ESOMAR 36
The Cint ESOMAR
Questions
It’s incredibly important to understand the opportunities and challenges of using sample services. The ESOMAR Questions are designed to give you a clear and transparent view of our online sample process, helping you make an informed decision when choosing to work with us or another provider.
What is ESOMAR 36?
It’s incredibly important to understand the opportunities and challenges of using sample services. The ESOMAR Questions are designed to give you a clear and transparent view of our online sample process, helping you make an informed decision when choosing to work with us or another provider.
You’ll find our latest responses to the ESOMAR questions below.
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?
a. Cint is a pioneer in creating innovative market research technology since 1998. In 2005 the company launched the industry’s first online marketplace for market research sample, a concept that gained wide popularity and was adopted across the industry. Since then, the company has been at the forefront of digitalizing and automating the insights value chain through innovative technology solutions. Cint acquired Lucid LLC in 2021. Founded in 2010, Lucid revolutionized the sampling industry with the creation of the first global, programmatic marketplace.
b. Cint operates the Cint Exchange, the world’s largest programmatic research marketplace for connecting companies with real people to answer surveys. The technology has the capability to connect surveys to a broad, opted-in base of millions of connected consumers in real-time, from over 800 integrated suppliers across 130+ countries. The software platform operates as a bilateral ecosystem, catering to its sample buyers needs while enabling consumer panel providers (supply-side) to manage and monetize their network of connected consumers through the platform.
c. Cint’s software platform is accessible to customers through User Interfaces (UI) and Application Programming Interface (API) integrations which link the platform to the customer’s technology environment. On the supply-side, panel providers can connect to the to Cint through APIs or host and manage their panel or community directly on the platform.
d. The platform is modular and built for scalability – with functionality geared to solve a multitude of industry challenges.
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? What sort of training in sampling techniques do you provide to your frontline staff?
a. Cint has a global team of product and software engineering experts that oversee the sampling algorithms and related automated functions including product development, implementation, and maintenance of our products and services. Our team has expertise in multiple technical disciplines, with a particular focus on automation, AI, and Machine Learning techniques.
b. Cint continuously trains its frontline staff including Customer Success, Project Success, Integrations, and Platform Support in a variety of sampling methodologies including market sizing, quota balancing, and pacing.
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?
a. In addition to sampling services and software, Cint offers data processing services, media measurement, and data solutions:
i. Cint’s media measurement solutions leverage the power of our programmatic marketplace to help brands, media agencies, publishers and media vendors measure the impact of brand advertising campaigns. With near real-time metrics, they can improve campaign performance while it’s running.
1. Lucid Measurement by Cint: An always-on attitudinal media measurement product that provides proprietary brand lift analytics for cross-platform advertising campaigns. With daily updates, Lucid Measurement by Cint enables marketers to optimize media performance across digital, CTV, and linear TV while an advertising campaign is in-flight. As one of the few products that offers near real-time survey results and insights at a competitive price, Lucid Measurement by Cint is an ideal brand lift measurement alternative for many marketers. A cross-section of marketing and research professionals at media agencies, publishers, media platforms, and brands use Lucid Measurement by Cint.
2. Lucid Measurement by Cint API: Publicly available API endpoints for a seamless connection to Lucid Measurement by Cint enables customers to create brand lift studies and retrieve brand performance metrics in their own platform. An API integration gives our partners a seamless, efficient, and customizable solution to offer their end customers brand lift studies, powered by Lucid Measurement by Cint, directly in their platforms.
b. Data Solutions
i. Cint Data Solutions offer customers the ability to make data-driven business decisions by finding the right audience for online surveys or media targeting. Whether customers want to leverage their own first-party data, our panelist data, or our external partners’ data, Cint Data Solutions helps them perform best-in-class market research built on scalable, self-reported, fully consented, unaltered data.
1. Data Collaboration: Cint partners offer rich behavioral data including point of sale, voter, social affinity, and out-of-home, to give Cint customers access to additional multi-dimensional audiences to gain further insights and perform analysis. Customers can access and match their data with rich behavioral data from our diverse data partners to gain deeper insights, analyze audiences, and inform data-driven marketing and research tactics.
