Connect an online access panel to a survey
What is an online access panel?
An online access panel consist of a pool of people who have agreed to regularly take part in online surveys on various subjects. They are particularly helpful to determine the level of awareness for a certain company or product. They can also be used to get an evaluation of products, concepts, services or marketing material from the respective target group.
For a fee, the participants from online access panels, the so-called panelists, can be invited to surveys on the Netigate platform.
I do not have access to an online access panel
If you do not have access to an online access panel yet, contact your Netigate account manager to find out the best way to use an online access panel for your survey and to receive a respective proposal. Our team will take over all necessary steps for you.
How to use an online access panel in your survey
You have already received redirects from a panel supplier and want to do the panel setup by yourself? Follow the instructions below:
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- On the first page of your survey, insert a text box and mark it as an external parameter (please note: There has to be at least another question on the first page). Instead of a question text, type “ID” above the box. This will be needed to collect the ID numbers of the participating panelists during the survey.
- On the first page of your survey, insert a text box and mark it as an external parameter (please note: There has to be at least another question on the first page). Instead of a question text, type “ID” above the box. This will be needed to collect the ID numbers of the participating panelists during the survey.
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- Copy the redirect link for completed interviews that you received from your panel supplier. It needs to be inserted in the “settings” area of your survey under “webpage redirection”. Usually, there is a placeholder at the end of the redirect that needs to be replaced with “[eid]”. This can differ depending on panel provider, so you can check their documentation or contact them for assistance. The section [eid] will be automatically filled with the panelist’s ID lateron. If you are experiencing issues with the redirect when testing later on, try removing “https://www.” from the beginning of the redirect.
- Copy the redirect link for completed interviews that you received from your panel supplier. It needs to be inserted in the “settings” area of your survey under “webpage redirection”. Usually, there is a placeholder at the end of the redirect that needs to be replaced with “[eid]”. This can differ depending on panel provider, so you can check their documentation or contact them for assistance. The section [eid] will be automatically filled with the panelist’s ID lateron. If you are experiencing issues with the redirect when testing later on, try removing “https://www.” from the beginning of the redirect.
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- We recommend not using end text in your survey, so that respondents are automatically forwarded to the completion page of the panel provider after the survey. If you do use end text, however, place a time limit on the end text to quickly forward panelists to the redirect after survey completion. Do this by inserting the following text (including the square brackets) at the end of your end text and clicking “save”: [TIMELIMIT:1]. This will reduce the time between the end text appearing and the panelists being forwarded to one second. You do not have to switch to the HTML view before inserting the text.
- The redirect for screenouts needs to be inserted on the survey page containing the screenout questions. For example, if you want to screen out all participants who indicate an age of over 40 years on page 1, place a logic on page 1. Let the respective participants jump to the redirect URL. Just as with the redirect for completes, you might have to replace a placeholder in the redirect with “[eid]”. If you are experiencing issues with the redirect when testing later on, try removing the part “https://www.” from the beginning of the redirect.
- Go to the “distribute” section and add a general link. Check the option “allow only one answer per person” before saving.
- Go back to the “create questions” section and go to the last survey page that all participants will see. Choose a page with at least one question that is marked as required and that is not skipped for any participants via logic. On this page, import the link that you have created in step 5.To do so, click on “QUESTION BANK” in the menu on the left. In the opening menu, choose “Background data”, then “Respondent list“ and then “Link (single)”. Confirm with “add”.
This step serves to keep an overview during field (see step nine, second paragraph).
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- Activate the survey and test the setup together with your panel supplier. To do this, copy the general link to the survey into an email and add “&eid=[ID]” to its’ ending. Send the modified link to your panel supplier for testing.
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- After successful testing, enter the online reporting and choose “Respondents“ in menu on the left. Delete all test participants in order to enter the field with an empty database. Do this by checking all test participants and then clicking on “DELETE”.
- After successful testing, enter the online reporting and choose “Respondents“ in menu on the left. Delete all test participants in order to enter the field with an empty database. Do this by checking all test participants and then clicking on “DELETE”.
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- During field:
To close certain quota during field (e.g. because enough males have already participated and you want to concentrate on females from thereon) you will use the redirect for quota full. When you want to close a quota, implement the redirect on the page with the matching question. Make all participants with the respective characteristic (e.g. “male”) jump to the redirect URL. Do this following the same procedure as with the screenout redirects in step 4.Please note that in the “survey information” of the report, Netigate will also count screenouts and quota full into the number of answers and number of completes.To exclude them from being counted, you can place a filter on the link that you implemented in step 6. This will exclude all participants that did not give an answer on the respective page (because they dropped out of the survey earlier) from being counted.
Alternatively, you can filter on the last required question of your survey that is not skipped for any participants via logic. Add all possible answer options for that question to your filter. Both ways will work fine.
- During field:
For instructions on how to set filters, please click here.
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