Kantar's Profiles Blog

“You need to allow smartphone respondents into your survey!" Those of us in the business of survey design and panel management have been telling researchers this for years now, but we need to show you and not just tell you why.

In our latest Q&A, Chris Stevens, Chief Research Officer at Lightspeed, reviews some of the sticking points around this. 

As we know from part 3 of our Marketing Data Integration series, there’s an abundance of data available to marketers, from first-party, to second-party, to third-party. We know we can collect it from a variety of sources and connect these data for a more holistic view of our target customers. What we haven’t discussed yet is the integrity and quality of the mass data at our researching fingertips, or the importance data validation plays in the GDPR world we now live and work in. While only live for a few short months, the guidelines implemented by GDPR have had a significant impact on the digital advertising, consumer insights, and market research industries.

We are about half way through the year; where do you stand on your 2018 resolutions?

Technology is evolving, and so is consumer behavior. As researchers, we've adapted our survey designs and interview techniques as a result. But modifying survey designs for today's respondent isn't as simple as making it mobile compatible. Surveys need to be optimized for a better, more modern consumer experience. Here are six tips to consider when building a modern survey.  

How frequently do you use your smartphone or tablet throughout the day?

Every day, consumers are spending more and more time connected to their devices. This is where they live and this is where they work. As consumers increasingly live digitally with numerous connected devices, marketers have the opportunity to harness behavioral information in real time utilizing passive measurements. With use of mobile continually escalating world-wide, and in some markets surpassing desktop usage, there has never been a better time to program online surveys that are device agnostic, fully responsive and touchscreen optimized. 

Creating effective surveys can turn insights into action; high-quality data can build a company into a brand.

Survey design requires a detailed focus on the consumer experience. It’s an art and a science. From mobile first to gamification, we need to fundamentally rethink our approach by understanding what triggers dropouts.

According to a spring 2015 study from Microsoft, the average human attention span has fallen below that of goldfish -- and you can blame it on the gadgets we use to watch YouTube videos and play "Crossy Road." The researchers clocked the average human attention span at just eight seconds in 2013, falling four seconds from the 12-second average in 2000, and putting humans just one second below goldfish. (http://www.cnet.com/news/goldfish-the-actual-fish-not-the-crackers-may-have-a-better-attention-span-than-humans/)

We made the transition from CATI to online, but now we need to make the transition from online to mobile. But, how do we keep survey respondents engaged in a way that captures their attention? Can we carry them past the eight second threshold?

From a questionnaire design perspective, we need to balance the marketing research hat with the respondent hat. Yes, we need to ensure our paired comparison questions are all implemented for proper analysis, but let’s grab the attention of our respondents with some color and images, bringing life to our questions. Let’s be their distraction.