2. Data Licensing: Cint packages self-reported respondent attributes such as age, gender, HHI, and others into segments, Cint Verified Audiences, that can be licensed to expand and validate audiences or be used in targeting or building audience models, or surveys and marketing campaigns.
Sample sources
and recruitment
What this section is about
Answers to the questions in this section will help you understand the types of sample available from different sample providers in the market and the sources they rely on. This will help you evaluate the quality of the sample being offered, whether it is suitable for measuring change over time, and whether there are any specific constraints you need to consider when using it. It will also allow you to understand whether the sample provider is drawing the sample from its own sources or aggregating sources from other providers.
We recommend that you first identify the sample types being offered and then ask the relevant questions for all sources. Broadly speaking, there are two models of sample sources and recruitment:
Panels: These are databases of potential participants who declare that they will cooperate for future data collection if selected, generally in exchange for a reward/incentive. This includes traditional access panels, co-branded panels, or opt-in databases of individuals who agreed to complete research projects and also undertake other nonmarket research activities (watch ads, download an app, complete marketing offers, etc, also known as loyalty programs, or rewards communities within GPT (Get paid to) sites.) Loyalty card and subscription databases are included here if there is a continuous relationship with members who understand the commitment asked of them.
Intercepts: This includes intercepts from offer walls, affiliate networks, social media or other platforms to drive traffic to a survey. Intercept is an approach where potential participants are asked to take a survey for a reward while they are engaged in another activity such as playing an online game, reading news, or some other online activity. Intercepted participants may be previously unknown to the sample provider or may have been pre-identified and profiled through a prior survey experience.
1. Using the broad classifications above, from what sources of online sample do you derive participants? Sample providers may deliver sample from a single source, such as their own proprietary panel, or other panels. Or they may leverage a range of technologies and platforms to aggregate/blend participants from a combination of sample sources. Some providers may do both. Clarity about the sources being used will help you to understand what type of sample is being offered. This answer might differ from country to country and from project to project
a. Cint’s supply is sourced from over 800 suppliers making up more than 4600 individual panels. Suppliers are carefully selected and vetted supplemental permission-based sample sources including market research agencies, media owners, publishers (digital and traditional), nonprofits and companies with access to large-scale web traffic. Buyers in the Cint Exchange are given full autonomy to select the vendors or types of sources they want to utilize. To ensure a diversity of choice, Cint’s supply partners include double opt-in panels, publishing networks, social media, and other types of online communities.
2. 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.)
a. The majority of the Cint sample is sourced from third parties through suppliers integrated with or hosted by Cint and carefully selected and vetted supplemental permission-based sample sources. Cint continuously vets and acquire specific proprietary sample assets where demand exceeds its third-party sample supply sourcing.
3. 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?
a. Survey invitations are handled by the sample suppliers and can take many forms, including:
i. Targeted email invitation
ii. Survey link within a respondent-facing platform
iii. In-app notification from a webpage/offer wall of surveys
iv. SMS notification
b. As stated above, Cint has built a sample sourcing ecosystem with a large number of suppliers augmented by carefully selected and vetted supplemental permission sample sources. Recruitment methods and sources will vary by partner. All of Cint’s supply partners gain free access to its advanced panel management software – Engage by Cint – to set up, recruit, manage and maintain panels and subpanels, for their own insights needs.
4. 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.
