Purpose of the 37 Questions

“This set of Questions provides you with the framework to follow when evaluating and buying the services of online sample providers. More than just a checklist, the guide offers you the tools to have the right conversations with the sample providers to get the best sample possible.

This guide gives you the Questions you need to identify the key issues and introduce consistent terminology. It explains why each Question should be asked and indicates the issues buyers should expect to be covered in an answer.

These Questions are intended to help buyers evaluate the services of different online sample providers and the quality of the solutions that they offer. They identify the key issues for buyers to consider, explain why each question should be asked and highlight the issues buyers should expect to be covered in an answer.”

Courtesy of ESOMAR ( www.esomar.org )

We’re committed to transparency in sample sourcing and panel quality. Here is our full ESOMAR 37 Questions disclosure for our African operations.

Company Profile

1. What experience does your company have in providing online samples for market research? How long have you been providing this service? Do you also provide similar services for other uses such as direct marketing? If so, what proportion of your work is for market research?

What experience does your company have in providing online samples for market research?
The first Opinion Space panel was launched in 2014. Set up to act as a specialized African Research Agency with a focus on the development of online research panels in East and West Africa. Opinion Space was the first truly African panel community at the time of its creation. Today we have members from all 55 countries of Africa.

How long have you been providing this service?
11 Years.

Do you also provide similar services for other uses such as direct marketing? If so, what proportion of your work is for market research?
No. We do not engage in any direct marketing.

 

2. Do you have staff with responsibility for developing and monitoring the performance of the sampling algorithms and related automated functions who also have knowledge and experience in this area?

Yes. All key personnel involved in the development and maintenance of our panel platform were accredited researchers first with the full knowledge of sampling principles.

What sort of training in sampling techniques do you provide to your frontline staff?
All our frontline staff managing projects are market researchers with backgrounds in applied statistics, actuarial science and marketing.

We also provide in-house training for the usage of our internal tools & platforms, industry and ethical standards (specifically ESOMAR & MSRA code of conduct) as well as security protocols.

 

3. What other services do you offer? Do you cover sample-only, or do you offer a broad range of data collection and analysis services?

We are a full-service survey agency. We offer all survey-related services from research design, instrument development and scripting all the way to analysis & reporting. We can be engaged for as much of the process as the client needs a’ la-carte.

Sample sources and Recruitment

4. Using the broad classifications above, from what sources of online sample do you derive participants?

Integrated panels.

 

5. Which of these sources are proprietary or exclusive and what is the percent share of each in the total sample provided to a buyer? (Assume proprietary to mean that the sample provider owns the asset. Assume exclusive to mean that the sample provider has an exclusive agreement to manage/provide access to sample originally collected by another entity.)

We have proprietary panels in all African markets but also utilize samples from verified partners to supplement our supply especially in non-African markets. Percentage of ownership varies from market to market. A real-time view of our panel stats is available here: https://opinion-space.com/survey-audience/panel-coverage/

 

6. What recruitment channels are you using for each of the sources you have described? Is the recruitment process ‘open to all’ or by invitation only? Are you using probabilistic methods? Are you using affiliate networks and referral programs and in what proportions? How does your use of these channels vary by geography?

Our main recruitment channel is paid digital advertising.
Is the recruitment process ‘open to all’ or by invitation only?
For consumer panels, recruitment is open to all members of the population. However, for B2B and specialist panels, recruitment is done by invite-only through phone-calls, industry events and peer referrals.
Are you using affiliate networks and referral programs and in what proportions? How does your use of these channels vary by geography?
No 3rd-party affiliate networks. We have self-managed affiliate partnerships with thousands of digital marketers from across the continent. We also have a flexible internal referral program for panelists that is activated for all markets we are developing panels but disabled in geographies where we have attained saturation.

 

7. What form of validation do you use in recruitment to ensure that participants are real, unique, and are who they say they are? Describe this both in terms of the practical steps you take within your own organization and the technologies you are using. Please try to be as specific and quantify as much as you can.

