29 Sep

Posted at 11:05h in Innovation, Technology
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Most ads are invisible in the wild. People see thousands of ads a day and forget almost all of them, which is why a large share of ad spend has little real impact. In this environment, guessing is expensive. Testing is how you protect your budget and improve creative quality. This guide explains Insightrix ad testing solutions, why they work, and when to use them: OnTopic (tailored omnibus survey checks), AdCheck (quantitative pre-testing with quick turnaround), and Neurolytrix (predictive AI ad testing). Why test creative before launch? Independent meta-analyses have found that creative quality is a top driver of in-market results, as influential as all other media levers combined in some analyses.2 Insightrix echoes this, highlighting creativity as the #1 driver of ROI. In short, improving creativity is the highest leverage move a marketer can make. Corner 1: OnTopic — Tailored, Local Quantitative Checks (Omnibus Survey) What it is OnTopic lets you add a set of questions to a shared, ongoing survey (“omnibus”). It’s a fast and cost-efficient way to validate creative direction with local audiences—ideal when you need a read on headlines, visuals, CTAs, or value propositions without commissioning a comprehensive study. Why it’s effective (beyond “just a survey”) Decision speed: Early decisions (keep/kill/iterate) have outsized budget impact. Omnibus feedback preserves momentum while preventing costly dead ends. In-market, human-based feedback: Because respondents live where you market, results reflect regional language, norms, and purchase contexts that national studies can blur. Frictionless iteration: Quick cycles encourage test → tweak → retest, which compounds creative gains over a few rounds. When to use it When you’re choosing between concepts or copy and need a fast signal. When you want to confirm a product's fit for market before investing in production. When budget is a concern, but you need human-based feedback to make data-driven decisions about your creative. What you’ll leave with Data from a pre-determined set of questions presented in a set of Excel detailed tables. Results include crosstabulations with key demographic variables and a brief written summary of results. Corner 2: AdCheck — Quantitative Monadic Pre-Testing (with Norms) What it is AdCheck is a pre-test methodology developed by Insightrix to facilitate swift turnaround times (3–5 working days). Respondents evaluate ads on key diagnostics related to engagement, relevance, enjoyability, differentiation, and call-to-action effectiveness. Leveraging a monadic approach, respondents evaluate one advertisement at a time (not multiple side by side). This design eliminates order effects and cross-contamination, resulting in cleaner reads on your creative. AdCheck can be used for pretesting TV, digital, print, outdoor, radio, and pre-roll. Why it’s effective (beyond “just a survey”) Decision speed: Early decisions (keep/kill/iterate) have outsized budget impact. Omnibus feedback preserves momentum while preventing costly dead ends. In-market, human-based feedback: Because respondents live where you market, results reflect regional language, norms, and purchase contexts that national studies can blur. Frictionless iteration: Quick cycles encourage test → tweak → retest, which compounds creative gains over a few rounds. When to use it You’re choosing between concepts or copy and need a fast signal. You want to confirm fit-to-market before investing in production. Budget is a concern, but you need human-based feedback to make data-driven decisions about your creative. What you’ll leave with Data from a pre-determined set of questions presented in a set of Excel detailed tables. Results include crosstabulations with key demographic variables and a brief written summary of results. Corner 3: Neurolytrix — Predictive AI Ad Testing (Neuroscience-Backed) What it is Neurolytrix is predictive AI built on the world’s largest combined neuroscience and eye-tracking database, comprising over 200,000 human brains and more than 100 billion datapoints, to forecast how people will perceive, feel about, understand, and remember your ad.1 It returns: Attention heatmaps (what will be looked at) AOI analysis for logos, headlines, pack shots, CTAs Frame-by-frame video curves (start/end attention, peaks, dips) Behavioural scores with explanations of how each is calculated. Impact scores enable you to determine when an ad is ready for production. Reports are typically ready within one business day, and the tool supports all major formats—from billboards and print to social feeds and TV.1 Neurolytrix follows this paradigm: learn from massive human neuroscience/eye-tracking datasets, then apply those learnings to new creative projects, predicting likely attention, emotion, focus, and memory before spending on production or media. Why predictive AI works (the science in brief) Attention predicts outcomes. Large meta-analyses show strong correlations between measured attention and brand outcomes (awareness, consideration, action intent). 