Since 2022, Cint has been actively developing an advanced approach to detecting and preventing survey fraud that combines proprietary predictive algorithms, third-party solutions, and internal audit programs designed to review activity on the Exchange. These efforts continue to evolve over time and include the following fraud prevention tactics
1. Cint Trust Score: Proprietary machine learning/AI scoring model that predicts negative reconciliations and terminates sessions accordingly
2. Completes threshold: Survey completion rates for a single user are limited by hour and day to help filter out high velocity attacks
3. Country targeting check: Confirms by GEO code that the participant is in the country targeted by the survey they are entering
4. Trap questions: Multiple choice questions posed to detect discrepancies and reject suspicions participants
5. Research Defender: Third party fraud detection solution that assists in identifying fraudulent VPN use and known fraudulent IPs
6. Duplicate entry: Checks that a participant has not already entered a specific survey
7. Deny list check: Confirming a participant’s ID has not been placed on our deny list for previous fraud terminations
8.Speeder check: Gauges time to survey completion for irregularities
9. Survey health review: An automated system that pauses poor performing surveys and notifies the study’s project manager for review
10. Data Dome: Advanced third party analysis engine to detect and prevent bot attacks (coming soon)
11. Validation protocols to prevent link manipulation and ghost completes
– Server-to-server secure browser API connections (Q1 2025)
– SHA-1 + HMAC secure URL encryption
12. Cint does not host the questionnaires for data collection. Accordingly, Cint works with clients to help them deploy appropriate validation checks, including but not limited to analysis of questionnaire completion time, data outliers, unanswered questions and patterned responses. Cint further encourages its clients to add straight-lining, red herring questions and other data quality checks to their surveys. Panelists/participants who do not pass these checks do not qualify as completes and do not qualify for an incentive.
a. These techniques and technology permit Cint to field re-contact studies, diary studies, and wave studies very effectively with a high level of participation.
5. What brand (domain) and/or app are you using with proprietary sources? Summarise, by source, the proportion of sample accessing surveys by mobile app, email or other specified means.
Cint has a variety of proprietary sources:
a. Opinion App
b. Your-surveys
c. Surveyrewardz
d. Points2shop
e. TrendsetterClub (GapFish)
f. EntscheiderClub (GapFish)
g. Suppliers with their own hosted panels utilize the Engage platform
6. Which model(s) do you offer to deliver sample? Managed service, self-serve, or API integration?
a. Cint offers all of these methods of sample delivery, based on individual customers’ needs:
i. For Managed Services projects, customers work with the project success team, which handles the fielding strategy, inputting quotas, managing CPI, and monitoring the study as it fields. The project success team works from the customer’s account, handling the fielding strategy, inputting quotas, managing CPI, and monitoring the study as it fields. In this scenario, survey-completes count against the customer contract.
ii. Self-serve (software) accounts are handled by the customer success team, which helps to support Platform users as they manage and field their own studies.
iii. APIs enable users to access the Platform from their own platform or preferred system. An API integration is implemented by the customer’s or Cint’s development resources in coordination with Cint’s integrations team. These integrations can also be customized.
7. 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?
a. Cint permits sample buyers to retrieve specific project specifications and launch additional waves or separate projects using or modifying previous sample specifications.
b. Transparency is the foundation of the Cint Exchange, which acts as a bilateral ecosystem for buyers and gives full control and transparency into sample suppliers.
c. Users fully control which suppliers are allowed to access the project via the platform software as well as passthrough supplier identifiers so that the sample mix can be tracked within the survey platform. While in-field, suppliers can be added or removed according to project requirements with complete transparency.
d. The supplier blend can be determined on a survey-by-survey basis or at the account level. Sample blends are easily duplicated over time with blend templates that can be applied at both the survey level and account level – providing the same suppliers an identical or similar allocation of completes each time.
8. Of the sample sources you have available, how would you describe the suitability of each for different research applications? For example, Is there 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?
a. As stated above the Cint provides the highest level of transparency. Sample buyers select specific panels and other sample sources that best fit their specific project needs. Sample buyers need only indicate their specifications and sample will be delivered in accordance with their needs.
b. The Cint Exchange can be used for a range of research purposes. Sample procured through it is suitable for general market research, product testing, recontact studies (also known as recruit/recall), academic research, brand lift studies, brand trackers, and more.
c. The Cint Exchange is best suited for shorter questionnaires, as we consider lower interview lengths to be a research best practice – particularly for online surveys. Our platform is suited for both mobile and desktop surveys.
d. Cint is not optimized for panel recruits, but is well-suited for community builds. Please note that it is used solely for market research. Under no circumstances do we use our system to advertise or market to survey respondents.
