Additional View approaches recruitment for online focus groups or online surveys in one of two ways. People are recruited from audited online panels, including our own online research panel paidfocusgroups.com.au or from your own customer / client lists.
Online panels
Additional View has access to a number of online panel partners who follow the strictest methods of panel quality management and employ all the required checks and balances. These are panels of individuals who have agreed to take part in online research. As we are are looking for individuals to participate in an online environment using online recruitment methods is always the first place to start and can improve the speed and reliability of recruitment.
We primarily use CINT to manage our own panel and to access additional panels, which enables us to conduct targeted research in Australia and other parts of the world.
The cost of recruitment from an online panel varies based on the participant specifications and the number of question needed in a survey to successfully acquire the right number of respondents.
Screening surveys
To find the right people for online focus groups we may use a screening survey. This is an online survey which is sent out to respondents (individuals) to complete who fit the top level demographic and behavioural profile suitable for your research project. The screening survey qualifies each individual based on a specific set of criteria.
Recruiting from your customer lists
In many instances it is also possible to recruit from customer lists, these are customer databases you may have acquired over time. The approach we follow is to identify individuals from the list who meet the high level participant specifications. For online focus groups, Individuals from your list would be sent an approved screening survey invitation using your existing email processes and formats. This process also helps to improve response rate as each person receiving the email is more likely to trust an email generated by a recognisable email sender.
- Things to consider when choosing participants
- Demographics such as age, income, education etc.
- Customer behaviour e.g. do they use a certain type of product?
- Online behaviour e.g. Internet usage and computer literacy.
- Availability to participate at a time which suits you.
- Geographic region.
- If participants can type a comment in Facebook they can participate in an online focus groups and online surveys.
Participant incentives
As part of the project we will need to reward or provide incentives for participants in exchange for agreeing to be part in the online focus groups and surveys. This can be done a number of ways, by either providing a prize draw entry, a gift voucher, or a cash incentives distributed through online payment portals such as PayPal.
Depending on the nature of the study and whether the participants have been supplied by you, or recruited from an online panel, the value of the reward will be related to the type of research being conducting. Online focus group incentives typically range from $30 to $70, but are generally less than those offered for attending a traditional focus groups – after all they are not travelling to participate and can sit comfortably in their own home.
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