MarketTools Introduces TrueSample,™ The Research Industry’s First Quality-Assured Online Sample

Sets New Industry-Wide Standard for Ensuring Authenticity and Engagement of Online Survey Respondents

SAN FRANCISCO—April 8, 2008—MarketTools today announced TrueSample™, a breakthrough in the online market research industry, to objectively and measurably improve the quality of online sample. Through a unique combination of patent-pending technology and industry-leading methodology, TrueSample ensures only real, unique and engaged responses from the company’s own ZoomPanel,™ a proprietary online global sample source, and from sample sourced from Certified TrueSample Partners. With TrueSample, MarketTools sets a new standard for quality in online market research, dramatically improving the ability for companies to gain insights and make more confident decisions.

In 2008, Inside Research estimates that companies worldwide will invest more than $4.3 billion in online market research. The momentum in the industry has led to millions of consumers participating in online market research studies across the globe. This, in turn, has created a fundamental issue: how to ensure confidence in the quality of online respondents and responses. With TrueSample, MarketTools directly addresses this issue. Only panelists who are fully validated to be who they say they are and where they say they are can take surveys. And with TrueSample delivered through MarketTools’ enterprise survey platform, data is based only on fully engaged responses.

With online market research now influencing billions of dollars in marketing and product decisions, organizations need to be certain that research insights are based on quality data from real people. In response to a clear market need, MarketTools is taking a leading role. TrueSample demonstrates an industry-wide commitment to objectively, measurably and repeatedly improve the quality of survey responses and online data sourced from panels.

“TrueSample is a significant advancement in online market research that will improve the confidence and impact of survey data by providing a measurable increase in response quality,” said John Ouren, executive vice president and general manager of panels and communities at MarketTools. “Initial feedback from our customers reinforces that TrueSample is a critical addition to the online market research lifecycle that will help them better leverage research results to make top-line business decisions. It is a true milestone in online market research and together with our Certified Partner network, we look forward to making TrueSample the industry standard for providing quality results.”

“Increasing the quality of online sample is a very important issue,” said Kim Dedeker, vice president of consumer and market knowledge at Procter & Gamble. “We are encouraged to see that MarketTools is taking on a leadership role with TrueSample.”

“MarketTools’ TrueSample initiative takes a leadership position in driving a new level of quality and predictability into online sample––a fundamental component of our consumer insights,” said Gayle Fuguitt, vice president of consumer insights at General Mills.

“Microsoft is encouraged by the energy that MarketTools is putting behind an industry solution to address sample quality,” said Doug Doyle, director of market research at Microsoft. “Microsoft has found that trust in external sample quality is the number one challenge facing online market research.”

TrueSample Certified Partner Program
MarketTools also announced the TrueSample Certified Partner Program for validating and certifying research panels across the industry and a charter group of companies joining the program, including Luth Research, a leader in bringing together research companies and communities, and Greenfield Online (Nasdaq: SRVY), one of the leading online panel companies in the industry. Partners were invited by MarketTools to outline their ability to deliver the highest quality sample and maintain a validated panel. These companies have met MarketTools’ stringent criteria and have joined the company in using TrueSample objective validation criteria, creating a network of companies offering the highest standard of quality for all users of online sample.

“Greenfield is very pleased to become a certified MarketTools TrueSample Partner,” stated Keith Price, executive vice president, Global Internet Survey Solutions for Greenfield Online, Inc. “With our longstanding focus and industry reputation for delivering high-quality sample, we support the new MarketTools standard for sample quality as it will deliver incremental quality benefits to our customers while building an excellent foundation for improved quality across the entire market research industry as a whole.” 

“Luth Research is pleased to partner with MarketTools in delivering a new standard for sample quality,” said Roseanne Luth, president of Luth Research. “Their TrueSample Partner Certification delivers a benefit for our clients and a strong foundation for the future of the online market industry as a whole.”

Arriving at Quality Data: The TrueSample Approach
TrueSample is a three-part process aimed at ensuring authenticity in survey respondents. It provides objective assurance that survey respondents are real, unique and engaged:

1. Real: MarketTools verifies each and every prospective panelist against external databases with objectively validated consumer demographics, including age, gender, address and income, to ensure that respondents are who they say they are. MarketTools applies this validation process to all prospective panelists and to those of MarketTools’ participating Certified Partners. All panelists are required to provide accurate data or they are prevented from joining any panel. No other market research company has this level of validation (in the past, validation simply meant “opt-in”). As a result of this process, as many as 10-15 percent of prospective survey takers are turned away.
2. Unique: TrueSample ensures that no respondent can take a survey more than once, regardless of whether he or she has joined ZoomPanel or one of MarketTools’ Certified Partner panels. Panels are also de-duplicated against each other to ensure that studies using multiple panels have only unique survey takers. Then, MarketTools goes one step further to identify suspicious respondents (such as professional survey takers or excessively frequent respondents), remove them from the data set and eliminate them from across the network. On an ongoing basis, MarketTools eliminates approximately three percent of respondents before entering a study due to failing the “unique” verification test.
3. Engaged: MarketTools has introduced new technologies and practices to ensure that surveys are only completed by engaged respondents. For example, MarketTools uses proprietary, patent-pending data validation technology that correlates survey-taking time and response patterns to identify fraudulent behavior, remove offenders from the data set and eliminate them from the panel moving forward. With this technology and these procedures in place, MarketTools is able to prevent respondents from “gaming” the survey and ensure that panelists are engaged and providing thoughtful feedback, helping to further assure the quality and accuracy of research results.

About MarketTools
MarketTools is the defining provider of on-demand market research, giving companies and individuals the ability to continuously understand their target customers through innovative approaches based on advanced technology, research expertise, global market reach and an online panel community of more than 2.5 million individuals worldwide. Through Zoomerang™, the pioneer in online surveys, MarketTools provides the leading self-service platform and services for fast feedback. MarketTools’ full range of research applications and services provide organizations––from small businesses and non-profits to Fortune 500 companies––with unique access to their target markets to uncover unmet needs, reduce time to market and capture market share. MarketTools is a privately held company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco and European headquarters in London. For more information, please visit: www.markettools.com

###