The recent indictment of Op4G and Slice confirmed what many of us already suspected:
The traditional online panel model is under strain and bad actors have been taking advantage of it for years.
What’s next isn’t just fraud detection.
It’s a complete rethinking of how high-quality research participants are sourced.
That’s where Custom Research Panels come in. These are also sometimes called Customer Advisory Boards or Communities.
And yes, we use these custom panels often for PeopleMetrics’ clients. But it’s also how we believe the market research industry must evolve.
So What Is a Custom Research Panel?
A custom research panel (or customer advisory board, community) is a vetted, closed, proprietary group of real people (often targeted customers and/or prospects) who agree to participate in research activities over a set period (usually 12 months).
Typically, these have a minimum of 200 participants and often many more (we have custom research panels with 4000+ participants).
Unlike traditional online panels which pull from large anonymous pools of participants, a custom research panel is:
- Built from scratch
- Owned by the client sponsor
- Deeply verified by us via several channels (calls, interviews, LinkedIn)
- Branded or unbranded
- And continuously available for quick-turn or longitudinal research
Why Custom Research Panels Matter More Than Ever
Fraud is getting smarter. Detection systems are falling behind. And the pressure to move faster in market research is increasing.
Custom research panels solve this by giving you:
- Confidence in every response
- Each panelist is recruited, interviewed, and double-verified
- Public profiles (like LinkedIn) are used, plus direct human contact (email, phone, Zoom)
- Speed without sacrificing quality
- Need feedback on a message, concept, or landing page or anything really?
Your panel is ready.
- Need feedback on a message, concept, or landing page or anything really?
- Substantial cost savings over time
- One-time recruiting cost and repeated use across multiple studies
- Lower friction = more research = better decisions
- Stakeholder buy-in and cultural lift
- Custom research panels make research more accessible across departments
- You build a habit of insight, not just an occasional event
- More time with each respondent
- Over a year, you can collect hours of input per participant
- This opens the door to deeper methods (qual, choice modeling, usability testing, etc.)
Real-World Impact
One of our clients needed ongoing feedback from financial advisors.
Traditional panels couldn’t deliver the right advisors fast enough or cost-effectively. Plus, our client was concerned about the quality of the data received from these panel providers.
So, we built them a custom panel of 500+ vetted financial advisors.
Within a year, that panel helped:
- Develop a new product (and name it) that exceeded launch goals
- Restructure their compensation model, saving $250,000
- Redesign their website based on usability testing
And they didn’t have to start from scratch every time they had a new question.
This Isn’t Just a Quality Play. It’s a Strategic One.
Custom research panels don’t just improve data quality.
They give you control.
You know who you’re talking to.
You know how they’ve responded over time.
And you can go deeper, faster, without compromising trust in the data.
Bottom Line
If the Op4G/Slice scandal taught us anything, it’s that volume ≠ validity.
Custom research panels (customer advisory boards, communities, etc.) are the future and not because they’re trendy, but because they solve the root problems:
- Fraud
- Speed
- Cost
- Stakeholder engagement
- Longitudinal insight
When you build your panel with real humans, everything else gets easier.
Up next:
Post 6: Real CX Data from Real Customers — Your Secret Weapon Against Fraud
