the American Community Survey and official Census boundary geography — the same sources banks, planners, and the federal government rely on.
Explore the demo for freeWhy official data matters
A large share of market-research tools blend scraped, purchased, or modeled data with unclear origins. When a number influences a lease, a loan, or a marketing budget, 'trust us' isn't good enough — you need to know where it came from.
The American Community Survey (ACS) is the largest ongoing household survey in the United States, run by the Census Bureau with a legally mandated methodology and published margins of error. When Koyote reports a median income or household count, it's traceable to that source — and the boundary it belongs to comes from the Census Bureau's own TIGER geography.
The variables that drive segment matching
Out of the thousands of published ACS tables, a core set does the heavy lifting in market research. Koyote's segment matching and area ranking draw on these ready-to-use datasets.
- Demographics — population, household counts, and household composition, the foundation of market sizing.
- Income — median household income and distribution brackets, the clearest signal of spending capacity and price-point fit.
- Age — median age and generational breakdowns, which shape category demand from childcare to retirement services.
- Housing — owner vs. renter mix, home values, and housing type, powerful proxies for lifestyle, stability, and purchasing behavior.
From broad markets to hyperlocal tracts
Scale is where the data earns its keep. The same official sources resolve from an entire state down to a single census tract — roughly 4,000 people, often just a few blocks. That means the analysis doesn't blur as you zoom in: the tract behind your storefront gets its own real numbers, not an interpolation of the city average.
And because every variable is mapped against the exact geography you searched — a city, a county, or a ring around your location — the data, the map, and the rankings always describe the same places.
Worked example
Two tracts, one ZIP code, very different customers
- ZIP 85255 average — median income
- $121,000 (looks uniformly affluent)
- Tract A inside it — median income / housing
- $148,000 / 84% owner-occupied
- Tract B inside it — median income / housing
- $72,500 / 61% renter-occupied
- Median age — Tract A vs Tract B
- 52 vs 31
At ZIP level, these two tracts are invisible inside one healthy average. At tract level they're opposite markets: established homeowners vs. young renters. A landscaping company and a food-delivery brand would draw opposite conclusions from the same ZIP code — which is exactly why Koyote ranks at the finest geography available.
How Koyote puts it to work
- 1
Search a place
Every search resolves to official Census boundaries — city, county, or radius — pulled from TIGER geography.
- 2
We pull the matching data
For each area inside, Koyote retrieves the ACS variables that matter for your business question: households, income, age, and housing.
- 3
Segments get matched, not guessed
Audience segments are matched to areas only where the underlying data supports the match — and labeled as modeled estimates where it goes beyond published counts.
- 4
Everything maps back to the source
Each number in your results and reports belongs to a named, official geography — so you can defend every figure you act on.