5 Eye-tracking & recall are linked. Peer-reviewed studies and recent articles demonstrate that the duration and focus of attention are related to memory and brand recall, validating the attention/memory predictors used by AI systems. 6 Model strength comes from human ground truth. Best-in-class AI testing (e.g., Neurolytrix) is trained on hundreds of thousands of human-rated ads and validated to predict in-market performance within minutes, reliably illustrating how survey-based truth can powerfully train survey-free prediction for speed and scale.6 What the metrics tell you → Indicate whether attention concentrates on one or two elements that matter (e.g., product + CTA). Diffuse attention = diluted message. Estimate mental effort; high demand can overwhelm viewers and suppress recall (useful for simplifying layouts or pacing). Understand that engagement approximates a positive emotional pull, derived from fast-response paradigms that correlate with felt emotions. Learn how memorable post-exposure recall is - critical in fast-scroll environments where only what “sticks” can drive later behaviour. What this unlocks (beyond “a score”) Edit guidance: concrete design and copy edits, video pacing tips, and benchmarking vs. category norms to close performance gaps. Scale without prohibitive cost: test many versions, formats, and placements; reserve surveys for the few finalists that need deeper human interpretation. Evidence of impact: case studies show 18% increases in engagement and 20–73% improvements in CTR after AI-guided optimization. Connect the cornerstones of ad testing (without waste) A simple playbook: Start broad with OnTopic Use omnibus pulses to pressure-test messaging, headlines, and visuals with local audiences. Kill the weak, keep 2–3 promising routes. Model and refine with Neurolytrix Run predictive AI on the survivors. Utilize heatmaps, attention curves, and cognitive demand to refine the hierarchy, simplify, and enhance clarity. (Reports are typically ready in a day, so iteration is fast.) Validate with AdCheck Put the refined creative into a monadic, normed test to quantify memorability, engagement, brand association, and motivation across media. Use industry norms to confirm it’s strong enough to scale (portal turnaround 3–5 days). Launch, learn, loop Compare early brand-lift/behavioural results to the predicted attention and memory patterns. Feed what you learn into the next cycle. Why the sequence works: OnTopic prevents over-investing in a weak idea. Neurolytrix pinpoints how to make a good idea work harder. AdCheck verifies that the final cut meets category benchmarks and moves brand & action KPIs. Choosing the right tool for the job Insightrix Blends Context and Realism Where it Matters Most All testing has trade-offs. Surveys risk context loss; AI risks model bias if trained on unrepresentative data; live tests risk time and budget. The way forward is method blending, using quick pulses for direction, predictive AI for design precision, and surveys for human-validated certainty. That combination mirrors what large, validated programs now show: attention, memory, and clarity are reliable leading indicators of brand outcomes. The Trifecta of Effective Ad Intelligence Ad clutter is a genuine concern, and budgets are finite. The surest path to impact is systematic testing: fast when speed matters, deep when risk is high, and predictive when scale is needed. With OnTopic, AdCheck, and Neurolytrix, you can cover all three. If you’re planning a new campaign, start by deciding what decision you need to make next: directional, developmental, or go/no-go, and pick the corner that gets you there with the least waste. Ready to make your ads work harder? Don’t leave creative effectiveness to chance. Discover which Insightrix ad testing solution fits your next campaign - connect with our team today and start testing smarter. 1Insightrix – Neurolytrix Ad Intelligence Platform 2Insightrix Research AdCheck – Advertising Testing for Business 3Neurolytrix Explaining Metrics Whitepaper 4Nielsen/NCS Five Keys to Advertising Effectiveness; creative’s outsized contribution. 5Monadic testing reliability and order effects. 6Attention ↔ brand outcomes meta-analyses. 7Eye-tracking, attention and recall links.  ...
 

