Private Online Research Panels

Online panel surveys can be shorter because there is less need to collect information as your panelists become more deeply profiled. They provide a perfect way to study the same group over a period of time, which makes it possible to find out how people's views change. Private panels can also be used to recruit for focus groups, telephone surveys, personal interviews and other research projects. By using private panels you can enhance your relationships with your customers, and collect valuable opinions that contribute to product/service development and improvement. They can be used for tracking studies, consumer profiling, product pricing and development, advertising testing just about anything you can imagine!

Types of Research

Private online panels are not appropriate for all types of research. If you are trying to survey a representative sample of all adults, then the private panel is of limited value since it most likely contains only your customers or those interested in your brand, subsets of the total adult population. Many studies, however, can be conducted among your customers or those interested in your brand; its not a perfect sample, but often it is good enough to help you make the correct decision. It is also possible to recruit noncustomers into private panels, but the recruiting costs for noncustomers can be quite high. Here are some examples of studies commonly conducted via private online panels

Quantitative

Package testing
Advertising tests
Tagline tests
Promotion tests
Name testing
New product concept tests
New product concept screening
Product testing
Video tests

Qualitative

Online focus groups
Online depth interviews
Mobile ethnography
Online forums
In-the-moment qualitative

Remember, the basic assumption is that most private panels are largely made up of customers. Private panels generally cannot be used for research studies that require a representative sample.