Four tips to improve confidence in data quality
Editor’s note: Ted Bouzakis is the EVP, sales, research and insights at DISQO.
What’s the secret to research success today? It’s size…audience size to be specific. Consumers are resuming certain aspects of their pre-pandemic lives, like returning to work and participating in in-person experiences but they are doing this in a new, inflation-constrained context and therefore placing a higher premium on their time. Meanwhile, marketers are dealing with the same inflationary pressures and can’t afford costly missteps, so they are relying increasingly on data-driven decision-making to optimize their efforts. As these factors collide, our industry’s existing supply and demand problem will only grow worse this year.
The industry has innovated solutions like programmatic audience sourcing, but this has further fueled demand for data sources while ushering lack of transparency and confidence about quality. Aggregating audiences across too many sources leads to duplication and flawed results but fielding a study to an audience that is too small can also lead to outright failure.
Four tips to fix the issue
The good news is that there are proven methodologies that successfully blend automation innovation while also providing transparency and confidence in data quality.
1. Targeting the right consumers: Size matters.
Instead of building supply on an aggregation of many small audiences, ask your research partner to leverage just one or two trusted, large, single-source audiences. It’s also important to be at the front of the line for that audience. As supply continues to grow in demand, it will become increasingly important to ensure your research partners have priority access to the few remaining proprietary audiences available.
2. Minimize the audience pools used to reach targeted consumers.
Not only do APIs often increase efficiency and lower costs, but they can also offer priority access to supply. In addition, APIs have the programmatic benefit of faster turnaround and the ability to adapt mid-flight based on new or evolving needs.
3. You need consistent customer experience insights: Automate access to a trustworthy audience supply with API to instantly access consumers.
When possible, use behavioral clues to better understand your audience’s behaviors, allowing you to target your research more efficiently. DISQO’s “Mind the Gap” report revealed that more than a third (38%) of consumers incorrectly recall their digital shopping behaviors, a variance known as the “Say-Do Gap.” Eliminate this gap by targeting the right people for your survey with behavioral data, saving precious survey questions for attitudinal and predictive insights. Targeting your survey based on behaviors can also aid response rates. Disco found that 18% of respondents would be more likely to complete a survey if it’s relevant to them.
4. Improve research integrity by providing participants with a good experience, motivating them to completion.
There is an art and a science to building a research project. Whether it’s survey design, sample selection, participant compensation or deployment method – all these factors contribute to the success or failure of your project.
DISQO discovered that compensation was the primary driver, followed by another commodity, respondents’ time. Ensure your survey payout is commensurate with the demands being placed on the consumer. Seventy-five percent of surveyed members shared that an “increased financial incentive” would increase their likelihood of completing a survey for a brand.
The study revealed that survey success is not only dependent on time and money, but also on simplicity. Fifteen percent of respondents said they care about how the survey questions are asked and how simple they are to answer.
Finally, when fielding a survey, increase device compatibility to meet consumers on their own terms. Nine percent of participants said that “mobile device compatibility” is important to them and would increase their likelihood of completing a study. Optimizing studies for accessibility across all devices and working with a partner who can deliver on those devices will make it more convenient for respondents to offer feedback.
The supply challenge is not going away anytime soon but working with partners that not only employ survey design best practices but also prioritize audience access and size can ensure that your projects are successful.