Using Market-Research Panels for Behavioral Science: An Overview and Tutorial

Behavioral scientists looking to run online studies are confronted with a bevy of options. Where to recruit participants? Which tools to use for survey creation and study management? How to maintain data quality? In this tutorial, we highlight the unique capabilities of market-research panels and demonstrate how researchers can effectively sample from such panels. Unlike the microtask platforms most academics are familiar with (e.g., MTurk and Prolific), market-research panels have access to more than 100 million potential participants worldwide, provide more representative samples, and excel at demographic targeting. However, efficiently gathering data from online panels requires integration between the panel and a researcher’s survey in ways that are uncommon on microtask sites. For example, panels allow researchers to target participants according to preprofiled demographics (“Level 1” targeting, e.g., parents) and demographics that are not preprofiled but are screened for within the survey (“Level 2” targeting, e.g., parents of autistic children). In this article, we demonstrate how to sample hard-to-reach groups using market-research panels. We also describe several best practices for conducting research using online panels, including setting in-survey quotas to control sample composition and managing data quality. Our aim is to provide researchers with enough information to determine whether market-research panels are right for their research and to outline the necessary considerations for using such panels.