Sampling and project management
What this section is about
Answers to the questions in this section will help you understand the processes and procedures that are undertaken to provide you with a sample of participants for your survey. You should understand what biases may be inherent in, or as a result of, the approaches taken and the likely severity of those biases.
1. 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?
a. The Cint Exchange offers complete customization of quota setup, as well as templated breakouts for frequently used census representations. Additionally, our team is well versed in determining the representative population of any census and customizing the survey setup to meet the project specifications.
b. Participants can be invited by direct email invitation or via a link placed on a website or application from their supplier. For direct email invitations, content varies by partner, confidentiality, closing date (if applicable), incentive terms and conditions, privacy policy or notice and opt-out link.
c. The profiling information that Cint holds or has access to permits Cint to target specific audiences, including hard-to-reach groups. Sample buyers can select ‘census representativity’ on both survey send-outs and incoming completes.
d. Cint automatically provides the correct allocation to achieve the proper distribution based on census data for a specific geography should the buyer indicate this need. A sample buyer can also choose to create custom allocations (including age, gender, etc.) on survey send-outs and incoming completes. During field, the client and Cint both have the ability to adjust quotas as required.
2. 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?
a. Each supplier makes their own profiling decisions, which Cint does not have insight into. Cint stores profiling data for 90 days, after which the information must be resubmitted by either the supplier or respondent. Cint recommends suppliers update mappings every quarter, but does not have direct insight or control into how often suppliers update profiling.
b. These data points can be supplied as appends, but only if the profiling is used to target on a given survey. Cint collects profiling information directly, as well as from third-party suppliers. If profiling is needed to qualify respondents for a given survey, the information is either provided by the supplier, or Cint will collect it on our platform. Cint’s profiling depth varies in each of the that it provides. Clients are asked to contact the Cint team with questions on the specific profiling information for a project’s needs and audience.
c. Standard profile data can include email address, name, address, phone numbers, gender, postal code, year of birth, education level, occupation, and a large number of panel or sample source specific profiling information. Cint has a large set of standardized ‘global profiling questions’ used across all panels and countries in the Cint Exchange. This results in Cint being able to provide detailed standardized profiling data on its research participants.
d. These “global profile questions” include questions pertaining to automotive preferences, consumer goods, education, electronics, ethnicity, finance, food and beverage, gaming, healthcare, hobbies, media preferences, mobile preferences, shopping, travel. This data is updated every time participants make changes or update their profile information, either proactively or through profiling surveys or panel communications (member communications, newsletters, etc.) or respond to a survey where they are given an opportunity to complete additional questions from the global profiling questions list. In addition, Cint collects and makes available hundreds of additional profiling points that are based on sample buyer needs and/or market requirements. Profile points also vary and are customized to specific geographies.
e. Cint’s profiling data permits sample buyers to easily target participants who are a fit for a particular study’s demographics. Cint’s profiling information provides sample buyers with great flexibility in targetable qualifications. Profiling data includes data which is fixed (e.g., gender, birthdate), data which can be dynamic over-time (e.g., pregnancy, recent movie-going habits) and still others which do not change frequently (e.g., household income, employment status). Those profilers that are dynamic have a refresh period where participants are prompted to provide periodic updates.
3. 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?
a. the Cint Exchange has an intuitive Create process that enables every user to understand the future success of their study. To receive a feasibility estimation, users must provide:
i. Country-language
ii. Number survey-completes
iii. Length of interview (LOI)
iv. Days in field
v. Incidence rate (IR)
vi. Cost per interview (CPI)
vii. Audience type
viii. Specific quotas (if applicable)
ix. Qualifying device/traffic type
x. PII collection (yes/no)
b. It is important to note that estimates generated are not a guarantee of cost and feasibility. Other considerations may include:
i. Category requirements
ii. Exclusions
4. 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?
a. Cint permits sample buyers complete transparency with respect to the source of participants. Sample buyers have transparency into every supply source down to the brand. Cint always permits sample buyers the choice of how and from which panels and sample sources from which they want to sample, allowing for single sourcing or sophisticated panel blending.
b. If a project cannot be completed in-field with the initial project specifications, Cint’s team will provide guidance to help sample buyers adjust their quotas, CPI, and possibly explore other sample suppliers. In any instance where feasibility is or becomes a problem, the sample buyers are always notified, be it at the bidding stage, when a job is commissioned or during the field period.
c. If a new supplier is needed to complete a Managed Services project, sample buyers are made aware of the change. Software users operate in a self-serve capacity and are able to select suppliers themselves.
d. Cint’s sample inventory can be extended by outside third-party sample from outside the solutions.
