Ideally’s Customer Panel feature allows you to reach up to 1,000 respondents from your own panel, while still benefiting from all the features you know and love.
Features
Easy test setup: Create your test in Ideally and generate a shareable link to distribute directly to your panel.
Research-reviewed tests: Ideally’s research team reviews every submission to ensure it aligns with research best practices.
Ideally insights: Ideally will summarise and theme your customer panel responses, just like any other test. You’ll receive the same clear visualisations you trust, saving your team valuable time.
Detailed Instructions
1. Create a test: Set up your test in Ideally as usual. On submission, click the dropdown arrow on the ‘Submit’ button.
2. Select respondent numbers:
Minimum: 400 respondents
Maximum: 1,000 respondents
3. Submit for approval: Once you click ‘Submit’, the test will be sent to the Ideally Research team for review and approval.
4. Receive your survey link: After approval, you’ll receive an email with a link to your survey, which can then be shared to your custom panel through your preferred distribution workflow.
We highly recommend you provide an incentive for completing the survey and send at least one reminder to increase completion rates.
5. Track responses: Follow the link to monitor progress on the surveying state page.
6. Closing the survey:
You can manually stop the survey run by clicking the ‘Close survey’ button once at least 400 responses have been collected.
Alternatively, the survey will close automatically once the target number of respondents is reached.
7. View results: After closing the survey, the results pages will become available, just like for any other Ideally test.
8. Sample indicator: The ‘Sample’ field on the Test Information panel will show whether a survey has been run on a customer panel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Will demographic filters still be available on the customer panel results pages?
A: Yes, respondents will answer all the demographic questions typically included in Ideally surveys. This ensures all your filtering functionality remains available.
Q: Can I send a test to both my customer panel and a nationally representative (nat-rep) sample?
A: At present, a single test can only be sent to either your customer panel or a nat-rep sample. To test both, duplicate your test to ensure consistency across questions, and send each version to the desired sample.
Q: How much does it cost to send a test to my customer panel?
A: The cost of testing with your customer panel is consistent with our standard pricing for Ideally tests. Charges vary based on the number and type of questions included in your test.
Q: How do I share the test with my customer panel?
A: Upon approval, you will receive a shareable link. You can distribute this link to your respondents using any of your standard communication channels or distribution methods.
Q: How can I track respondents who completed a survey so that incentives can be sent out?
A: You can do this by attaching a unique ID to each survey link you send out. Here’s how it works step by step:
Assign each respondent a unique ID
Use an ID from your own database, CRM, or email platform (for example, a contact ID, customer number, or hashed email).
Each respondent must have a different ID.
Avoid using personally identifiable information (like raw emails).
Attach the unique ID to the survey link
Add the ID to the end of the survey URL using the psid parameter
&psid=[UNIQUE_ID]
Generate unique links automatically using merge tags
Instead of creating links manually, use your email platform’s merge tags.
A merge tag is a placeholder (like {{contact.id}} or *|ID|*) that gets replaced with the respondent’s actual ID when the email is sent.
When you send your campaign:
Respondent A gets a link with psid=123
Respondent B gets a link with psid=456
Match responses back to your database
When the survey is complete, exports will include the psid.
You can match the ID back to your own database to identify which respondent completed the survey and send them their reward.