Profiling guide

RPI this profiling guide is designed to provide extensive information and resources to improve your respondent profiling. This guide will cover different aspects of profiling as well as provide guidance on how to handle them.

This article has been updated to reflect our latest pricing model, replacing cost per interview (CPI) with revenue per interview (RPI) metrics. We will be working closely with our supply partners to transition them to the RPI model.

If you have not yet migrated to RPI and require access to documentation containing CPI details, please contact your account team, who can provide the relevant materials.

Importance of profiling

The Cint Exchange (formerly known as Lucid Marketplace) hosts surveys that generally target a specific audience, or demographic of people. This is done by the use of standard qualifications.

Standard qualifications (quals) are essentially profiling questions that buyers set up on surveys as pre-screeners to target a specific audience. Profiling your respondents before sending them into surveys reduces terminations and improves user experience. For that reason, profiling your respondents is a fundamental aspect that will contribute heavily towards the success of your integration with Cint.

Standard qualifications

What are standard qualifications?

Standard qualifications are profiling questions that are set up as pre-screeners on surveys as a way for buyers to target a specific audience. They range from basic profiling questions like age, gender, and zip code, to behavioral questions such as brand and lifestyle preferences. They are designed to determine if a user will qualify for the survey opportunity and are used as a way to filter out unqualified respondents by terming them from the survey opportunity.

This type of termination is called a standard qualification termination and is represented by a Cint Exchange (Marketplace) response codes of 23 and a client response codes of -1 for the user’s session. Fully utilizing standard qualifications will be a crucial step in the success of your integration.

What standard qualifications do i need to map to and profile on?

Cint’s Standard Qualification Library contains hundreds of qualification questions, therefore it is important to understand which qualifications to map to and profile on. There are standard qualifications for each country-language(CLID) pairing that we have surveys for. To future proof your integration, we recommend that you map to all standard qualifications for each country-language pairing you have respondents for.

Once you are mapped to our question library you can begin the process of prioritizing which qualifications to profile your respondents on.

To help you with this, we have segmented the standard qualifications library into three tiers, which are (ranked in importance):

1. Critical qualifications (mandatory)

2. Primary qualifications (highly recommended)

3. Secondary qualifications (optional)

In order to launch your integration with Cint, you will be required to have profiled your respondents on all critical qualifications that are used in each market, represented by CLIDs, you have users in.

To enable you to match users to more survey opportunities, we strongly recommend you incorporate primary qualifications into your initial development phases.

Collecting standard qualifications data

There are three primary ways to collect standard qualifications data. As standard qualifications updates are typically quarterly, we recommend you use one of the following methods to update your standard qualifications database approximately once per quarter.

1. Download the spreadsheet from standard qualifications article. You can download a spreadsheet which containing all of the standard qualification questions by country language. This support site article will contain the most up-to-date spreadsheet of standard qualifications.

2. Download the standard qualification tiers spreadsheet. This spreadsheet contains a list of critical, primary and secondary qualifications for the country language pairing.

3. Utilize the lookup API suite. Calling the question library API endpoints will allow your system to programmatically digest this information.

Watch out for marketing emails that include information on qualification updates when they occur.

Postal/zip code qualification formatting

Postal/zip codes play an important role in geographical targeting for our buyers, and as such, set as critical qualifications to profile. These questions are usually named with prefixes FULCRUM\_ZIP\_, STANDARD\_POSTAL\_CODE\_, or ZIP.

Most postal/zip code qualifications use specific formats, so ensuring these formats are followed helps avoid standard qualification terminations. To find the required format for a postal code, you can use the GET questions v2 endpoint. In the option\_mask property will outline the format, which is not case-sensitive. When making the request, you'll need to specify a locale (country/language).

If you need help finding the correct locale codes, they’re available through our dictionary API.

In some cases, postal/zip codes might not follow a specific input mask. This usually happens when a fixed format isn’t required or when a locale has several possible formats. For the below countries, only the first part of the postal code is needed:

• Canada, question ID 79357.

  • Up to 3 characters in length.

• UK, question ID 79363.

  • Up to 4 characters in length. Formats include AN, ANN, AAN, AANN, ANA, AANA (A=Alpha, N=Numeric)

Cint Exchange profiler

Within the Cint Exchange prescreener is a profiler, designed to ask a series of standard qualification questions to help collect demographic data on a respondent. Within a survey session, a respondent can be asked up to 3 profiler questions in conjunction with the survey qualifications, if both of the following statements are true:

• The respondent enters the Cint Exchange on an entry link that does not contain parameters passing the responses to all profiler questions and the survey qualifications.