09 Jan

Posted at 14:19h in Innovation, Technology
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The market research industry is no stranger to the constant pressures from emerging research technology trends. The advancement, in many ways, has catapulted our field of work into a new era of data collection for insights professionals.  For example… Remember when canvassers walked neighbourhoods with a pen and paper in hand? Well, that quickly evolved into calling centres calling extensive telephone lists. Then came the y2k era of administering surveys both multimode (telephone and online) and online by email. And by 2010, interactive digital surveys became more prevalent, like SMS, QR codes, and pop-up website windows. Skip ahead where DIY survey platforms, social media, and gamification (such as pausing in the middle of a game or YouTube video to conduct a survey question) are becoming quick, agile ways to support your survey data. As insights professionals, we've experienced the unfolding of ways to collect data and achieve an accurate read on a desired target audience. But, in our most authentic nature, we love a good trend! Quickly enters 'ResTech' - otherwise known as research technology. A term that has transformed the MRX industry by combining technologies and tools to create more agile and innovative solutions to advance research evolution. ResTech can be everything from simple task automation to SAAS, social media, video and remote collaboration, DIY solutions, interactive dashboards and even AI. Stories of Market Research Powerhouse Guests Within the last year, we have interviewed many great ResTech leaders in market research on Stories of Market Research: the Insightrix Podcast: CloudResearch on their industry-changing data quality solutions that combine behavioural and technological vetting. Listen to the episode here. Attest on their incredible consumer research survey tool that offers creative SAAS technology. Listen to the episode here. And RealityMine on their passive metering, automatic content recognition, and geolocation tools. Listen to the episode here. These are only a handful of the many ResTech firms that are doing outstanding work supporting the insights industry by empowering the many stages of market research using technology. There are so many ways that technology is fuelling methods of traditional survey data collection. How does ResTech support market research suppliers? Real-time Data ResTech can support researchers and end-users with a flexible solution to access real-time data and prune specific insights to understand target audiences. For example, automated feedback surveys triggered after an online purchase ask how satisfied you are with the recent experience. The maturation of contacting individuals in real-time as they experience an interaction has forever transformed our end clients' ability to access survey data when and how they want. As a respondent fills out a short questionnaire in a feedback form, the data in the backend is automatically stored and sent to a live dashboard where one can access the data and begin to understand their customer without waiting for a deliverable or project milestone. Automation ResTech takes care of unnecessary manual work in survey data collection by generating a connection between technologies to automate data collection, cleaning and analyzing the data, meaning much of the redundancy in traditional MRX processes is removed using automation. As researchers, we are more efficient, less biased, more comprehensive, and more inclusive because of our ability to access respondents online. Now one big (and we mean BIG!) caveat to this type ResTech is it does not replace the value of market research but provides a more excellent value by reducing mundane, day-to-day tasks. Technology enhances what market research can accomplish – making traditional research processes much faster and more efficient, allowing insights professionals to supplement methods to help clients understand their consumers. With ResTech accomplishing its task in the background, insights professionals can focus on those golden nuggets for better business planning. This gives you and your client back one valuable resource we all need more of – TIME! Time to dissect the insight and learn about your business. Time to connect the dots between what the data is saying and how to make it work for you. That is the true power of the human element within our industry. Sample Quality As insights professionals, we must prevent insufficient data from impacting our studies, starting with fraud detection and prevention when managing online samples. Greenbook states that 15 to 30% of market research data across the industry is considered fraudulent. And while fraud is quickly becoming rampant in a digital-first society, staying ahead requires vigilance. So how do we avoid the embarrassment of insufficient data? According to our friends at CloudResearch, leading experts in data quality market research technology, there are many steps you can take to be proactive in vetting the quality of the sample. Besides dedicated internal processes, CloudResearch suggests considering a market research tool (such as their data quality tool Sentry) to help improve data quality before it enters your survey. Sentry is a pre-vetting system to screen respondents using technical and behavioural measures. Sentry gives clients data they can trust and increases the confidence in insights quality with less time returning to fill in hard-to-reach groups due to removing bad respondents pre-survey. Want to learn how Sentry works? Jump into a recent Stories of Market Research podcast, where we interview some folks at CloudResearch who helped bring Sentry to life! Collaboration As consumers change and evolve rapidly, especially in the digital environment, insights will play an essential role in understanding customers and their needs. Technology will only increase the demand for more competitive research, allowing research suppliers to collaborate with others to provide mutual clients with high-quality research faster than ever before. As end-client demands become more configured to agility and speed, research suppliers must protect the value of market research by using technology WHEN it counts. ResTech is a tool in our toolbox – it changes how we do business so we can understand why we do business. Want to learn more? At Insightrix, we will help you harness the powers of research technology to help conduct market research with speed and cost in mind to help you gain more valuable insights into your target audience. For more information, email info@insightrix.com. Episode 24: Passive Metering? Data Collection Ethics + Tools for Success: we talk with Billy Grant, Head of Product at RealityMine. Billy gives us a look into the world of passive metering through the lens of RealityMine – a state-of-the-art software buzzing in the market research industry. Billy gives us an in-depth look at how passive metering works and what types of businesses have successfully employed passive metering. Episode 25: Consumer Research – A Post-Pandemic Lens: We talk with Jeremy King, CEO at Attest. Jeremy and Sharday discuss consumer profiling, creative testing, and how SAAS technology is leading the pandemic digital transformation. Episode 34: The Significance of Data Quality in Market Research: Sharday connects with Leib Litman (Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer) and Cheskie Rosenzweig (Senior Researcher and Product Scientist) of CloudResearch to chat about the state of data quality in market research. Too Important to Get it Wrong: The Consequences and Embarrassment of Bad Data Quality: https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/the-consequences-of-bad-data-quality/ Market Research Fraud is on the Rise — Let's Conquer It Together: https://www.greenbook.org/mr/insights/market-research-fraud-is-on-the-rise-lets-conquer-it-together/. ...
 

