Infomercials

November 11, 2004

Online research is increasingly popular among market researchers in North America and Europe, according to Ciao AG.

Ciao AG reports that 87% of market researchers in North America and Europe who use online research expect their company's use of online research to rise over the coming six months. In fact, 36% say their company's usage will "greatly" increase.

Ciao surveyed 260 market researchers from North America and Europe who use online research and found that 80% of those who are using online market research are using it for consumer goods research, while 40% are using it for business-to-business research. Over 90% have been using online research since 2003, and over 50% have been using it since 2000.

Looking specifically at the purposes for online research, Ciao found that over 70% of online research users are using it for satisfaction studies and over 70% use it for usage and attitude (U&A) studies. Over one-half use online research for site tests, and a smaller but not insignificant 46% use it for product tests.

As for the advantages of online research, the Ciao survey determined the main benefits of online research for market researchers are that it saves time and is offered at competitive pricing levels, cited by 73% and 71% of respondents, respectively.

Other important variables involve the type of access online research affords — respondents cited access to both complex target groups (53%) and international data (49%) as important qualities of online research.

Many in the industry also say another key advantage to online surveys or online panels is the demographic itself — educated, affluent and generally technologically savvy.

The market for online market research is, in fact, growing, as Inside Research projected at the beginning of this year that online research revenues in the US would grow from over $640 million in 2002 to $939 million by the end of this year.

Source: eMarketer