Emporia Research

Calling all Quirk's Chicago friends - connect with the Emporia Research crew next week! Give Michael Kutsch, Jonathan Blanton, PMP, Lauren Barattini or Molly Riebau a shout if you'll be at the show.

Day 2 at SampleCon 2025 was another energizing day in sunny Pasadena! A highlight for the Emporia Research team was seeing our CEO?Michael Hess take the stage today to share strategies on unlocking participant lifetime value (PLTV) with the help of AI. We were excited to contribute ideas on how the market research industry can better engage and retain participants by: 1. Promoting semantic search terms for better participant targeting. ?? 2. Leveraging synthetic data to pre-target real-life participants for projects they would be a good fit for. ?? 3. Gamifying the participant experience through contributor certifications that foster panel engagement. ??? We hope these suggestions spark new ideas for fellow attendees seeking to enhance panel engagement within their own organizations. Looking forward to wrapping up this great conference and continuing these conversations beyond SampleCon!

Day 1 at SampleCon 2025 in Pasadena, and the Emporia team had a great time joining the TED-style sessions discussing the state of the market research industry. Michael McCrary walked us through the past 25 years of market research and sample providers, highlighting technology and methodologies advances — and the disruption now coming from players outside the industry. His point about protecting data quality and keeping participants engaged really resonated with us at Emporia. Sima Vasa shared insights on recent M&A trends in market research, noting how major industry players are adapting to the growing role of AI and the need for real-time insights by acquiring public opinion and analytics firms. Scott Tranter discussed the evolution of election data collection and analysis over the past decade, especially how mixed polling methods and updated weighting techniques are shaping more accurate forecasts. It was particularly interesting so hear about rephrasing questions to obtain stronger engagement from different age groups. Kerry Edelstein closed with a thoughtful reflection on maintaining the human side of research, especially as bots, and fraud have become more prevalent in the industry. We’re looking forward to more conversations and insightful sessions for Day 2!

??Meet the Team?? This month, we want to introduce you to Andrew Blum, Senior Software Engineer at Emporia. Andrew has been a driving force behind key features that enhance participant engagement and help our customers connect with the perfect profiles for their B2B studies. Apart from shaping our platform, Andrew is passionate about mentoring software engineers for gender equality at Hackbright Academy, making his way through the Criterion Collection, and ranking up in Hearthstone. Thanks for all you do at Emporia, Andrew!??

Last week during our offsite in Austin the team was joined by Lynn Pellicano from Simon-Kucher for an 'expert interview' on the insights space. Lynn and Simon-Kucher have been incredible partners to us here at Emporia, and her session was particularly helpful for our team to learn how the landscape has shifted over the past several years and to hear where Lynn sees things going. We covered everything from the history of data collection to B2B synthetic audiences and everything in between. Thanks for joining us, Lynn!

Last week, the Emporia crew landed in Austin for our annual company offsite, bringing together teammates from across the Americas to connect in person and map out our strategy for the year ahead. During our week together, our team discussed potential opportunities for further innovation and growth, Emporians collaborated in person to tackle new challenges, and (of course!) wrapped it all up with karaoke on a boat. ???? It’s exciting to think that since our last offsite in May, we’ve almost doubled in size. We’re growing fast, learning even faster, and riding this adventure alongside some of the smartest, most driven, and genuinely kind people out there. Looking forward to what comes next!

?? Calling all SampleCon friends! ?????? Curious about LinkedIn-verified B2B sample? Ping Michael Hess or Michael Kutsch. ?? Want to learn about B2B synthetic audiences? Talk to Jake Roeland or Jason Maddocks. ? Interested in verifying your B2B panel? Check in with Jonathan Blanton, PMP or Paula Martinez Gutierrez. PS - Word is Jonathan Blanton, PMP is packing his personal pickleball paddle for the tournament and is looking for enemies. ??

Coming down to Austin town for #SXSW? Jake Roeland and Michael Hess are excited to welcome you to their home city! Give these two a shout for the insider BBQ recs. ??

?? All of us here at Emporia Research couldn't be more excited to welcome Lauren Barattini and Molly Riebau to our purple party people crew! We all can't wait to work with you. ??

Mr. Michael Kutsch is on the road again – drop him a line if you're headed to Quirk's Media LA !