In 2024, Awareness > Fear
As we get deeper into 2024, as an industry, we need to start thinking more about Research, and perhaps a bit less about poor Data Quality and Fraud.
That’s by no means meant to say that there aren’t fraud or data issues. The issues exist, fraud exists, but there’s an entire cohort of companies working to digitally - and manually - clean the data before it reaches our end clients.
2024 must mark a pivotal moment where awareness must prevail over fear. Despite the prevalence of duplicates and fraud, which range from 15 to 20%, with duplicates accounting for 10.42% and threats of fraud at 11.12%, there is a silver lining - there are significant efforts are underway to combat these challenges – both from Defender/ Rep Data, as well as our competitors in the space.
One particularly encouraging aspect is that bad actors lack insight into the strategies employed by their ethical counterparts. Leveraging the 'wisdom of the crowds' becomes a potent weapon in terminating fraudulent activities. It’s very clear to us that the bad actors have a very specific strategy of device manipulation, and that manipulation has clear distinctions from a “normal” user.
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The good news here is that bad actors typically don’t know how good actors behave – from a meta data perspective (device types, general trends, etc.)
The other recommendation we have is for Research world to shift from a deterministic approach to a probabilistic approach in methodology. Specifically, from a Data Quality perspective, if we can look at trends and aggregate data, we’d be better served than trying to dig into every option, and answer choice.
We cannot avoid fraud, and on the other hand, we cannot avoid false positives either. And, the best way to manage the two is the law of large numbers AND more importantly, trusting that there are way more good people than cheaters – by an order of 4 times (80% good, 20% cheaters, let’s say).
So, as we navigate the complexities of market research in 2024, we should embrace fraud awareness without succumbing to fear. And, by leveraging collective knowledge, employing robust measures, and embracing probabilistic methodologies, we can pave the way for a more trustworthy research landscape.
It's great that tools can identify the bad 20, but 80/20 is not a satisfactory ratio. The industry could do better. A better ratio requires more good survey participants, not just a higher frequency from the same pool. Suppliers can recruit more, but at higher acquisition costs. We need mechanisms that reward the supply of new unique respondents vs increased frequency of the same small pool.
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1 年Great piece, Vignesh, thanks. Can you elaborate on this part "Specifically, from a Data Quality perspective, if we can look at trends and aggregate data, we’d be better served than trying to dig into every option, and answer choice." I have a headache from back to back IDIs and haven't connected the dots yet :)
??IIEX ?Nobody loves surveys as much as I do ? Data Fairy ?No buzzwords allowed?? Quirk's Award & Insight250 Winner
1 年As researchers, we feel that many things are out of our control, which is what leads to fear. Once you understand what you can control and that you can be effective at it, it's much less scary ??