The Online Revolution is Justified

The movement from offline to online data collection has grown rapidly over the last several years in both the U.S. and abroad, and continues to do so. According to Inside Research, U.S. online market research spending in 2003 was up by 24% over 2002 and expected to grow another 18% in 2004.

This rapid adoption rate is not surprising. For many types of marketing research studies, conducting research online is faster and more efficient than offline methodologies.

In addition, due to the fact that online surveys are self-administered and non-intrusive to respondents, interviewer bias is diminished.

But is the data any good? Data from online research is very good, otherwise we would not offer it, nor would our clients accept it. But before we offered it and before our clients accepted it, we had to prove that the data was valid.

To this end, we joined forces with several of our major clients to conduct parallel tests comparing online data collection with traditional methodologies. Each time our R&D results indicated the same thing: the absolute numbers sometimes change, but the overall story, conclusions, and resulting business decisions almost always remain the same.

While not applicable to every custom research study, online research should be considered at the design stage of any research project. We have proof positive that online research will almost always lead to the same business decisions and, at the same time, offer our clients speed, efficiency, and flexibility in their marketing research.