• Cint does not have a response for the survey qualification and all profiler questions stored for the respondent’s cookie from the last 30 days.

You can have respondents bypass questions within the prescreener, by appending the profiler questions, plus any additional survey qualifications, to all entry links. As a reminder, the character limit for entry links is 1999. For any profiler questions you do not profile, you can configure your redirects (collecting data from redirects) to have this data returned, with the purpose to store and match respondents to more survey opportunities. Click here to download the latest version of the profiler questions.

Custom qualifications

What are custom qualifications?

Custom qualifications are typically used by buyers to target a specific type of audience that they cannot reach using existing standard qualifications or as quality assessments questions. Like standard qualifications, respondents that do not fit the desired criteria will be terminated from the survey. This type of termination is called a custom qualification termination and is represented by a Cint Exchange (Marketplace) response codes of 24 and a client response codes of -1 for the user’s session.

It is important to track the frequency and usage of custom qualifications and the surveys’ performance to assess whether to profile your respondent on these questions. We’ll explain the methods to profile respondents on custom qualification in the dynamic profiling section.

Identifying custom qualifications

When receiving qualification data via feed opportunities or making the show qualifications call, it will return a list of question IDs for that given survey. If a question ID returned is not in the standard qualification library, you can assume it is a custom qualification. You are able to look up the details on the question using the show question text call and the show question options call. Private custom qualifications

Buyers may choose to set a custom qualification to "private" when the content of the question text or option(s) is sensitive to that client. Due to the private setting, if you attempt to look up the show question text and show question options for a custom private qualification, you will receive a 404 HTTP status code response.

Attention checkers (pop quiz)

Attention checkers (aka red herrings or trap questions) are pre-screener questions designed to check that the respondents are attentive and properly answering questions before entering a survey.

Example of a attention checker question shown in the prescreener

These standard qualifications can be identified by their question name. The question name will always begin with "ATTENTION\_CHECKER", as shown in the example screenshot below. To ensure honest responses to attention checks, please do not profile or store any responses related to these qualifications, and do not submit any data through the entry link. We want the respondent to answer the questions directly in our prescreener.

Example response from show question text endpoint for a pop quiz qualification

Profiling methods

There are two primary methods of profiling: static and dynamic/real-time. Static profiling refers to storing known profiling data about your respondents based on the results from a profiler survey or questionnaire within your native application. Dynamic profiling refers to the process of identifying a qualification from a survey and profiling your respondent on that question prior to sending them into the survey opportunity. Regardless of which method you chose, the process should be repeated as frequently as necessary to ensure data is updated and accurate.

Static profiling

Static profiling is the process of mapping profiling data on your users to our Standard Qualifications. If you do not currently already have existing profiling data on your users, this process will involve developing an experience that will capture the necessary information about your users. This can be achieved in many ways, a few are described below as examples: Profiling questions embedded into the user registration process.

This can be an effective way to ensure your system is collecting critical information about your users prior to offering them survey opportunities. If your registration process is already extensive, we recommend that you try to limit the number of qualification questions asked during the registration process to the top 10 most used qualifications per country. The goal of this method is to collect the most relevant information without exhausting the user during the registration process. Create a profiler survey that every new user must complete.

This is the most fundamental way to profile your users. Create a survey that contains the most important Standard Qualifications for the country-language pairing of surveys that your users will be taking. Ensure that every new user or any user that has not previously completed it completes the profiler survey. One way to improve the respondent experience of this process is to offer a small incentive for completing the survey. We have found this method to be effective as there are two primary benefits.

1. It creates a positive first experience for the user, especially if they are new to survey taking.

2. It allows you to perform a preliminary assessment of the quality of the user. Utilize redirects to collect and store profiling data.

We recommend that you set up your redirects to include as many profiling data points as possible, without exceeding the URL character limit of 2,999. During a given user’s session, respondents may encounter one or more pre-screener questions. Cint stores the responses to these questions in our system for up to 30 days. This data can be passed back to your application on the redirect after the user finishes a session. This can be an alternative way to collect profiling data on your users over time. This should only be used as a temporary alternative to creating your own native profiling experience.

More information about how to use redirects to collect data can be found here: collecting data from redirects.

Dynamic profiling

Dynamic profiling is the process of identifying unknown profiling data on your users and collecting them as they appear on surveys represented by standard qualifications. This method of profiling is primarily used for profiling users on custom qualifications, however it can be an effective way of collecting standard profiling data on your users over time. The development of this method of profiling will involve a few key features:

• First, your system will need to detect a qualification question that has not previously been mapped to a user.