5. 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.
a. Cint solutions includes a yield management system that utilizes proprietary routing technology. The company’s proprietary algorithms and advanced targeting systems identify surveys that are the best fit for any particular participant during any survey session. They operate on an optimization function that seeks to maximize the likelihood of a respondent qualifying for and completing a study. This “best match” technology emphasizes both research participant experience and minimizes over-quotas, disqualifications, and other factors resulting in termination of specific surveys.
b. Once a survey has been completed or terminated, Cint’s solutions will then identify the next best survey opportunity which considers quotas, or other relevant factors dictating how much sample should be deployed. Cint ranks surveys based on individual participant characteristics rather than targeting one demographic or profiling target over another.
c. Cint employs API-integrated sampling to allocate surveys to respondents rather than rely on a survey router. Since 2016, Cint provides an out-of-the-box match integration that allows suppliers to leverage API technology without undergoing an involved development process.
d. Cint’s API-integrated sampling enables precision targeting of respondents with opportunities for which they qualify — simultaneously eliminating inefficiencies while enhancing the respondent experience. Additionally, Cint suppliers can customize their integrations with the Cint Supply API to enable advanced targeting.
6. Do you set limits on the amount of time a participant can be in the router before they qualify for a survey?
a. Cint employs API-integrated sampling to allocate surveys to respondents — and has nearly phased out its legacy router.
b. Cint participants, on average, are routed five times before a session is terminated so that a participant does not have a poor experience.
7. 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? The information about the survey (and associated rewards) may influence the type of people who agree to take part, creating the potential for bias.
a. This is determined on a case-by-case basis by suppliers. Each supplier may choose to provide potential respondents with different levels of project information prior to having them participate in a survey. The most common pieces of information provided to the participants by suppliers include length of interview (LOI) and the reward a participant receives for generating a complete.
b. Participants from hosted panels receive a customized email invitation that uses the “brand” of the specific panel of which they are a member. The email invitation components include:
i. the estimated length of interview;
ii. access to full disclosure of incentive terms and conditions applying to the project;
iii. an explanation if the invitation is sent out on behalf of another research service provider;
iv. for panel members, the opportunity to unsubscribe or opt-out of future research; and
v. an appropriate privacy policy or statement.
c. Participants can also be invited through other means including offers on panel partner websites or applications.
d. Invitations for non-panel supply sources are offered via the supply source partner’s specific invitation mechanism.
8. 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?
a. Suppliers integrated are responsible for inviting their participants to surveys based on specific profiling qualifications. Prior to entering a survey, respondents are asked to complete screening questions to ensure that they are an appropriate match for the survey.
b. In the case where a participant accesses a survey via website of application, the following are generally presented:
i. Survey name
ii. CPI
iii. LOI
iv. Incentive offered
c. If routing is being deployed, surveys are selected for presentation to participants.
9. 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?
a. Incentive levels will vary by incidence, length of interview and other factors. In the case of hosted panels, Cint uses incentive levels that are agreed upon by Cint and the specific supply partner. For other supply sources, incentive levels are determined by the supply partner using similar factors.
b. Incentive levels can be customized to specific studies in specific situations, in consultation with the sample buyer. All incentives are handled by our supply partners. Each incentive program is unique. Incentives come in the form of:
i. Cash
ii. Gift cards
iii. Loyalty rewards
iv. Charitable donations
10. 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)?
