ESOMAR 25 Questions to help research buyers
ESOMAR , the global research organization dedicated to enabling better research into markets, consumers and societies, has published 25 questions in order to help market research professionals evaluate and select online research panel providers. Below you will find Toluna’s answers to the 25 questions.
- Is it an actively managed panel or just a database?
- Truthfully how large is it?
- What is the percentage of active members and how are they defined?
- Where are respondents sourced from and how are they recruited?
- Have members clearly opted in? If so was this double opt-in?
- What exactly have they been asked to opt-in to?
- What do panel members get in return for participating?
- Is the panel solely used for market research?
- Is there a privacy policy in place? If so, what does it state?
- What research industry standards are complied with?
- Is the panel compliant with all regional, national and local laws with respect to privacy, data protection and children?
- What basic socio demographic profile information, usership, interests data, etc. is kept on members?
- How often is profile information updated?
- In what other ways can users be profiled (e.g.source of data)?
- What’s the (minimum and typical) turn-around time from initial request to first deployment of the e-mails to activate a study?
- What are likely response rates and how is response rate calculated?
- Are or can panel members who have recently participated in a survey on the same subject be excluded from a new sample?
- Is a response rate (over and above screening) guaranteed?
- How often are individual members contacted for market research or anything else in a given time period?
- How is the sample selection process for a particular survey undertaken?
- Can samples be deployed as batches / replicates, by time zones, geography etc? If so, how is this controlled?
- Is the sample randomised before deployment?
- Can the sample deployment be controlled and if so, how?
- Can panel members be directed to specific sites for the survey questionnaire to be undertaken?
- What guarantees are there to guard against bad data i.e. respondent cheating or not concentrating (e.g. click happy)?