We use digital fingerprinting to identify and mark participants who register on our platform and review the same each time they interact with the panel. Our policy is one-person, one account and we have several measures in place to verify information provided by participants both at registration and each time they respond to a survey invite. Below is our strategy:

Unique Email: Upon registration, panelists must confirm their email in a double-optin process.
Unique Device: We log and mark the unique mac-ID of all devices used to access a user’s account and survey invites, checking that they have not been used by any other “users” on the panel and flagging them for scrutiny if there’s a hit.
Unique Location: We use digital fingerprinting services to identify and mark user locations both at registration and each time they respond to a survey. Users with more than one false location incidents are tagged and their records automatically investigated against a pool of all previously marked VPN addresses. Participants on VPNs are automatically blocked.
Unique Invites: All survey invites are tagged and loaded with pre-existing panelist information like demographics and other profiling data through their Universally Unique Identifier (UUID). Based on survey requirements we select and re-ask random relevant profile questions to check for consistency over time and score participants. Repeat and Extreme inconsistencies are suspended & flagged for manual quality review.
Unique Phone Number: We require that participants must register their phone number to redeem rewards on the platform and each number can only be used once. As such, we do not have fraudulent participants creating hundreds of fake accounts for the sole purpose of piling rewards.

 

8. What brand (domain) and/or app are you using with proprietary sources? Summarize, by source, the proportion of sample accessing surveys by mobile app, email or other specified means

Brand: www.Opinion.Africa
Survey alerts are sent via email and push alerts.

 

9. Which model(s) do you offer to deliver sample? Managed service, self-serve, or API integration?

We offer all 3 access options. Managed via our project managers, Self-serve via our DIY platform Survey Suite https://opinion-space.com/survey-suite/ and api integration to select partners.
We also offer mirror panels to partners who require deeper access to our panelists profiling. This is a long-term integration where we:
1. Create shadow profiles on the partner’s platform.
2. Send panelists to complete their profile questionnaires over time as part of their proprietary panel.
3. Provide an API for the partner to directly trigger survey invites to these panel members, and to credit their accounts with incentive rewards upon survey completion.
This approach allows partners to implement & utilize their own platform for sample management.

 

10. If offering intercepts, or providing access to more than one source, what level of transparency do you offer over the composition of your sample (sample sources, sample providers included in the blend). Do you let buyers control which sources of sample to include in their projects, and if so how? Do you have any integration mechanisms with third-party sources offered?

We don’t offer intercepts.
For integrated 3rd party panels, these are only offered for managed projects. All 3rd party samples are sourced ad-hoc through partners’ PMs.

 

11. Of the sample sources you have available, how would you describe the suitability of each for different research applications? For example, Is there a sample suitable for product testing or other recruit/recall situations where the buyer may need to go back again to the same sample? Is the sample suitable for shorter or longer questionnaires? For mobile-only or desktop only questionnaires? Is it suitable to recruit for communities? For online focus groups?

Our panel sample is only for online surveys.

We try to limit surveys on the DIY platform to a maximum length (LOI) of 25minutes. We also encourage our partners and clients to go for lower LOI as the majority of our panel is primarily on mobile devices and surveys are competing for attention with flashing notifications from hundreds of everyday mobile apps and social media. Most surveys fall within this limit and we’ve had no problems running trackers both those that require re-contact and blocking out previous participants.

For unique research studies, we offer off-panel recruitment as needed but this is done via a deliberate team effort. For example, for a qualitative study on vaping legislation in Kenya, we ran a recruitment screener as a survey, allowing prequalified participants to book and reserve seats on an online mini-group session which was being run on a 3rd party platform and moderated by our client himself.

 

Sampling And Project Management

12. Briefly describe your overall process from invitation to survey completion. What steps do you take to achieve a sample that “looks like” the target population? What demographic quota controls, if any, do you recommend?

We expect project objectives to be different as fingerprints hence offer no cookie-cutter recommendation. What we offer is regional and demographic census data from all our proprietary markets to advise each client on what the true population looks like and let them decide how they wish to proceed.
We are capable of targeting demographics like Age, Gender, Country, Region/Province, Marital Status, Parenthood Status, Income & Education level.

 

13. What profiling information do you hold on at least 80% of your panel members plus any intercepts known to you through prior contact? How does this differ by the sources you offer? How often is each of those data points updated? Can you supply these data points as appends to the data set? Do you collect this profiling information directly or is it supplied by a third party?

For 100% of the panel we can target by Age, Gender, Country, Region/Province.
We have an additional 326 data points under our profiling system under categories like Automotive, Education, Healthcare, Travel, Business/Occupation, Household, Media & Entertainment etc. Below is a screenshot of the profiling categories currently active on the panel.

Utility: We can use ALL profiling questions to filter participants for a study even if they have yet to complete that section of their profiling. When participants open a survey invite, any required profiling that is unknown/unsaved will be asked of them before they are redirected to participate in the survey subject to qualification.