a. Cint has implemented and deployed a participant satisfaction measurement program. Every individual that completes a questionnaire has the opportunity to provide feedback. They are asked a number of questions regarding survey length, survey flow, and language used and are able to give provide feedback via an open-end question. This information is available to clients (sample buyers).
b. This information is continually reviewed by Cint and feedback is shared with sample buyers so they can implement changes to their surveys.
c. Cint also undertakes continual ‘research-on-research’ that addresses participant engagement, satisfaction, and fatigue, to identify potential solutions. This research is shared with supply partners and incorporated into Cint’s internal quality program.
d. Cint recommends all clients measure and manage the respondent experience, using metrics such as conversion rates, dropout rates, and quality of responses.
e. In addition, Cint provides suppliers with the information and tools to define and enhance their respondent satisfaction. Cint recommends that suppliers:
i. Limit time spent qualifying for surveys by appending profiling information to entry links
ii. Determine optimal survey lengths for their respondents and send accordingly
iii. Develop a fair incentive structure given study specifications
11. Do you provide a debrief report about a project after it has completed? If yes, can you provide an example?
a. One of the foundational beliefs of Cint is end-to-end transparency. Cint clients have access to all survey-or system-related data in real-time during the project process directly through our web-based client reporting tools or their project managers. Specific metrics for project clients are available upon request and discussion with project managers.
Data quality
and validation
What this section is about
This section focuses on the quality of the in-survey data. In-survey data quality includes project level data validity and representativeness, survey-taking behaviors, sample blends, participant characteristics, and project level data health and audit practices.
1. 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?
Cint monitors the frequency of participation of all survey participants. Sample buyers determine the frequency of an individual’s activity within a specified period. All sample buyers have the ability to block respondents against associated surveys or industry categories to prevent respondents from repeating a tracker or survey topic category – for customized periods of time for each project.
For hosted panels, panel owners can choose a desired ‘quarantine period’ (i.e., time between survey invitations) to ensure panelists do not receive too many survey offers. For other permission-based sources, suppliers make their own choices and, as a general principle, seek to maximize the life-term value of their respondents.
In most cases, Cint’s suppliers handle the invitation process and determine whether or not they want their audience to participate in an individual survey and at which capacity. For suppliers who manage their panel through Cint, they can send one invite and one reminder for every survey opportunity. They typical lockout periods before an invitation to another survey opportunity is 7 days, but this can vary based upon specific supply source and geography.
2. 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?
Cint maintains detailed participation data which includes recent participation history, date of entry, and supplier source information. Redemptions and reward points transactions can be supplied through one of our proprietary panels hosted by Cint. As Cint complies with all applicable data protection laws and regulations, data that contains personal information is never made available unless the panelist or participant provides consent and is permitted by applicable local laws and regulations.
Cint can provide participation history reports to sample buyers upon request as part of our Data Collaboration solution.
3. 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.
Cint has a number of procedures for confirming a participant’s identity at the project level including point of entry.
Cint has implemented a variety of quality measures that are applied to participants before they are offered surveys. These include email validation, comparison against “blacklist databases”, browser fingerprint, geographic location, and participant behavior in addition to identifiers such as Geo-IP address, cookie identifier, device identifiers, panelist identification number and more. Cint uses proprietary technology augmented by leading third-party solutions.
Cint is particularly diligent and proactive with respect to the detection of fraudulent, invalid traffic, and inattentive behavior, including speeding and straight-lining. Fraudulent behaviors are identified by:
13. Cint Trust Score: Proprietary machine learning/AI scoring model that predicts negative reconciliations and terminates sessions accordingly
14. Completes threshold: Survey completion rates for a single user are limited by hour and day to help filter out high velocity attacks
15. Country targeting check: Confirms by GEO code that the participant is in the country targeted by the survey they are entering
16. Trap questions: Multiple choice questions posed to detect discrepancies and reject suspicions participants
17. Research Defender: Third party fraud detection solution that assists in identifying fraudulent VPN use and known fraudulent IPs
18. Duplicate entry: Checks that a participant has not already entered a specific survey
19. Deny list check: Confirming a participant’s ID has not been placed on our deny list for previous fraud terminations
20. Speeder check: Gauges time to survey completion for irregularities
21. Survey health review: An automated system that pauses poor performing surveys and notifies the study’s project manager for review
22. Data Dome: Advanced third party analysis engine to detect and prevent bot attacks (coming soon)
23. Validation protocols to prevent link manipulation and ghost completes
- Server-to-server secure browser API connections (Q1 2025)
- SHA-1 + HMAC secure URL encryption
With this information, Cint makes every effort to identify and minimize fraud wherever possible. When fraud is detected, Cint temporarily locks accounts, bans or blocks participants/panelists from all survey activity, and from reward redemption, until an internal review can be completed by Cint’s internal quality administrators.
