Audience research
Part of Programmatic advertising audience research, first-party data or panel surveys?
Programmatic advertising surveys: Brand Lift vs SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics
Compare Brand Lift's campaign measurement with SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics research for English agencies, including response limits and UK data protection.
Start with the campaign decision
For an agency planning programmatic advertising in England, separate questions about campaign effects from questions about audiences, messages or customer experience. Choose a survey tool around the decision it must support. Do not treat an opinion about an advert as proof that the respondent received it.
Set a specific question in the audience research brief before choosing software. Record who should answer, what finding would change the campaign plan and who will approve that change. Keep the research question separate from the buying route and the evidence needed to assess campaign effects.
Brand Lift: campaign measurement in Google Ads
Brand Lift is a free tool for measuring the effectiveness of video ads in Video and Demand Gen campaigns. It is not available for all Google Ads accounts. Access needs a Google account representative; without a representative, the feature cannot be used.
Brand Lift compares survey responses from people who saw ads with responses from people who did not, to determine influence on brand metrics such as ad recall, association, awareness and consideration. Once campaigns are running, its surveys appear on YouTube before a video starts.
Keep the tool's free status separate from your media budget. Confirm access and study requirements before promising a result to a client. In the measurement and reporting plan, identify the campaign question, the metric to be assessed and the decision that a change in responses would support.
Display & Video 360: check the measurement setup
Display & Video 360 provides programmatic buying options including programmatic guaranteed, direct deals and open exchanges. Record the buying route separately from the survey method. Treat a measurement requirement as a setup question, rather than assuming that a questionnaire platform can also buy or verify media.
During TrueView or Demand Gen line-item creation in Display & Video 360, leaving the relevant field empty enables the advertiser-level default brand-lift vendor if that default is enabled. Put the intended vendor and its setting into the launch review so the campaign owner checks the measurement setup before approval.
SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics: planning research
Consider SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics for research that informs a campaign brief. Select them by the research task, not by treating them as interchangeable with Brand Lift. Keep audience opinions, experience feedback and measured campaign effects as distinct outputs in the team's reporting plan.
| Tool or suite | Function | Example agency decision |
|---|---|---|
| Brand Lift | Compares responses from groups that saw and did not see ads to determine influence on brand metrics | Assess whether a campaign changed brand awareness |
| SurveyMonkey Audience | Connects researchers with participants for pricing surveys; targeting attributes include demographics, finances and living arrangements | Research a pricing proposition before revising the campaign message |
| Qualtrics XM for Strategy and research | Supports strategic market, product, UX and brand research | Investigate a brand or audience question before planning media |
| Qualtrics XM for Customer Experience | Includes surveys with follow-up prompts, AI-powered dashboard recommendations and analytics to identify digital and omnichannel friction points | Investigate the experience after an advert leads to a digital touchpoint |
Qualtrics XM for Strategy and research provides tools for survey design, research panel management and advanced analytics. Match those functions to the research work in a software selection record. Describe the required output and how the campaign team will use it, rather than scoring the product solely by its feature list.
For example, a planning brief could ask: "Which message best explains the offer?" An experience study could ask: "What would you expect to happen after selecting this advert?" Label these as research prompts. Do not turn the answers into a claim about campaign effects without an appropriate measurement design.
Response allowances and renewal decisions
SurveyMonkey counts paid-plan response limits across all surveys and users. Each additional response above the limit costs £0.15, while SurveyMonkey Audience responses are sold separately. Keep survey capacity and respondent recruitment as separate lines in a budget template. Check the account-wide forecast before approving collection.
The SurveyMonkey plan described as including everything in Basic has 1,000 responses per month. The plan including everything in Standard has 15,000 responses per year; the plan including everything in Advantage has 40,000 responses per year. Compare the allowance period as well as the total before choosing a collection schedule.
SurveyMonkey auto-renew is on by default. Turning it off downgrades the account to a free plan at the end of the billing cycle. Responses over the Basic limit that are older than 365 days are then deleted. Assign an owner to review renewal and preserve the research outputs you need.
Qualtrics suite pricing is available on request. Its AI and technology are included for an unlimited number of users within every suite and product. Ask for a written quote that matches the intended research scope, participant recruitment, response volume and any operational support you want to buy.
Research purpose and UK data protection
Data protection in the UK is governed by the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. For an agency in England, review the survey purpose and planned use of responses before collection, especially if participant-level findings could feed advertising decisions.
The ICO's direct marketing guidance distinguishes genuine market research, which is not direct marketing, from research containing promotional material or ultimately carried out to send direct marketing to participants. The latter is direct marketing. Check the invitation and the intended follow-up together, rather than relying on the label attached to the questionnaire.
Building a profile of someone with the intention of targeting them with advertising is a direct marketing purpose. If the proposed hand-off involves participant-level targeting, include it in a data protection review. Record the intended campaign use before treating responses as an activation input.