 

14. What information do you need about a project in order to provide an estimate of feasibility? What, if anything, do you do to give upper or lower boundaries around these estimates?

Minimum requirements.
1. Geography (Target Country/Province/City etc)
2. Sample “n”
3. Length of Interview (LOI)
4. Incidence Rate/Ratio (IR)
Additional screening information will also be required where a survey is not general population (gen.pop). Such pertinent info may be:
1. Gender proportions.
2. Desired Demographic Quota breakdowns. (Gender/Region/Age brackets etc)
3. Desired Timelines.
4. Desired Product Usage/Ownership or Non Usage/Ownership (EG. Users/Non-Users of Colgate Toothpaste, Uber users, Smartphone Owners, )
5. Desired employment status & income brackets.
6. Any other targeting information that is important to the study.

Limits:
We recommend LOI to be below 25 minutes. We do not run surveys longer than 40minutes.
To protect our panel members’ overall experience and satisfaction, we do not run studies below 30% IR. For example, we do not run a survey targeting CEOs / Business Purchase Decision Makers on a consumer panel. Or studies looking for people with a very rare disease. For such studies, we recommend alternative recruitment approaches ad-hoc.

 

15. What do you do if the project proves impossible for you to complete in field? Do you inform the sample buyer as to who you would use to complete the project? In such circumstances, how do you maintain and certify third party sources/sub-contractors?

We act as a single-source supplier for surveys we undertake. We encourage clients to only engage us for the sample we have determined to be feasible. In cases where we fall short (mostly when in-field specs negatively differ from client estimates), we will advise the client accordingly and recommend alternative providers.

In cases where we offer integrated sample from the project’s inception, we only work with industry association members who are not only bound by ethical code of conduct, but also certified for ISO27001 and ISO20252.

 

16. Do you employ a survey router or any yield management techniques? If yes, please describe how you go about allocating participants to surveys. How are potential participants asked to participate in a study? Please specify how this is done for each of the sources you offer.

We don’t use routers.

 

17. Do you set limits on the amount of time a participant can be in the router before they qualify for a survey?

We don’t use routers.

 

18. What information about a project is given to potential participants before they choose whether to take the survey or not? How does this differ by the sources you offer?

Via Email Invites:
• The description of the process is best described in bulletins below.
• A general description of the purpose of the project
• The estimated length of interview
• A statement of the confidentiality and anonymity of each respondent’s responses
• The closing date for completed responses (if applicable) access to full disclosure of incentive terms and conditions applying to the project
• An explanation if the invitation is sent out on behalf of another research service provider (if applicable)
• For panel members, the opportunity to unsubscribe or opt out of future research • an appropriate privacy policy or statement.
• There are also clear instructions within the invite if the respondent is required to undertake a particular task, or is required to have a specific software or capability on their PC, laptop,
• mobile or other device.
• For those who do not wish to take part in the survey, there is a ‘ option that is embedded in the email
• The invite also includes a support email address for any queries relating to the
• survey.
Via Push Notification:
We simply notify the participant of the survey and the time it will take to complete (LOI). The full info is available on the survey entry page if they choose to respond.

 

19. Do you allow participants to choose a survey from a selection of available surveys? If so, what are they told about each survey that helps them to make that choice?

Yes.
On the account dashboard, we list all surveys available that they have been marched with.
3 Details are included: Survey Title, Survey length & Survey Reward.

 

20. What ability do you have to increase (or decrease) incentives being offered to potential participants (or sub-groups of participants) during the course of a survey? If so, can this be flagged at the participant level in the dataset?

On our system, projects are further broken down into target-groups to allow for a more refined targeting of different participant profiles as defined by the PM. Once a target-group is created in our system, only the required sample can be modified. We can pause or restart target groups but we can’t modify rewards post-creation.

Within the same project however, we can create infinite target groups and increase or decrease reward value as needed. And yes we can track which responses came from which target group.

 

21. Do you measure participant satisfaction at the individual project level? If so, can you provide normative data for similar projects (by length, by type, by subject, by target group)?

No. Instead we collect open ended feedback in cases where an irregularity is detected. Eg if a participant is screened out after participating in a survey for more than 5 minutes, we want to understand what their experience was so we can compare it to the client feedback on such participants. We encourage clients to collect their own experience feedback within their survey at the end of their questionnaire.

 

22. Do you provide a debrief report about a project after it has completed? If yes, can you provide an example?

For each project, we provide standard information on number of responses, status of responses (i.e.
completes, screen outs, quota full and drop outs) as well as average length of interview and infield
incidence rate. We also offer on request other statistics to the depth of dropouts, screen outs, quality
terminates and any hits of bad geo IP.