• Once identified, your system will need to call the show question text and the show question options API endpoints.

• Next, your application will need to present this question to the user and determine if they are qualified for the survey:

  • If they are qualified, send them into the survey opportunity and include the qualification information on the entry link to avoid the user being presented the question again by the Cint pre-screener.

  • If the respondent is not qualified, you thank them or offer a small reward (optional) and find another opportunity for them. In either case, your system should be storing and using that information to effectively find the next survey opportunity for the user.

Additional considerations

Validate form field responses

Ensure you have proper validation on form fields. For example, if a postal code should only be 5 numeric characters long, validate that the respondent’s answer is 5 characters and numeric-only. Temporary profile data or qualifications

Your system should be set up to expire data for qualifications that are considered temporary profiling data. Once expired, your application should prompt the user to update their information relating to the expired qualification(s) data.

Handling dummy qualifications

This section covers the most commonly used dummy qualifications by our buyers, how to identify them, and how to manage them effectively.

There are two types of dummy qualifications:

• Calculated dummy qualifications: Upon entry into the Cint Exchange, Cint calculates the respondent’s answer to the dummy qualification using specific data points. For example, in the U.S., a respondent's state (Question ID 96) is determined based on their zip code. As a general rule, you should map respondents to these dummy qualifications rather than directly profiling them. You are not required to append the question ID and value to respondents' entry link URLs.Device and regional dummy qualifications are examples of calculated dummy qualifications.

• Non-calculated dummy qualifications: These qualifications are not determined by Cint upon entry into the Cint Exchange. Instead, you must manually map respondents to these qualifications and pass the corresponding question ID and value in the respondents' entry link URLs.Social economic level dummy qualifications are not calculated.

Important notes:

• Dummy qualification questions are not displayed in the prescreener.

• If a respondent does not meet the criteria set by the buyer—whether determined by Cint or by the data you pass in on the entry link—the respondent will be terminated from the survey.

Device dummy qualifications

Buyers can use dummy qualifications to target specific device types and properties. When a respondent enters the Cint Exchange, we automatically detect key environmental characteristics of their session—such as browser, browser version, device type, operating system, and more—via their browser header. Cint leverages the wurfl.io library for this detection.

Based on this data, we can automatically determine whether the respondent meets the buyer’s specified device criteria. We recommend that your system attempts to detect a respondent’s device type before directing them to any survey that uses device detection questions as qualification or quota criteria.

Targeting by device type (mobile, tablet, desktop) is the most common dummy device detection qualification. Below, we outline the conditions buyers use for targeting device types. For details on other dummy device detection qualifications—such as targeting by browser, operating system, flash usage, and more—please refer to the device detection variables article. Device type

Regional dummy qualifications

Buyers can implement geographical targeting using our regional dummy qualifications. Cint utilizes licensed regional mapping to determine a respondent's city, state, or region based on their provided zip/postal code.

To align your respondents with the appropriate surveys, you must match their zip/postal codes to our regional dummy qualification IDs and pre-codes. We can support this process by providing country-specific mappings—download the file here.

DMA (U.S. only) is the only dummy regional qualification for which we cannot provide pre-code mappings upfront, as this data is proprietary to the Nielsen Company. To map respondents' zip codes to DMA pre-codes, you have two options:

1. Purchase the DMA name-to-zip mapping from nielsen, then map the DMA name to our pre-codes.

2. Collect DMA pre-codes for your respondents via redirects and store them in their profiles. Over time, the collected DMA pre-codes can be used to build the necessary mappings for directing targeted respondents to surveys using the DMA qualification.

Social economic level (SEL) dummy qualifications

SEL is a socio-economic classification system that groups individuals based on various characteristics, such as social and financial status.

SEL dummy qualifications are not calculated, so you will be required to profile your users on a series of relevant questions to determine their appropriate classification/precode. When sending to a survey with a SEL qualification, please include the question ID and value on the respondent’s entry link. Failure to include the required data on the entry link will result in the respondent being terminated from the survey.

We also ask that you do not directly profile respondents on the precodes for each of these qualifications. To complete this mapping, start by reviewing the SEL classifications assigned to each qualification using the ' show question options ' endpoint. You will then need to research how these classifications are defined, and determine the appropriate questions to ask in order to match respondents to the correct precode. We acknowledge that this process may require significant research and effort.

If you are unable to commit to this, we request configuring your integration to exclude these qualifications to prevent high termination rates.