Purchasing Sample: How Does It Work & What Do You Need To Know?

May 6, 2013

Sample Vocabulary Word Cloud
Last week, I explained how sample procurement works and what factors will determine if you should be considering purchasing sample for your B2B market research project. This week, I will share how to go about purchasing sample and will break down the key vocabulary you need to know and use when doing so.
Purchasing sample is a very straight-forward process, but it can be intimidating the first time you do it. Sample vendors use a vocabulary set that is often foreign to non-market researchers and the commonly used pricing system relies heavily on terminology.

The Two Phases of the Sample Purchase Process

  • Identifying sample vendors and requesting quotes: This is when the researcher identifies vendors that could potentially facilitate their sample needs for the research study and reaches out to them with specs for the research.
  • Quote evaluation and vendor selection: This involves choosing a vendor and doing any final validation such as having them run a feasibility assessment to get data to confirm they can facilitate the research request.

1) Identifying Sample Vendors and Requesting Quotes

One of the more difficult parts of this process is identifying the best source(s) of sample for your research. This is because this space is full of specialist vendors and lots of them. A great place to start for identifying an appropriate sample vendor is the GreenBook, which provides a list of 71 online panel providers and short descriptions of the types of panel offerings these companies provide. However, a Google search can also be a useful secondary approach for identifying vendor options.
When reaching out to sample providers for quotes on facilitating a study, you will need to provide the following seven items of information:

  1. Qualifying Criteria: These are the requirements for an individual to qualify for the survey. This could include firmographics and/or respondent demographics. It is really important to be crystal clear about the qualifications required for your research study, so that you get an accurate feasibility assessment. If you have the survey screener questions already written it is helpful to provide these questions to the sample vendor.
  2. Length of Survey (LOS): This is the maximum expected length of the interview or survey. If the survey or interview contains skip logic, this is the length of the longest track.
  3. Field Time: This is the length of time from survey launch to close. Providing sample vendors with a longer time window to recruit respondents will increase the likelihood that vendors can facilitate the survey.
  4. Target Number of Completions: This is the number of completed survey responses you are looking for via this survey.
  5. Quota Requirements: If your survey has multiple respondent groups, then you will need to specify the target number of completions you are looking to collect from each respondent group. It is really important to provide a very clear definition of the respondent groups.
  6. Service Requirements: This is the level of assistance you are looking for with this research study. Specifically, you will need to clarify whether you plan on designing and/or programming the survey.
  7. Special Requirements: You will also need to specify if you have any special requirements. For example, if you want to be able to ask respondents if they would be willing to participate in a follow-up interview, then you will need to make sure that the sample vendors can facilitate that request. I know from personal experience that only some vendors will be able to do so. Consequently, it can be an important point to confirm in the initial quote.

The more targeted a study you are running, the larger number of quotes that you should request from sample providers. As a standard rule of thumb, always reach out to at least a couple of extra vendors. Sometimes the turnaround on these quotes will take a couple days and having to wait for the quote will slow down the research process.
For more targeted sample requests, I recommend reaching out to 10 sample providers. For less targeted ones, you should probably reach out to five to seven sample vendors.

2) Quote Evaluation and Vendor Selection

Each vendor will generally send you a quote via email. Sometimes this will be a formal document that lays out the exact formula for how they arrived at the total expected cost. Other times it will be an informal email with the total expected cost and several statistics that are inputs into the estimate.
The key here is to remember that this is an expected cost they are reporting, not an actual cost. It is highly dependent upon the accuracy of their assumptions with the inputs, so it is important to understand exactly what each of these input factors means when evaluating a quote.
Here is a list of terms and definitions you may typically find in a quote:

  • Cost Per a Completions (CPC): This is the cost you pay for each completed survey response. This rate is generally contingent upon estimates of the following factors:
    • Incidence Rate
    • Length of Survey
    • Size of Target Audience
    • Difficulty of Reaching Target Audience

    For more targeted studies or ones with more stringent qualifying criteria, it is important to have the vendor run a feasibility assessment to make sure that you have realistic expectations of what the cost per a completion will be.

  • Project Minimum: This is the minimum contract size for a sample purchase. Some vendors require a minimum purchase. This tends to be higher with groups who do not maintain their own panels and are leveraging other group’s panels. However, this is not always the case.
  • Incidence Rate (IR): The rate that respondents qualify for the survey. This is an indication of how difficult it will be for the sample vendor to reach the target number of completions for this study. It also shows how many people from their panel will need to be invited to partake in the study to reach the completion goal. This is important because sample providers have a max capacity in this regard as their panels are a fixed size and their panelists only agree to take a certain number of invitations per a week.
    The incidence rate is calculated as the number of respondents who satisfy the criteria in the screener divided by the number of individuals that enter the study and complete the screener questions.
  • Completion Rate: The rate of qualified respondents that are expected to complete the full survey. The completion rate is calculated as completions divided by qualified respondents.
  • Number of Potential Respondents Available: This is the number of respondents that the sample vendor has available for the study. This number will often fluctuate based on the field time.

Knowing the vocabulary and how the sample procurement process works will better prepare you to make the decision that best positions you to fulfill your research study goals.
If you are planning out a research study, I recommend reading my previous blog post on primary research recruitment tactics, as you may find that sample is not the most effective means for primary research recruitment for what you are looking for, and it is important to make this evaluation before you decide to purchase sample.
I also recommend reading my blog post from last year on how to determine an appropriate sample size for your primary research. This post was written for brand awareness research, but the approach applies to any type of B2B market research.

Marketing Manager, Pricing Strategy

<strong>Brandon Hickie</strong> is Marketing Manager, Pricing Strategy at <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>. He previously worked at OpenView as Marketing Insights Manager. Prior to OpenView Brandon was an Associate in the competition practice at Charles River Associates where he focused on merger strategy, merger regulatory review, and antitrust litigation.