20 Sep

Posted at 10:24h in Business, Technology
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Opt-in communities help businesses target niche markets If you are trying to get to know your target market, market research is often your first stop to find out more. And surveys are an excellent way to achieve relevant information about your brand. Although survey engines are readily available, your target audience may not be as accessible as you need them to be. Brands know exactly how important it is to talk to their potential customers and get their feedback, but the opportunity to enlist research participants who are interested in giving their opinion can sometimes stop your innovation from moving forward. And the more niche the audience, the more expensive recruiting potential participants to weigh in on your product or service can be.  While the dog days of recruiting individuals to participate are far from over, market research online communities (MROCs) have helped alleviate the pressure of attracting targeted and engaged individuals to assist businesses by contributing to research on their areas of interest. What does that look like? Maybe you are a marketer of a brand or service and you want to know how it is performing with a specific demographic. Perhaps you want to know more about that demographic – say, millennial women aged 18 to 25 – who commute by bicycle to school/work in all seasons. With access to an MROC, brands can conduct primary research with members of their niche market – like those passionate, all-season bicycle commuters!  As a result, your online community becomes a more focused group of survey participants with a unique knowledge base you can tap into. What does that mean? All online communities are different – by size and by their profiling. While some online communities can recruit as large as 15,000 general population participants, other communities can be created to be heartier, such as 50 specifically targeted survey participants. But whether it is 15,000 people or 50 community members, all online communities provide powerful insights in a cost-effective way. In fact, smaller, engaged communities can be easily facilitated by research professionals or business owners - making for research on a much more personalized level at a fraction of the cost of a traditional ad hoc research project.    By employing online communities to create surveys, you can invest in customers/clients to understand their preferences better and to gather intelligence at any stage of development. Simply – it means getting constant feedback with relevant people.    Relevant participants Why speak with participants who are not relevant to your research project? By only selecting the most appropriate individuals to participate in the research, the data produced will be much more relevant to your business goals. A more focused group can facilitate research that produces actionable intelligence because the research is done with participants who have already bought in to the organization’s goals, and who demographically conform to research needs.   For example, if the desire is to survey those who bike to work everyday – it can be assumed the potential participants are a more defined group of the population than those who commute in other ways, like a personal vehicle. By zeroing in on the target participant group, you may get answers to questions that other, less-targeted participants may have no experience with (i.e., how often there is snow removal in bike lanes). Ease of access Because online communities can be set up ahead of time, and because survey participants have bought in, organizations can field as much research as they like, about whatever topic that is of interest to them, with a sample group that is ready to go right away. For example, if an organization wants to test specific winter tires for bicycles, or perhaps a series of advertisements involving bicycle winter safety, they can access their target group whenever they like and turn the research around at a much faster rate. Affordability Because target groups are enlisted from online recruitment, primary research can be done with an online community at a fraction of the cost of research projects that rely on the need to recruit qualified participants. And, as all participants are pre-screened to meet exact criteria (for example, those who commute to work on their bicycle in all seasons), and since the research is conducted online, many costs associated with custom research projects are eliminated. Think about travel costs, call centre costs (like telephone recruitment, etc.), participant incentives, focus group facility rentals and more. The turnaround One of the best reasons to employ an online community for your target group is undoubtedly the speed with which your research can be turned around. If you are burning the midnight oil and interested in tapping into the knowledge of your participants, you can do so at any given time. Most research questions are turned around in under 48 hours - it’s almost as if you have a research group in your back pocket, waiting to help make the decisions as quickly as possible.    Insightrix Communities can deliver powerful insights Insightrix Communities™ can provide you the research insights you need with relevant easy-to-access participants at an affordable price. Online community software is flexible - giving the capability to build short-term communities or more long-term, complex research projects. By applying Insightrix Communities software, your team can benefit from on-hand market research experts who can help see your project through from concept to completion – or employ and brand your own DIY community! Insightrix provides the know-how to take organizations through each step of the community-building journey, from recruiting your first community member to engaging with them and promoting participation in your research activities, to developing insights as the research is completed. If you want to learn more about how communities can help, listen to The Insightrix Podcast Episode 6: Market Research Online Communities by streaming here or from any major podcast app. ...
 

