Help & FAQs
In which we not only answer frequently asked questions, but give some insider secrets on the methodology and best practices of recruiting using Ethnio. Still have questions? Don't hesitate to contact us.
Contents
- Support
- Using Ethnio for Recruiting
- My Ethnio Account
- Placing the Screener Code
- Screener Questions and Customization
- Screener Results
Support
Need some help? Don't forget to check out our FAQs (which also includes juicy methodology tidbits). We offer email support within 48 hours for any bugs that you come across in Ethnio. If you need faster attention, integration assistance, or phone support, you’ll have to make a special request to our development team.
Known Issues
- Scrollbars appear on really long screeners. We're working on a fix for this. In the meantime, try to make your screener shorter by deleting some questions or converting checkboxes into dropdowns.
- Website screengrab doesn't appear when positioning screener. This is an API issue we're working on.
- Screener preview only works when a screener is on.
Features Coming Soon
- Schedule when a screener gets turned on or off. No more waking up at 6 AM to turn on a screener for an 9 AM study.
- International-friendly screeners. With customizable "continue", "submit", and "close" buttons.
- Much, much more...
Using Ethnio for Recruiting
What can I use Ethnio recruiting for?
Any time you need to recruit participants from the Web for any kind of research, you can use Ethnio recruiting for a fraction of the cost of a recruiting agency. All you need is a website that your target audience visits and a few minutes to customize your screener. Once you’ve selected qualified participants, you can use Ethnio to schedule them, or you can contact them immediately for live-intercept testing.
What is live recruiting?
Live recruiting is a practice used with remote testing methods. Rather than scheduling users in advance, you wait for qualified participants to respond to your screener, and contact them immediately when they do, beginning the research immediately. This is most effective for remote interviews and behavioral observation.
How much traffic do I need for live recruiting to work?
It depends. When we do research at Bolt | Peters, we say six qualified recruits per hour is a minimum for effective live recruiting. (You’ll get some voicemails, a few folks unwilling to participate, etc.) It's important to realize that this isn't just 6 responses per hour, but 6 recruits who meet your testing criteria. We also look for a response rate of 1.5% to see if a screener is working. Putting those together, your screener needs about 400 views an hour for true live recruiting to work. Of course, you can still do a mix of live and scheduled users with fewer views per hour.
What can I do if recruiting is slow?
Don't fret. You have quite a few options.
- If you’re not getting enough views, you can add the screener code to additional pages.
- If the response rate is low, the most effective thing is to increase the incentive offered (this is usually less expensive than having your research team waiting around for recruits).
- If the views and response rate are good but you’re not getting people to answer the phone, try changing your contact-consent question to “May we contact you right away?” (or “within 2 hours?”) and asking for a “phone number where we can reach you immediately”.
What kinds of incentives are effective?
Incentives can really be anything that will be attractive to your target audience. In general, we offer about $25 of value for every 15 minutes of the participant’s time that the research will require. So for a standard 45-50 minute behavioral interview, we usually start with $75.
- Bear in mind that professional audiences, as opposed to consumers, may require a higher incentive—in that case, it’s a good idea to come as close as possible to matching the professional’s hourly rate, in order to make participating worth their while.
- The most common incentive used at Bolt | Peters is an Amazon Gift Certificate—we like them because they require only an email address, so there’s less information to collect from the participant. We admit, this only works well where Amazon is available, but wouldn't you know, they cover a whole bunch of countries.
Will users think the incentive is for just filling out the screener?
Yes, occasionally — in our experience, we’ve found that about 1 respondent in 1000 seems to think so. We recommend using the default language on the “thank you” page of the Ethnio screener, or something reasonably close, to make it as clear as possible.
How can I recognize fakers?
- Ethnio captures the referring URL for each response—if it’s not a page you placed the code on, it may be from one of the “free stuff” lists on the internet. (This is unusual, but it can happen especially if your incentive is large.)
- Be sure to include an open-ended question about why the respondent visited the site in your screener—the responses to that will give you the best idea of whether the person is for real.
