Numbers, Please: Uses and Misuses of Online-Survey Panels in Digital Research: Digging Past the Surface
Gian Fulgoni
INTRODUCTION
The Internet has provided market researchers with a dramatically more cost-effective way of recruiting respondents and conducting surveys. Over the years, these savings have helped drive widespread use of online-survey panels to answer myriad research questions. In 2013 alone, 43 percent of all research surveys completed in the United States were conducted online, generating total revenue of $1.8 billion.1
Concern over online sample quality, however, has been on the rise. In 2006, Kim Dedecker, then vp/global consumer and market knowledge at Procter &...