Panel Methodology
YouGov has built up a panel of over 150,000 members throughout the Nordic region.
Registration
In order to register with YouGov, each panel member completes a detailed profiling questionnaire and sets up an account name and password through a double opt-in procedure. This questionnaire enables us to select a representative sample of the target group each time we conduct a survey.
Panel recruitment & Incentives
Our panel is recruited from a wide variety of sources. We proactively recruit our panel with telephone recruitment, print ads, targeted campaigns via websites, and specialist recruitment agencies have also been used to contact specific groups, to ensure an appropriate demographic balance. In total we have used 16 different recruitment channels.
Although our pool is not an exact representation of the Nordic public, it contains enough people in each major demographic group to draw samples that do represent the population as a whole. This is because: a) our pool is sufficiently large to capture the diversity of all nationalities in the Nordic region; b) the company’s recruitment strategy seeks to maximise the chances of obtaining a broadly-based panel; and c) the internet itself has now reached all parts of the Nordic society. The sample for each survey is carefully selected and controlled so that it is representative of the adult population as a whole – or the specific audience that the survey is designed to measure.
Respondents receive a small incentive for completing YouGov surveys – 1 NOK per minute spent as a rule of thumb. The purpose is to ensure that samples are as representative as possible, and that responses are not tilted towards those passionately interested in the subject of the particular survey.
Conducting Surveys
When we conduct a survey, our first step is to select a sub-group of our pool that is representative of the target group. We then email the selected panel members and invite them to complete the survey by clicking on an Internet link. In order to complete the survey they must log in and provide their password. This ensures that the right people complete the survey, and enables their answers to be matched to the demographics they provided when they registered with YouGov.
When fieldwork is complete, the raw data is adjusted, taking account of age, gender and geography as default. Other measures can be used for weighting purposes where applicable for the survey in question. This is done to ensure that our published results represent the view of the target group as a whole. Naturally, YouGov abides by Esomar’s strict guidelines of conduct as well as any national legislation regarding confidentiality. We never divulge anything that might identify the views of individual respondents.
