Online research fraud has boomed since the onset of the pandemic, and not addressing this fraud can have a serious impact on data quality and consistency. Threats to data integrity can come from a range of bad actors - from the very damaging hackers and bots to less severe disengaged respondents.
Within Kantar’s Profiles division our focus has always been on quality. Our winning formula consists of high-quality global panel (where samples are spread around to a large pool of genuine engaged panelists that are representative of the demographic distributions in each of the 100+ countries we operate in), industry-leading fraud prevention, and our expertise in asking the right questions, at the right time, in the right way to avoid biases and dishonest answers.
Over the past several years we have devoted significant resources to build confidence in data collection. We have extensively researched panelist quality and invested in advanced technology that detects poor behaviors immediately. We’ve also hyper focused on the panelist experience and optimization – getting the right people into the right surveys at the right time, and asking the right questions – ultimately delivering highly engaged answers.
By doubling down on efforts to safeguard against quality concerns, our experts have been committed to delivering the industries most trusted and meaningful data. Since transparency has never been more important than it is today, we’re sharing what we’re doing in this space so you have confidence in the data you collect and maintaining your brand reputation.
Here are three valuable focus areas researchers should seek out before choosing an online research partner.
1. Understand the panel landscape
First and foremost, it’s helpful to understand the challenges the panel and insights industry faces today. We’re experiencing a landscape that’s dramatically different than even four years ago. We also understand the various bad actors and that they impacting data differently. In fact, across the industry, researchers have been discarding an average of 38% of respondent data collected due to concerns over quality and panel fraud.
In addition to fraud concerns, many surveys still aren’t mobile compatible when 78% of panelists are joining on mobile devices. Layer in the fact that 72% of panelists that make it into a survey are rejected due to things like quota-fulls, red herrings, screening criteria, and late survey closes, we see that optimizations are needed to achieve inclusive and representative result.
Beyond quality of respondents and representation, global privacy legislation is becoming increasingly complex. Brands should be mindful that their research partners are adhering to all local regulations, such as GDPR in Europe, CCPA in the US and PIPL in China – like Kantar is – to steer clear of legal and financial ramifications.
2. Not all quality checks and fraud prevention are made equal
Quality checks are one of the most central strategies to confirm that your insights and decisions are based on the most accurate and stable data possible. Unfortunately, not all quality checks and fraud prevention are made equal. Industry standard fraud prevention won’t capture all fraudulent activity and are often too heavy-handed driving good panelists away.
This is why we developed Qubed, our state-of-the-art machine learning technology that uses 3 Deep Neural Networks trained on 8 years of the richest dataset on users and fraud, scaled with technology to track panelist’s full history and identify fraud in milliseconds – giving you greater confidence in data collected.
3. Optimizing the panelist experience is a must
As it was suggested earlier, optimizing the respondent survey experience is necessary to obtain better data. Research shows that happier and more engaged panelists result in healthier data for your research. This is done in two ways:
- Extensive and intelligent profiling and getting the right people into the right surveys at the right time (and this is done with the support of data – Kantar uses one trillion data points collected over years to analyze behaviors).
- Optimizing survey question designs and text themselves to extract non-biased, honest, engaged answers (Kantar has a wealth of resources and research on research in this space).
The proof Kantar is getting this right is in our owned panel NPS scores – they are nearly 8X higher than the overall panel industry. With enhanced technologies, improved user experiences and innovative profiling methods, our owned panellists are the industry’s most engaged.
Collect higher quality data with Kantar
Kantar’s Profiles division is the industry leader in data quality. By investing in innovations to drive real change in the industry with best-in-class self-learning adaptive technology, Kantar is the best home for any research program. For a more in-depth walkthrough of how Kantar continues to tackle online research fraud, and how you can protect your data, watch the on-demand Webinar, “Everything you need to know for collecting the highest quality data.”