09 Jan

Posted at 10:13h in Business, Technology
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Adobe Begins the Switch to the Cloud In a recent article by Patrick Seitz, entitled Adobe Systems CEO Touts ‘Textbook Transition’ To Cloud recently published on Investor’s Business Daily, the author got a chance to sit down with the CEO of Adobe Systems (ADBE) and discuss their overwhelming five year success, as well as the plans for the future. Recently Adobe has made the shift from selling desktop software such as Photoshop, Premiere and Illustrator to a cloud-based business model and expanded to a provider of marketing, and digital media software and services.  Seitz writes that Adobe is a crucial link for consumer-facing businesses who are seeking to transform their business digitally. This transformation happens through creating content and sharing this content over multiple social media platforms as well as understanding and tracking which content is making an impact with viewers. “Adobe brings together content-creation tools with data insights — allowing companies to determine such things as which online marketing and advertising campaigns work best and how people are engaging with their content.” The link between online marketing and insight is a crucial component for their customers.   Want to read the full blog? Click Here Interested in this topic? Check out others like it: Using a Community to Track Emotions During an Election http://insightrixcommunities.com/using-community-track-emotions-election/  Insight Community Data Should Tell a Story http://insightrixcommunities.com/insight-community-data-should-tell-a-story/ The Rise of Marketing Technology http://insightrixcommunities.com/the-rise-of-marketing-technology/...
 

15 Dec

Posted at 11:01h in Business, Technology
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This Bot Can Track Emotions  In a recent article entitled We Made a Facebook Messenger Bot to Track People’s Feelings about the Election looks at how The Washington Post created a bot to track emotions of a sample group leading up to the election. The bot named Feels was created to monitor and compile data regarding shifts in the news cycles during election times and how they were impacting this group. How the study took place was the newspaper asked readers each night how the election was making them feel that day. The participants were asked to respond using five emoji’s with the option to explain in one or two sentences. The emoji's ranged from a happy face to sad face to angry face. The following morning the bot would produce a report charting the emotions of the respondents from the day before, as well as some of the most interesting responses given by the group. Following the election the respondents were given a personalized report charting their feelings throughout the whole process.   Want to read the full blog? Click Here   Interested in this topic? Check out others like it: What Black Friday and Cyber Monday Have Morphed Into http://insightrixcommunities.com/black-friday-cyber-monday-morphed/  Insight Community Data Should Tell a Story http://insightrixcommunities.com/insight-community-data-should-tell-a-story/ The Rise of Marketing Technology http://insightrixcommunities.com/the-rise-of-marketing-technology/ No Love Affair for the New US President on Valentine's Day https://insightrix.com/sk-residents-concerned-trump/...
 