Can I block certain IPs or IP ranges in order to exclude employees of my company?
Ethnio doesn’t offer this capability. If there’s a category of people you want to exclude, such as company employees or a geographic range, you should include a screener question to address this.
Of the people that see the live recruiting screener, what percentage usually fill it out?
A response rate of 1.5% is average, but the range can go as high as 4 or 5%. If you’re getting less than 1%, you probably need to increase your incentive.
How does the screener appear for users? Is it a pop-up? Is it DHTML?
All of the screener's pages are included in a single DHTML layer. It's not a pop-up, and pop-up blockers will not prevent it from being displayed. Users who don’t want to participate can dismiss the invitation with one click.
Are you able to control the frequency or the recruiting screener?
Yes, the view frequency can be set anywhere from 0.001% to 100%.
What do I do next when I find a user who fits my criteria?
It ultimately depends on your testing methodology.
- If you’re recruiting live, call them and set them up with whatever software you need for your research method.
- If you’re scheduling in advance, use can keep track of scheduled uses in Ethnio's recruits page.
- If you’re sending email invitations, just capture the address.
But people hate pop-ups – will they block it?
The screener is a DHTML layer rather than a pop-up, so it won’t be blocked by pop-up killers. Users who don’t want to participate can dismiss the invitation with one click.
But people hate surveys — will they think they’re being spammed?
We strongly recommend branding the screener with your logo so that users will understand it’s closely associated with your site.
Can I get help from Bolt | Peters if I need it?
But of course! If you need Ethnio support, just send us an email. We try our very best to respond to all emails within 24 hours. For any real support, we can set up a support package to fit your needs.
My Ethnio Account
Can multiple people use the same login?
Yes, they just need to know the username and password.
How many screeners can I create?
As many as you like—go nuts!
How many screeners can be active at once in my account?
As many as you need. We recommend archiving screeners after you’ve finished your research and have extracted the data. This keeps your account tidy and easier to work with.
Placing the Screener Code
What is the activation code and how do I use it?
The activation code is one line of JavaScript that you need to place on any web page you plan to recruit from. When a visitor loads your page, the code displays the screener (if the screener is turned on), which then collects responses, if the user fills it out.
Will the screener start appearing as soon as the activation code is installed on my page?
No, the default state for all Ethnio recruiting screeners is “off”. You need to log into your Ethnio account and turn the screener on in order to begin recruiting.
Is there a secure version of the activation code?
We're glad you asked. Yes, yes there is. Replace the "http" part of the activation code with "https", and voila! All screener submissions will be sent securely, using 128-bit encryption. Very secure, indeed.
Screen resolutions supported?
The Ethnio screener will look smashing on all but the tiniest (that is, “mobile”) browsers. Plus, you can set the vertical and horizontal positioning of your screener.
Firefox compatibility?
Ethnio recruiting screeners display in all popular browsers.
What happens if I have two studies active?
We don’t recommend recruiting for two studies from the same webpage, unless the qualifying criteria are similar enough that you can use the same screener. It’s technically possible, but showing two invitations to your users isn’t the best experience.
Can we reuse the activation codes?
Yes. Many of Bolt | Peters’ research clients do this if the process to place new code on their website is lengthy or difficult. However, we recommend complete extracting the data from your previous study before changing the screener to recruit for the new one.
Will the presence of the code affect the speed of my site?
No, but just to make sure, we ask that you place the line of JavaScript just before the closing body tag. That way, if there is an issue with the Ethnio server not responding, your page will load normally and your users’ experience won’t be negatively affected.
Is it better to put the screener code on one really busy page or a bunch of more targeted but less trafficked pages?
You have to weigh the specificity of your qualifying criteria against the importance of recruiting live. If live recruiting is very important, it may be best to place the screener code on the busy page and tailor your screening questions to identify qualified users. (Just between you and us, we find we get the most interesting feedback with live recruiting.)
Of course, the code can reside on as many pages as you like, so the answer could also be “both”.
Will users see the pop-up over and over?
