Online surveys have become the mainstay of market research. One recent study found that nearly 90% of market research firms and clients regularly use online surveys. As researchers with decades of experience, there is nothing more satisfying that capturing new insights that answer a client’s question and help define marketing and product strategy.
But there are dangers everywhere. Badly-designed surveys and poor sample management can mean your survey results don’t accurately reflect the views of consumers who are likely to engage with your brand. Your survey could capture the nonsensical responses of scammers — or even worse, bots — who are flying through as many surveys as they can to earn rewards.
Data quality can be impacted in several ways:
- Illegitimate respondents like bots and Automated Responses — automated scripts that generate vast amounts of junk data that can be difficult to distinguish from genuine responses. This can completely skew results and waste valuable resources.
- Legitimate respondents who are only in it for the bucks — often referred to as speedsters and straight-liners, these respondents aren’t paying attention to your questions and are just clicking buttons as quickly as possible to get through the survey.
- Legitimate respondents who get bored, confused, or drop off — these are well-intentioned respondents who may be interested in a topic but then get bored or worn out by surveys that are too long or overly complex (repetitive questions, grids, overly-taxing detail).
While the first two of these issues can be addressed with technology and digital screening, the third issue is as important — and is driven by how well (or poorly) the survey is designed. When respondents drop out of your survey because it’s too long or not engaging, you’re missing out on key parts of the population. That means your results are skewed to reflect only the views of those who stick with the burdensome exercise.
Before commissioning your next online survey, be sure to ask your research partner:
- What detection technology they have in place to verify respondents based on IP address, digital fingerprinting, past survey history, duplicate responses, and other factors?
- What tools are they using to monitor the quality of responses on a daily basis throughout the survey field period?
- How do they approach survey design to make sure taking the survey is an engaging, interactive experience for respondents — and not a tiring and overly-taxing one?
Want to learn more? Let’s talk today.
