Why Online Market Research

Whether you already embraced online research or not, its here to stay. Latest industry findings from the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR), is that online research is growing fast! In some countries it already represents more than a third of all data collection.

• Facilitated by the rapid growth in internet access, most consumers in developed markets today are connected to the World Wide Web while middle and upper income consumers in developing markets are becoming increasingly connected.

• Today, online market research has become a trusted and accepted data collection methodology for primary research projects.

Market researchers and clients alike acknowledge and appreciate the many Advantages of online market research like data reliability, accuracy, design flexibility, reach, cost, time, and convenience to the respondent.

• Elimination of interviewer bias as research results from interviewer-administrated interviews can be biased through unintentional body language and tone of speech of the interviewer or by respondents’ eagerness to keep an interviewer “happy” with their answers.

• More accurate and ‘considered’ answers and a greater recall as online respondents are not pressured into giving quick and “right” answers.

• Since respondents have already been profiled at the time of recruitment, each survey can be made shorter to focus on the actual research content. This will help improve the rate of response to survey invitations.

• Geographical expansion of surveys to national, regional, and global coverage without a substantial increase in cost and time.

• More reliable data on sensitive and personal issues as no interviewer is involved.

• Availability of an extended repertoire of aids such as video clips, images, audio and flash programming that allow for richer questioning techniques. Ample opportunities to duplicate face-to-face interviewing at a fraction of the cost and time required.

• Higher sample sizes can be achieved without an exponential increase in cost and timing.

• More accurate and higher quality responses as online respondents can read and better comprehend the questions on their own.

• All respondents are exposed to the same stimuli (written question) without potential explanations and bias by interviewers.

• The relatively high cost of respondent recruitment can be spread over multiple projects rather than a single project. Panels are particularly cost effective in the targeting of respondents across granular segmentation variables;

• Rapid survey completion timelines compared with lengthy fieldwork by traditional data collection methodologies.

• Researching and monitoring evolutions over a period of time is more feasible as a researcher can contact the same or a sub-segment of the respondents in the future to administer follow-up questions.

• More accurate questionnaire administering in particular where specific questions apply to certain respondents, question skipping, complex question rotations and quota controls.

• Automated data cleaning and fast reporting of cross tabulations and charts.

• Online project monitoring with continuous monitoring of project completion status and response rates.

• Cost effective and less time required to target lower incidence populations. Relatively hard-to-get-at respondents (such as doctors or users of a certain brand) can be targeted through specialized panels. Online research also allows for easier access to high-income, high-tech professionals who are normally difficult to identify and reach via traditional methodologies.

• Online research is more effective in reaching early adopters of new products and new technologies essential to product marketing.

• As legislation is used more frequently to protect consumers against unsolicited telephone interviewing, permission-based online research is a cost-efficient and viable alternative to approaching consumers.

• Our proprietary online research software allows for randomization of questions and answers because respondents tend to pay greater attention to the first questions, answers or statements than the last. Upcoming questions can also be constructed based on responses to previous questions.

• Answering machines, caller ID, call blocking and no answers do not prevent delivery of the survey request.

Despite the many advantages of online research, this channel also has certain limitations. However, at Aha! Research, direct measures are taken to overcome and to eliminate these shortcomings altogether.

• Since online respondents are not visible at the time of recruitment, they can lie more easily about their gender and age. However, at Aha! Research, respondents are visually validated during in-person recruitment or shortly after online recruitment.

• Like mail-out studies, it is difficult to authenticate the respondent of each survey. At Aha! Research we authenticate each respondent automatically by asking them selected profiling questions and verifying their answers from our records.

• Online research respondents are not representative of the population. The Internet population has a slight bias towards younger, more computer-literate users. In time however, this will change as the general population become increasingly internet-savvy and dependant.

• Long surveys are harder to conduct online. The personality of today’s online users do not allow for long surveys. The golden rule of high quality opinion surveys has always been, and always will be – the more you want, the less you get. As such, Aha! researchers highly recommend to keeping your surveys short to ensure high response rates and focused respondents.

• Some online respondents rush through surveys without giving careful thought to their answers. The Aha! Research data quality system builds in validation questions to ensure answers are consistent against the respondent profile and against anchor questions within the survey. Our data quality system also identifies and flags down questionnaires with repetitive patterns and that were completed exceptionally quickly.

• “Professional respondents” may fill out several of the same survey to reap maximum incentives. The Aha! Incentive scheme will not reward non-validated surveys, surveys with inconsistent answers and surveys that were completed too quickly.

• If respondents do not fully comprehend a question, they cannot seek clarification through an interviewer. At Aha! Research, we believe that all respondents must be exposed to the exact same stimuli to protect the integrity of the responses and research results. To ensure survey questions are understood, potentially hard to comprehend questions are pre-tested online in a qualitative format prior to launch.

• Respondents may provide insufficient answers to open-ended questions, rendering the answer useless. Aha! Research data quality system will insert a probing question such as “What else?’ for answers which do not meet a minimum number of words.

• It may not be possible to seek clarification to answers provided by respondents. The Aha! Research survey system can identify selected words or phrases and follow-up automatically with a related question. Follow-up qualitative research is also another way to clarify selected responses of particular interest to the client.

• Without a doubt, online research has many more advantages than limitations. Given the continued difficulties and escalating costs associated with conducting research via traditional data collection methods, the reliance on online research methods will continue to expand.