 

Data quality and Validation

23. How often can the same individual participate in a survey? How does this vary across your sample sources? What is the mean and maximum amount of time a person may have already been taking surveys before they entered this survey? How do you manage this?

We monitor the frequency of participation of all panel members on Opinion Space. Every panelist is also given a score based on their responsiveness. We hold detailed data for each panelist on which survey they have taken part in; therefore, a panelist can easily be included or excluded in another survey. We also set a minimum quarantine period (i.e. the time between survey invitation mailings) to ensure panelists do not receive too many invitations. Regardless of sample source, the policy allows for one invite and one reminder to a single survey opportunity. Typical lock out periods for inviting to a new survey opportunity is seven days, but this can be vary depending on the country and panel.

 

24. What data do you maintain on individual participants such as recent participation history, date(s) of entry, source/channel, etc? Are you able to supply buyers with a project analysis of such individual level data? Are you able to append such data points to your participant records?

Opinion Space saves detailed panelist participation data which includes: panelist join date, last
participation date, transaction history on all surveys, redemptions, reward points transactions, etc. As Opinion Space strictly adheres to all applicable privacy law and regulation, personally identifiable information is never made available. Opinion Space includes an automated system that ensures all panelists are ‘quarantined’ after participating in a survey, meaning they cannot be sent another survey for a certain amount of time. The standard quarantine period on Opinion Space is seven days; however, this can vary by panelist. Opinion Space utilizes an indexing system which gives each panelist a score depending on how active they are with respect to survey participation. A participation history is recorded and additional exclusion can be applied on a subject category. Opinion Space uses an advanced subject category quarantine capability which is available to those clients who need it. Respondents can also be excluded from future surveys by excluding previous projects when we are selecting sample. Upon request Opinion Space can provide participation history reports to clients on request.

 

25. Please describe your procedures for confirmation of participant identity at the project level. Please describe these procedures as they are implemented at the point of entry to a survey or router.

Opinion Space ’s has a range of features to deal with professional/ duplicate respondents. The system includes stratified sampling to get various types of respondents, including active and less active panelists. The length of the survey is evaluated and compared against individual answers. Opinion Space identifies and excludes multiple panel respondents both through email address , mobile number and by name. Opinion Space has a panel quality team that continuously analyzes panel data to identify ‘fraudulent’ or ‘inattentive’ panelists. Panelist status is updated periodically. All panelists who remain entirely inactive for over a year are automatically quarantined until they re-activate their account by logging in once more. As all research stakeholders would agree, quality of response is also affected by the quality of the questionnaire. Opinion Space project managers provide feedback to clients of all potential issues which could affect fieldwork, both before project launch as well as on project completion

 

26. How do you manage source consistency and blend at the project level? With regard to trackers, how do you ensure that the nature and composition of sample sources remain the same over time? Do you have reports on blends and sources that can be provided to buyers? Can source be appended to the participant data records?

Every participation token sent to clients can be tracked to the participant who created it whether they are within our panel or they were sourced from a 3rd-party provider. Where necessary, Opinion Space is able to offer composition breakdowns.

 

27. Please describe your participant/member quality tracking, along with any health metrics you maintain on members/participants, and how those metrics are used to invite, track, quarantine, and block people from entering the platform, router, or a survey. What processes do you have in place to compare profiled and known data to in-survey responses?

We continuously assess member quality across multiple parameters to identify and remove panelists who provide low-quality responses. Our primary focus areas include speeding, random or inconsistent answering, and detecting duplicate accounts, and we apply a range of methods to address these issues.

When a panel member is repeatedly found to deliver poor-quality responses, their account is suspended. Once suspended, they can no longer receive survey invitations, redeem incentives, or access their panel account.

We also track response rates, completion rates, and response times for all panel members over time to support ongoing quality management.

 

28. For work where you program, host, and deliver the survey data, what processes do you have in place to reduce or eliminate undesired in-survey behaviors, such as (a) random responding, (b) Illogical or inconsistent responding, (c) overuse of item nonresponse (e.g., “Don’t Know”) (d) inaccurate or inconsistent responding, (e) incomplete responding, or (f) too rapid survey completion?

