Predicting Public Interest in Nonsurgical Cosmetic Procedures Using Google Trends

Area of Science:

• Cosmetic Surgery
• Data Analytics
• Market Research

Background:

• Google Trends (GT) offers free search traffic analysis relevant to plastic surgery marketing.
• GT data can inform resource allocation and strategic decisions in the field.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the utility of Google Trends in tracking and predicting public interest in nonsurgical cosmetic procedures.
• To examine temporal trends in public interest for these procedures.

Main Methods:

• Compared Google Trends search volume data with professional society (ASPS, ASAPS) case volumes for 6 nonsurgical procedure categories (Jan 2004-Mar 2019).
• Employed univariate linear regression with a significance cutoff of P < 0.01.

Main Results:

• Significant positive correlations found for 17 Google Trends terms across procedure categories.
• Specific terms like "Botox®," "collagen injections," and "hyaluronic acid fillers" showed strong correlations.
• Many search terms lacked significance, highlighting the importance of careful term selection.

Conclusions:

• Google Trends serves as a valuable, intuitive dataset for plastic surgeons.
• GT can accurately gauge both global and national interest in nonsurgical cosmetic procedures.