According to a survey conducted by Greenfield Online and its European operation Ciao, 76% of market researchers surveyed in North America and 85% in Europe are predicting their use of online to increase.
"The barometer indicates that online is maturing and evolving as a research methodology, yet still experiencing growth," Nicolas Metzke, senior vice-president of survey completion at Greenfield/Ciao, said. "The study suggests that the lifecycle of online usage in North America is a flattening curve, with 24% of researchers expecting no change in usage. This compares with 13% in Europe. However, no researchers anywhere are predicting that their online usage will decline."
In North America, the study results show that most researchers have migrated telephone studies to online in the last 12 months, followed by mall and shopping centre studies.
"However, in Europe, while telephone to online is still the most common switching that has occurred, half of researchers say they have replaced also face-to-face studies with online in the last 12 months," Metzke said.
The study found that the two most important reasons for conducting market research studies online remain time, mentioned by 82% of researchers worldwide, and competitive pricing (79%).
However, in North America the ability to incorporate multimedia into surveys and having access to complex target groups are greater considerations than they are in Europe, where researchers are more likely to use online to simply gain access to respondents.
The Greenfield/Ciao Barometer study also showed differences in usage of online research by industry sector. Consumer goods was found to be the heaviest use of online research followed in North America by finance, healthcare and retail.
Back in Europe, researchers are more likely to be conducting online studies for the telecoms, information technology and media research industries.
Albert Angrisani, president and CEO of Greenfield/Ciao, said: "The good news here is that market researchers plan to continue to increase their use of online studies to fulfil their research requirements."
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