IIeX Europe 2019 Conference Series – Rahul Krishna – Prodege

Happy Market Research Podcast

Welcome to the #IIEX Europe Conference Series 2019. Recorded live in Amsterdam, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Rahul Krishna, Director EMEA, Client Solutions at Prodege.

This Episode’s Sponsor:

GreenBook

Contact Rahul Online:

LinkedIn

Prodege

[00:00]

We are live today at IIeX in Amsterdam, morning time. Where are you from?

[00:07]

I am from London.

[00:08]

For you the time zone is not a big deal.

[00:10]

No. Not so much.

[00:13]

Tell us a little bit about Prodege.

[00:15]

Prodege is one of the largest online panel companies in the world. Prodege is at heart a consumer internet company. Our users are panel members or whatever term you want to use, who do a bunch of different things. They shop, they search, they play games, they also take a lot of market research surveys and that way they stay engaged. That way the data that market research agencies and end clients get from us is fresh and diverse.

[00:46]

How big is the panel?

[00:49]

The actual panel size is about 60 million members all over the world. It is a very large panel distributed all over the world but primarily in the United States and the UK.

[01:04]

How do you get your panelists?

[01:07]

We use a bunch of different channels, we look for internet properties where people are… Where internet traffic is looking to do things. But most interestingly a lot of our panel base recommends to other people. When they come to our internet properties and they take surveys and they shop and they do other things, they find a lot of value. Also the heart of the company, people… I think this is about giving back to people. Whatever rewards people make they tend to recommend to other people. It is so good that they recommend their families and friends and they come back to join our panel.

[01:51]

Your panel incentive structure, is it based on reward points or is it based on cash?

[02:03]

It is based on points. It is not based on cash, but you can convert those points either into multiple gift vouchers and also get a PayPal card for example. You will never ever get cash.

[02:18]

It totally converts?

[02:19]

Absolutely.

[02:31]

One of the things that I have been hearing specifically from Roger Verhulst, who is head of insights from LinkedIn, is that participation rate for email solicitation is on its way down. Do you guys have a unique way that you engage and notify your panelists about survey opportunities?

[02:53]

I completely agree with you that the email participation is very down. If you look at the millennial for example, the amount of time millennials spend on internet is very difficult to get their attention through email, so we have a very sophisticated dashboard where people can interact with us. And also don’t forget that we have different channels through which we interact with our members. It is very diverse. We want them to shop, we want them to search, we want them to take surveys so we have come up with a very interactive dashboard where people can just… If they are tired of taking surveys, they can shop. If they are tired of shopping, they can do other things as well.

And I think that has been one of the ways we’ve been able to keep the panel active. Also mobile is a big way we are also interacting with people. We have mobile apps where people can come and take surveys and also do other things.

[03:53]

That sounds pretty exciting.

[03:55]

Yes it is. I think in this day and age, we have been very successful in finding out different channels where we can keep our participation rates high.

[04:08]

If someone wanted to get in contact with you, presumably to be a customer or have questions, how would they do that?

[04:12]

They can obviously visit our website www.prodegemr.com, or they can reach out to me at [e-mail].

[04:23]

And that is R-A-H-U-L?

[04:26]

Dot k@P-R-O, D for delta, E-G-E.