Numbers, Please: Uses and Misuses of Online-Survey Panels in Digital Research: Digging Past the Surface

Gian Fulgoni

Gian Fulgoni, co-founder and chairman emeritus of comScore, explores the risks of using online-survey panels for marketing managers who rely on online-survey results to make spending decisions on digital marketing.

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 &...

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