Opinion Space employs several survey authenticity checks to tackle different malicious behaviour as below:
(a) random responding: Logic/Consistency checks, to Quality-terminate any responses that don’t adhere to survey logic.
(b) Illogical or inconsistent responding, Logic/Consistency checks, to Quality-terminate any responses that don’t adhere to survey logic.
(c) overuse of item nonresponse (e.g., “Don’t Know”) Nonresponse Quota: If the respondent has nothing to say for several consecutive questions we terminate.
(d) inaccurate or inconsistent responding, Logic/Consistency checks, to Quality-terminate any responses that don’t adhere to survey logic.
(e) incomplete responding, or (f) too rapid survey completion?: Speed checks, to Quality-terminate any responses that are completed too fast compared to median time.

 

Policies And Compliance

29. Please provide the link to your participant privacy notice (sometimes referred to as a privacy policy) as well as a summary of the key concepts it addresses. (Note: If your company uses different privacy notices for different products or services, please provide an example relevant to the products or services covered in your response to this question).

https://opinion.africa/privacy-policy/

 

30. How do you comply with key data protection laws and regulations that apply in the various jurisdictions in which you operate? How do you address requirements regarding consent or other legal bases for the processing of personal data? How do you address requirements for data breach response, cross-border transfer, and data retention? Have you appointed a data protection officer?

We remain up to date with all relevant data protection laws by working closely with legal experts in each country where we operate. For our panel members, the legal basis for sending survey invitations is explicit consent obtained during the signup process. When additional permissions are required—such as for processing special category data or re-using data across multiple study waves—we collect the necessary supplementary consent as part of the study.

We maintain a dedicated GDPR incident response team to act immediately in the event of any issue involving personally identifiable information. All cross-border data transfers are governed by appropriate data protection agreements. Our automated retention systems ensure that personal data is securely deleted as soon as it is no longer needed.
We have also appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who oversees and ensures compliance with all GDPR-related matters.

 

31. How can participants provide, manage and revise consent for the processing of their personal data? What support channels do you provide for participants? In your response, please address the sample sources you wholly own, as well as those owned by other parties to whom you provide access.

Consent is obtained during the panel member signup process, and once logged into their membership page, users can review, modify, or withdraw any consents they have previously provided. We offer support in the local language for all panel members, accessible through a contact form on our panel sites or via the link included in every survey invitation. For data subject access requests or privacy-related inquiries, panel members may also contact our Data Protection Officer directly using the email address provided in our privacy policy.

 

32. How do you track and comply with other applicable laws and regulations, such as those that might impact the incentives paid to participants?

We have dedicated country managers responsible for monitoring legal weather locally and advising the technical team as needed.

 

33. What is your approach to collecting and processing the personal data of children and young people? Do you adhere to standards and guidelines provided by ESOMAR or GRBN member associations? How do you comply with applicable data protection laws and regulations

Opinion Space does not allow the registration of persons under the age of 14 (oldest definition of a minor in all our proprietary coverage markets) to register into our panels. However, we allow targeting parents based on their profile information and asking if they wish to pass the survey to their children thus establishing parental consent.

 

34. Do you implement “data protection by design” (sometimes referred to as “privacy by design”) in your systems and processes? If so, please describe how.

All our systems are built with privacy by design at their core.
We apply the principle of least privilege, ensuring that only team members with a legitimate business need can access personal data. We collect and process only the information necessary for our work, and our systems automatically delete personal data once it is no longer required.
By default, all data we deliver is fully anonymized.

 

35. What are the key elements of your information security compliance program? Please specify the framework(s) or auditing procedure(s) you comply with or certify to. Does your program include an asset-based risk assessment and internal audit process?

We maintain a comprehensive internal IT security control system to ensure that our technical and organizational measures consistently align with state-of-the-art best practices. Our framework is based on ISO 27001 recommendations and guidance issued by data protection authorities.
Key components of our program include:
• A dedicated security organization with clearly defined responsibilities, including a GDPR compliance team, a Data Protection Officer, and an incident response team.

• Regular risk assessments of all assets conducted by the GDPR group.

• Scheduled internal control checks with documented follow-up actions.

• Ongoing internal audits.

• Continuous training and awareness programs for employees.

• A fully developed business continuity plan.

Our IT security internal control system undergoes independent assessment in accordance with the ISAE 3000 framework. The auditor’s report is available upon request.

 

36. Do you certify to or comply with a quality framework such as ISO 20252?

Pending certification, Our system is built on the best practice recommendations found in the ISO27001 and guidelines from data protection authorities.

 

Metrics

37. Which of the following are you able to provide to buyers, in aggregate and by country and source? Please include a link or attach a file of a sample report for each of the metrics you use.