Panel
Who is actually in the panel
A panel is not a list of email addresses. It is a set of people whose attributes were recorded at a known time, by a known method, and re-checked since. This page describes where members come from, what we ask them, and what happens between a signup and a usable respondent.
Buyers rarely ask where sample comes from until something goes wrong. By then the answer matters a great deal, because a subgroup that will not replicate is almost always a sourcing artefact rather than a fieldwork accident.
From signup to a usable respondent
Why profiling is spread over weeks
Asking fifty profiling questions at signup produces fifty answers and very little truth. People answer quickly to reach the part where they get paid, and the resulting profile is an artefact of impatience. We ask one or two questions after each completed study instead, which is slower to build and considerably more durable.
It also creates a useful side effect. The same underlying attribute gets asked in different forms months apart, and the contradictions become visible. A member whose stated sector moves three times in a year is telling you something, and it is not about their sector.
What a source label means here
- Direct — found the site themselves, usually through search or a mention. Slowest to acquire, longest to stay.
- Referral — invited by an existing member. Referred members inherit the referrer’s quality history until they build their own.
- Partner supply — reached through a supply partner rather than recruited by us. Labelled as such on every delivery, because you should be able to see how much of a cell came from outside our own recruitment.
Blended supply is normal and there is nothing wrong with it. What causes trouble is a provider who blends and does not say so, then cannot explain why one subgroup behaves unlike the rest of the file.