4. 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?
Across our solutions, sample buyers can select and customize sample sources and blends. In our platform, Cint manages source consistency and blend at the project level by allowing sample buyers to select and customize sample sources and blends. This is done through the selection of target groups and quota management . Cint permits sample buyers to retrieve specific project specifications and launch additional waves or separate projects using or modifying previous sample specifications.
5. 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?
Cint’s solutions are built to ensure our clients receive accurate and secure results. We have developed sophisticated data algorithms and employ security checks to authorize respondent identities and behaviors. These checks help to eliminate poor quality respondents from taking surveys.
For panels hosted by Cint, Cint automatically ensures that all panelists/participants are ‘quarantined’ after participating in a survey, meaning they cannot be offered another survey for a defined period. The standard quarantine period is seven (7) days which varies by panelists/participant preference, supply source provider, direction and geography. Cint generates a “score” based on each individual’s participation. This participation “score” history is recorded along with exclusion information. Cint also offers advanced subject-category quarantine capabilities that are available to sample buyers on request.
6. 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?
Cint’s solutions primarily facilitates the relationship between suppliers of survey participants and sample buyers. We offer some survey programming capabilities. We deliver qualification data as it relates to entering the survey, but we do not collect data from the main survey once the participant has been redirected.
For the data that we do manage in our platform, we can identify and terminate respondents that exhibit the following fraudulent behaviors:
- Respondent’s IP is outside of the survey country
- An allotted variance from the LOI (e.g. 30% allows completes up to 9 minutes faster/slower than a 30 minute LOI)
- The respondent did not enter/return from the platform/client survey with the expected encryption variables
In addition, we work with our partners to examine reconciliations and identify respondents that don’t meet the quality standards of our clients.
Policies and
Compliance
What this section is about
Sample providers, buyers, and their clients are subject to data protection and related information security requirements imposed by data protection laws and regulations. In addition, they may be subject to laws and regulations that may impact incentives paid to participants.
These laws and regulations vary by jurisdiction with different laws and regulations applying in different countries or states within countries, and are generally interpreted based on where the participant resides.
Applicable data protection laws and regulations include, but are not limited to: the Act on the Protection of Personal Information or APPI (Japan); the Australian Privacy Act (Australia); the California Consumer Protection Act or CCPA (state of California in the United States); the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA (United States); the Data Protection Act (United Kingdom); amendments regarding data localisation requirements to the Data Protection Act (Russian Federation); the General Data Protection Law (Brazil); the EU General Data Protection Regulation or EU-GDPR (EU/ EEA); the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA (United States); the Graham-Leach Bliley Act or GLBA (United States); and PIPEDA (Canada). AB 2257 (the state of California in the United States) is an example of law and regulation related to employment which may impact incentives paid to participants.
Information security frameworks and standards include, but are not limited to COBIT, HITRUST, ISO 27001, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and SOC 2.
Answers to the questions in this section can help you understand the data protection, information security and compliance policies, procedures and practices that a sample provider has implemented.
1. 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).
Cint’s primary Participant Privacy Notices can be found here. Cint’s Participant Privacy Notices address the requirements data protection law and regulation including EU-GDPR and CCPA. These include:
- Principles for the processing of personal data
- Types of personal data processed
- How personal data is processed
- Legal bases for processing
- Data retention
- How personal data is shared
- Cross-border transfer
- Participant rights.
