Online panel
An online panel is a group of people who have agreed to take part in research over time and are invited to surveys and studies online. Panels may be recruited by probability methods, which support population estimates, or by opt-in, where anyone can join.
How it works
Probability panels recruit members through random sampling, such as address-based sampling, and give those without internet access a way to take part; Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel works this way. Opt-in panels recruit through ads, websites and partnerships, are larger and cheaper, and are used for most commercial research.
The American Association for Public Opinion Research's report on online panels notes that opt-in panels do not support the same statistical inferences as probability samples, and that quality depends on recruitment, profiling, fraud controls and how members are managed. Panel members' experience with many surveys can also change how they answer.
A worked example
A food company needs 1,500 responses from US parents of young children in a week. An opt-in panel delivers them in 4 days. Quality checks remove 9 percent of responses, and the team weights the rest to census figures on region and income before reporting.
Related
Automate this in Pulse
Panel members recruited to the brief's profile and a company's own customers can sit in the same Pulse study, answering the same question from two sources.