24 Nov

Posted at 09:38h in Business, Technology
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Developing UX and UI can be tricky In a recent article Arita Roy shares his experience in an article entitled What 2 Years of Android Development Have Taught Me the Hard Way. In the article he looks at the key things he learned in helping develop a solid product that was both easy to use as well as provided a good user experience (UX). Arita writes how the interface should have key elements in the design. He writes, “Design a clean, simple and beautiful interface that is easy on the eyes. You should not just think like a developer, rather you should concentrate on igniting the hidden designer inside you.” By creating an easy, clean user interface you ensure that the customer will keep coming back for more and you will tend to win more users over...
 

20 Sep

Posted at 12:00h in Business, Technology
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Get CX like Starbucks Have you ever wondered how a company like Starbucks got to be so good at customer experience (CX)? We have found that a key to great customer experience comes through active and engaged brand communities that are able to provide dialogue between the customer and business, which fuels innovation and change. This innovation can come in the form of a new product or service that was needed but perhaps overlooked by management. While many businesses are not using engaged brand communities, we believe the question is no longer why should a company use online communities, but rather when will they start using an online community? We looked at the mega coffee chain Starbucks, who has been leading the way in its use of online communities, and who has reaped the rewards of this technology. Although many see Starbucks as extremely successful, history has not always been cake flavoured latte for them, in fact, there was a time when their growth was in decline and they were having to close stores. Click here to read full blog....
 

16 Sep

Posted at 11:59h in Business, Technology
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When a luxury car company experiments with a technology like online communities to help gather market research and continues to expand year after year with that technology, you must conclude it is paying off. That is what happened with Mercedes-Benz who first began using online communities in 2008 with Generation Benz. Generation Benz was created to engage Generation Y customers. The community was created as an invite-only forum and allowed members to gather around their love for the brand. Generation Benz also collected insight into the thoughts, and lifestyle of this particular demographic allowing the brand to help position the company to market more effectively to this age group. The luxury car brand has since began implementing online communities around the world. Interested in the full blog? Click here. Interested in this topic? Check out these articles: Air New Zealand is Bringing Sexy Back! http://insightrixcommunities.com/air-new-zealand-bringing-sexy-back/ Starbucks' Open Sourced Customer Experience Idea http://insightrixcommunities.com/starbucks-open-sourced-customer-experience-idea/  ...
 

08 Sep

Posted at 11:58h in Business, Technology
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Customer Experience Matters in Online Communities While researching and writing this article, I decided to Google “Customer Experience and Communities.” What I found is that while companies and corporations are using buzzwords like customer experience (CX) or user experience (UX), that many companies still don’t walk the talk. While clicking through the links, I came upon one page that had a pop-up bubble for a live chat. I responded that I was just looking for articles about customer experience, expecting a reply. After a minute of no reply, I saw at the top of the screen that the individual who was in charge of the online chat hadn’t been online for a week. Immediately I clicked out. The second was a company that sold online community software and had a 3 paragraph blurb about customer experience but then wanted me to fill out my personal information before allowing me to read more about what they had to say in regards to customer experience. I clicked out. The reality is that customer experience is a word that everyone seems to think is important but upon deeper reflection seem unclear as to the how and why. We believe that good CX is important because a pleasant experience translates to sales, repeat sales, and expanding your brand through word of mouth referrals. We believe that one of the best ways on how to improve the CX is through online communities. Click here to read full blog....
 

14 Jul

Posted at 14:17h in Business, Technology
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An insight community requires some preparation In a recent report Keys to Community Readiness and Growth: How Brands Prepare for an Online Community Vanessa DiMauro and Jessica Fish conducts research with 400 plus individuals who have an online community or are thinking of getting an online community. They share insight regarding the initial reasons why organizations decide to get an online community and how that reasoning can shift. The research goes on to look at how the software platforms are chosen, why companies want to create an online community, the actual running of these communities and the overall level of satisfaction these individuals derive from their insight community.   Click here to read full blog.  ...