2. 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 personal data? How do you address requirements for data breach response, cross-border transfer, and data retention? Have you appointed a data protection officer?
Cint has developed a data protection compliance program designed to meet the requirements of applicable data protection laws and regulations. These include Brazil (GDPL), Canada (PIPEDA), the EU (EU-GDPR), Japan (APPI) and the US (CCPA as well as other federal and state law and regulation).
Cint uses consent as the primary legal basis for processing and in limited situations will use other legal bases, including performance of a contract and legitimate interest.
Cint’s data protection compliance program includes policies and processes to address:
- Data breach response (including required notification times, data subject notification and supervisory authority notification requirements)
- Cross-border transfer (Standard Contractual Clauses with supplemental measures)
- Data retention (in accordance with law and regulation)
Cint has appointed a data protection officer.
3. 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.
Cint’s research sampling solutions primarily facilitate the relationship between suppliers of sample and sample buyers. Cint collects opt-in consent for pre-qualifying survey data collected by Cint. For the pre-qualifying data collected by us, participants can provide, manage and revise consent (including the retraction of consent) for the processing of their personal data. Participants can use Cint’s solutions or Cint’s panelist/participant support desk.
Participants who wish to exercise their rights under applicable data protection laws may do so by accessing our Data Rights Portal, as detailed in our privacy policy at https://samplicio.us/s/privacy-policy/. Here a participant can request access, correction, or deletion of their data. In addition, Lucid’s privacy policy provides an email address for questions to be submitted.
Cint also provides a platform for sample source owners to manage and provide access to their sample sources, Cint provides consent management as a service to its source owners.
Cint relies upon its sample buyers to obtain consent for information captured regarding the participant when the participant is provided access to a client’s survey (post Cint qualification).
4. How do you track and comply with other applicable laws and regulations, such as those that might impact the incentives paid to participants?
Cint operates a programmatic sample platform that acts as a marketplace to connect sample buyers and sample providers. Cint also provides a platform for sample source owners to manage and access their sample sources where incentives can be managed.
Cint’s compliance team continually monitors applicable national/regional and state law and regulatory developments. Monitoring is done primarily via legal and regulatory information sources, industry association participation and engagement of external expertise (as required).
5. 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?
Cint complies with applicable national/regional and state laws and regulations, including EU-GDPR (and member-state derogations) and COPPA as well as standards and guidelines provided by ESOMAR, ESOMAR/GRBN, GRBN member organizations and other national organizations.
Cint does not permit data subjects under 13 years old to take surveys in our product. Entrants under minimum age by country will be termed and redirected out of the product and back to the panel from which they came. However, Cint may permit surveys for children and young people as allowed by global laws. Based on the applicable laws of age thresholds in each country or region, we may allow children 13 or older to participate depending on the nature of the survey.
6. Do you implement “data protection by design” (sometimes referred to as “privacy by design”) in your systems and processes? If so, please describe how.
Cint aspires to be as proactive as possible when it comes to addressing data protection in our systems and business processes. Cint has implemented “data protection by design” by:
- putting in place technical and organizational measures designed to implement applicable data protection principles; and
- integrating safeguards into data processing to meet applicable regulatory requirements.
Data protection is built into processing activities and business practices and is included in:
- the development of new IT systems, services, and processes that involve the processing personal data;
- the development of organizational policies, processes, business practices and strategies that have privacy implications;
- physical design;
- Initiating data sharing initiatives; and
- using personal data for new purposes.
7. 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?
Cint has adopted the ISO27001 standard as the framework for its information security program or Information Security Management System (ISMS). Cint’s Cloud Service Providers are I SO27001 certified and have obtained SOC2 Type 2 reporting.
8. Do you certify to or comply with a quality framework such as ISO 20252?
a. Yes, our Australia entity is ISO 20252 certified.
For more detailed information, ESOMAR (www.esomar.org) offers a Guideline for Online Research. This guideline covers best practices for ethical research, methodological approaches, regulatory concerns, and legal issues related to the use of technology in research.