November 18, 2011
Online Panels Live Another Day
By Frank Kelly, SVP, Operations
I was happy to see that the outcome of Wednesday’s poll by research.™ was a landslide in favor of the future of online panels. Certainly from a job security standpoint I breathed a sigh of relief, but I also recognize that respondent sourcing and blending are taking center stage and panel management expertise will gradually become less of a differentiator. And I thought uSamp’s Gregg Lavin put forth an excellent and well reasoned argument. But, as head of AMS Operations for one of the largest panel companies, I want to make a couple of additional points.
Yes, panels are here to stay, but the way that we manage them is changing. The days of a statistically valid sample that is selected and balanced to represent a certain universe for a specific study are limited. To enable lower incidence studies to be conducted online, as has been the trend, panel suppliers are increasingly relying on routers that direct people to a study or several studies in one sitting. The way that panels are used is increasingly mimicking the way that river sample is used with a clear emphasis on operational efficiency over research quality.
To me, the sourcing of respondents is not the important issue. The statistical validity of the sampling method — the way routed sample is manipulated and the way that panel sample and river sample are blended — is the key driver for research quality. Many companies that have a potential supply of river respondents simply do not have the necessary understanding of research principles required to do quality fieldwork.
I see river respondents as a suitable source only if blended with panel respondents. Too little is known about river respondents to provide the stability and quality that we have come to expect from panel respondents.
Want to read more about our take on routing? Read Lightspeed Research COO Efrain Ribeiro’s Lightspeed Ahead Newsletter article .
Category:Financial Services Group
Posted on November 18, 2011
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