INNOFACT AG: Meinungsplatz.de

Meinungsplatz - the online panel from INNOFACT

Since 1999 INNOFACT has operated its own online panel, through which professional surveys are conducted. In the last few years the panel has continuously been growing and today comprises more than 250,000 registered participants. That means meinungsplatz is the leading panel in Germany!

Who takes part?

Meinungsplatz is a pool of people who have registered to take part in market research studies. It is a "research only" panel i.e. participants are contacted for no purpose other than to be invited to online surveys.

Initially, participants register on the meinungsplatz website. When studies are to be conducted, participants receive invitations by e-mail. The e-mail includes information about the length of the interview and the value of the expected incentive (cash consideration).

As well as the secure identification of participants and high response rate, a panel has the further advantage that we can invite people in quotas. That means that we can determine the composition of the sample.

For example, if we wanted to survey 500 consumers between the ages of 30 and 39, 50% of whom should be male and 50% female, we would admit exactly 250 men and 250 women in the corresponding age group to the survey.

This doesn’t mean that the panel itself must be totally representative. The screening process and the emphasis of the interview determine the composition of the sample.

Recruitment of participants

The participants at meinungsplatz.de are recruited through a range of different channels. One of the notable features of an online panel is the diversity of recruitment methods. The more colourful the recruitment channels are, the wider the variety of consumers we can reach. For this reason, the basis for recruitment of panel participants is kept as wide as possible.

Our recruitment is helped through word of mouth propaganda amongst participants themselves, as well as through our working relationship with the media group Holtzbrinck.

Word of mouth propaganda

In our experience, registered panel members want to share their "discovery" after their first successful survey participation and recommend meinungsplatz.de to others.

Recruitment through the online media

We use a wide variety of online media to recruit participants.

Recruitment through conventional media

We also use the conventional media, especially to attract to our surveys infrequent internet users and the less "internet au fait".

Telephone and face-to-face recruitment

At the end of our telephone and face-to-face surveys, we frequently take the opportunity to ask the participant whether they would be interested in registering for online studies.

Quality assurance

The quality of the panel defines the quality of the sample and of the results. We therefore implement rigorous quality measures on our panel. Amongst these are the following particular measures:

The payment of incentives is dependent on the participant providing bank details. To prevent a participant being able to register for the panel under more than one identity, strictly one participant per bank account is permitted. Furthermore, we can double check that the name given at registration is identical to that of the account holder.

Constant checks on answer consistency

We regularly review the consistency of the answers provided by our panel, both within particular surveys and over a longer time period. For example, a participant who purports to have several pet cats would be immediately excluded if they subsequently tried to qualify for a survey as a pet allergy sufferer.

Due to permanent data-cleaning, our panel provides us with a high number of responsive participants supplying authentic answers.

Review of recruitment channels

Our information tells us through which source each participant was recruited. We monitor the responsiveness of the participants according to the different recruitment sources and can therefore exercise a positive influence on current and future campaigns.

Avoiding under- and over-entertainment

Our experience shows that panel members prefer to take part in more rather than fewer surveys. We try to issue each member with an optimal number of invitations, without making them feel bombarded and without under-utilisation. From our internal investigations we have extensive data available, from which we can derive the optimal frequency for each participant.

Panel strength and composition

The panel comprises 250,000 registered members. The composition approximately reflects the population of internet users in Germany with a slight bias towards the higher ages. The composition of the panel does not however determine the composition of samples, as for each survey the sample is invited on a quota basis (more information above).

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