The InnovateMR Blog

There has been some recent buzz about a report entitled, “More Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panels.” This report, like previous ones released by the firm, Grey Matter Research, paints a rather depressing and alarming picture for the sample industry. The report suggested that up to 46% of the sample traffic furnished in today’s surveys should be deemed unacceptable; riddled with programmatic bots and other undesirable behaviors. While we don’t know which panel suppliers were used for this research, the report indicated that 5 of the 10 largest sample companies in our industry were used for the test. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the title of this report caught my attention and troubled me greatly.

InnovateMR's Chief Research Officer, Lisa Wilding-Brown, shares her Top 5 Tips for Vetting Your Sample Provider in this article published in Quirk's Marketing Research Review - Jan/Feb 2020 issue.

Panel registration requires careful consideration of not only the people you want on the panel, with a keen eye for quality checks and fraud detection from the first interaction, but a strong emphasis on user experience. While it’s more important than ever before to screen and manage the recruitment process, building a strong relationship with panel members is equally important at several steps.

Good fraud detection process requires a careful understanding of the different tactics that might be used by those with nefarious intent. Many of these quality checks should be built into the process from the moment of registration, but also as part of panel quality control over the long term.

Data quality has been a top of mind issue in the market research industry for as long as data has been collected, but online surveys and an increasingly sophisticated pool of respondents has made it more pressing than ever. The risk of fraud is very real and the tools with which people can get around insufficient safeguards are more robust than ever before.

It’s a no brainer that panel building is more important than ever before. Good recruitment tactics, effective survey routing and strong communication with panel respondents are all vital elements in producing quality data. Here are four of the most typical problem areas and how they can be approached.

Diversification of Recruitment Channels

Diverse recruitment ensures a more representative panel, providing not only greater flexibility, but ensuring a better ability to fulfill hard to reach audience requests. We take this seriously and recruit from a spectrum of sources, including both online and offline publishers, social networks like Facebook, web and SMS databases, advertising networks, and through television ad placement.

LOS ANGELES, January 11, 2017 –Innovate (www.InnovateMR.com), a global leader in audience sampling, has completed a significant addition to the company’s proprietary panel bolstering its B2B offer and dynamic profiling capabilities.