Over-quotas terminations guide

Introduction

This guide is designed for our Cint Exchange Feed Partners (formally API Supply) to help you understand what over-quota terminations (OQ) are and how to reduce them in the Cint Exchange (formerly known as Lucid Marketplace).

What is an over-quota termination?

An over-quota termination occurs when a respondent is disqualified from a survey because quotas have already been filled. There are three types of over-quota terms:

• Survey closed: this type of OQ occurs when a respondent attempts to complete a survey with a survey status that is not “live”. The Marketplace response code that reflects this type of termination is 42.

• Survey quota/supplier quota: This type of OQ occurs when a respondent attempts a survey for which a specific or total quota has been reached. The marketplace response codes that reflect these types of terminations are 40 (survey quota) and 41 (supplier quota).

Reducing survey closed terms

There are three ways to determine if a survey is no longer live. If any of the following OQ conditions are met, pause the respondent traffic to the survey:

• 'message_reason' property returns "deactivated" for the value: If you are using an opportunities subscription to get survey data, you can use the message_reason property to determine when a survey is deactivated for your subscription. If you receive a webhook message showing the value “deactivated” for the message_reason property, you should mark the survey as no longer live in your system.

• Respondent redirect InitialStatus property shows a value of 42: The InitialStatus is used to pass the Cint Exchange (Marketplace) response code for a respondent’s session. Any redirect showing a value of 42 for this parameter indicates that the survey was closed when the respondent attempted to enter the survey. If a survey is not already marked as no longer live in your system when the redirect is received, you should mark the survey as no longer live in your system.

• “Show quotas” SurveyIsStillLive property shows “false” for the value: If the response to the show quota request returns “false” as the value for the “SurveyIsStillLive” property you should mark the survey as no longer live in your system.

Reducing survey quota / supplier quota terms

• Make sure you are refreshing quota data regularly enough: The fastest way to get quota updates is to opt in to receive quota data via your opportunities subscription, where you'll receive updates to complete information. If you are still using show quotas, you should call that endpoint for all active surveys as close to the recommended frequency as possible. For our largest markets, we recommend a frequency of once every 3 mins for the “show quotas” call. For smaller markets, you may be able to make the call less frequently, but to “future-proof” your integration as much as possible, we recommend sticking to once every 3 mins.

• Make sure you are effectively pacing the entrants to a survey: An elevated over-quota rate may occur if a survey is being exposed to an excessive number of respondents. A good rule of thumb for how many respondents to allow to enter a survey at any given moment is not to exceed the number arrived at using this formula: Quota remaining / Conversion rate

• Use respondent redirect statuses as a 'push API': Begin collecting the “TermedQuotaId” parameter on all over-quota redirects and use the values returned by the parameter to set the identified quota to zero until the next time you refresh the quotas data from our API endpoints.

Using the following workflow will help prevent these terms. The property names shown below are based on the naming conventions for feed opportunities. The same logic applies for those suppliers using show quotas but these will be in CamelCase format on the API response.

OQ troubleshooting and logic

Below are a few general recommendations for troubleshooting over-quotas:

• Make sure you have the proper logic in place: You will want logic that prevents respondents from attempting a survey if any of the following are true:

For suppliers using feed opportunities to manage quota data

• Is the survey still live?

  • Is the message_reason deactivated?

  • Is respondent redirect InitialStatus value 42?

• Is the number_of_respondents property greater than zero for the survey_quota_id with a survey_quota_type value of Total? (Essentially, if that total quota is closed, any respondent will result in an over-quota, regardless of what other quotas may still be open.

• Is the number_of_respondents property greater than zero for all survey_quota_ids that a respondent falls into? A respondent may fall into more than one quota. For example, there may be quotas for gender and age, in which case a respondent may fall into two quotas, both of which must be open for the respondent to pass.

For suppliers using the show quota endpoint to manage quota data

• Is the survey still live?

• Is the SurveyStillLive property false?

  • Is respondent redirect InitialStatus value 42?

  • Is the NumberOfRespondents property greater than zero for the SurveyQuotaId with a SurveyQuotaType value of Total? (Essentially, if that total quota is closed any respondent will result in an over-quota, regardless of what other quotas may still be open.

• Is the NumberOfRespondents property greater than zero for all SurveyQuotaIds that a respondent falls into? A respondent may fall into more than one quota. For example, there may be quotas for gender and age, in which case a respondent may fall into two quotas, both of which must be open for the respondent to pass.

  

  See Feed opportunities message reason to view additional information on the message_reason property

Additional recommendations

Map to as many standard questions as possible: You cannot determine if a respondent is going to get an over-quota if you cannot match the conditions on the quota to the respondent’s profiler responses. Mapping to standard questions serves not only to reduce “Standard qualifications terms” but also has the additive effect of reducing over-quota terms.

We require supply partners to be profiled on all critical qualifications for each market you have users in. To maximize survey opportunities, we strongly recommend incorporating primary qualifications during the initial development phases.

You can download the supplier qualification tier file here.