Part 3: DIY Sample Tools Have Changed Things for Buyers
What is DIY Research? (5 Part Series) | January 30, 2023
More than 10 years ago, a new wave of sample technology entered the market. The concept was initiated around the idea of bringing the “ad exchange” model to online sample for surveys. Once the race began, back-end tech was prioritized and front-end was rushed. Here’s how it played out.
This kind of DIY tech is really built for the Market Research company, whose business it is to execute research programs for the purpose of generating valuable insights and informing marketing strategies for corporate clients. The target client is a sophisticated professional, trained deeply in best practices for optimizing data. From survey design to fielding to analysis, Market Research Professionals have teams of experts who agonize over details and work HARD to meet deadlines and budgets.
As a result, DIY sample technologies often become extremely complicated to use. They account for a whole host of options, targets and controls. Those combine with sophisticated marketplace controls that have to accommodate the back-end supply partners in the exchanges. Overall, these tools go way deeper than most presentations in other Insights Platforms. Here are a few ways this plays out:
- Audience selections often go way beyond demographics and into deep profiling lists of categories.
- Often connects to robust algorithms and hundreds of supply partners that are often silent sources who shut off projects at a whim.
- Requires active financial management to keep traffic flowing.
- Produces erratic Data Quality while making it shard to do investigations into causes.
In practice, so much of the project management that was “included” in project CPIs 10 years ago, has now been shifted to the buyers, while the quality of the deliverable has gotten quantifiably worse. This reality produces even more work for the DIY Sample Tool user post-field.
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