No, Ethnio sets a cookie whenever a user views the screener. Unless it’s present on more than one domain, no user will see it twice. There are some issues with cookies and sub-domains, so it could be the case that if you have the same screener code on apples.ethnio.com and oranges.ethnio.com, a visitor could see the screener twice.
Can I put my screener on my competition’s site?
Sorry, for both technical and ethical reasons Ethnio can’t do that. You need to have editorial control over a webpage in order to place the Ethnio JavaScript.
What happens if I put the screener code in a frame?
It should be OK, but you could be in for some gnarly display issues. To avoid screener display issues, it’s best to put the Ethnio JavaScript just before the closing body tag on the page or inside the page's head tags.
Can I include it in the site footer for all pages?
Sure. Let’s start with a simple example, and then talk about some more complicated situations. If you have a single domain, putting the Ethnio JavaScript in a global site footer will allow visitors to see the screener once, regardless of what their entry point to your site is.
Now for some ugly exceptions. Let’s say you have a bunch of sub-domains, like pink.penguins.com and blue.penguins.com. If you put the Ethnio JavaScript in a global footer, a visitor to your site has a chance (depending on the screener’s view percentage), of seeing the screener more than once. Unfortunately, this is due to the way session cookies work, and is out of the Ethnio wizards’ control.
We’re on a CMS, what do we do?
The Ethnio screener will work just fine with the majority of CMSes out in the wild. The only substantial problems we’ve seen are some cross-browser issues, like the screener not appearing in Firefox, because of the way Firefox (correctly) handles inline JavaScript calls. It’s totally free to sign up and give it a shot. Let us know what you find.
The other thing to consider is that it’s generally considered best practice to put these kinds of third-party JavaScripts at the very bottom of your page, so as not to interfere with the page’s load time. Although some people swear by putting all of their script calls in the head tag.
We’ve got other script calls on the same page for logging, etc. Is that OK?
Absolutely. The only thing to consider is the order in which these script calls occur. You’ll probably want to put them in order of most to least important, so there are no potential timing conflicts, with say, Ethnio loading before some script that builds some part of your site’s experience.
Am I able to control the frequency of the recruiting screener?
Yes, you can set the view frequency at anything from 0.001% to 100% of the views on the host page.
No, seriously, my site has really monster traffic. Can your servers handle it? What can we do to lower the risk of a problem?
You can certainly wrap the Ethnio script inside of another script that further limits the number of visitors who have the chance of seeing the screener. Are you ready for some math? You have 1 million uniques a day (congrats!). Let’s say you have the view frequency of your screener set to 1% inside Ethnio. If you wrapped that in a script that limited running the Ethnio code to 10% of your visitors, (see how this is becoming like a fourth-grade word problem), that would mean only 100,000 of your visitors would have a chance of seeing the screener, with only about 1,000 actually seeing it. Keep in mind that of this 1,000, only about 1-4% will actually respond.
Is there any way to test the screener before I put it on my production site?
Yes, very easy. Just place the code on a page that’s not visible to the public or on a staging server and turn the screener on to 100%. The first time you reload that page, you’ll see the screener. (Bear in mind, you’ll need to clear the Ethnio cookie if you want to see that screener more than once.)
Screener Questions and Customizing
What's are some of the big differences between screeners used for live recruiting and screeners used for lab or scheduled testing?
Live Recruiting Screenshots (all three pages):
Lab/Scheduled Screener Screenshots (all three pages):
How personalized can I make the screener?
You can change most of the text and the logo. We're still working on more screener styles.
Can I change the questions in the screener?
Absolutely. You can put in whatever questions you like, though we strongly recommend keeping an open-ended question and an explicit consent to be contacted.
Can you use images within the screener?
Sure thing! You have free reign to use some basic HTML inside the screener.
What are the specifications for the logo image on the screener?
140 wide x 60 high. Otherwise we scale it, and it can look fun-kay.
Is it possible to change the background color?
Right now, there’s only the default screener style. If you're technically inclined and looking for adventure, you can override our default CSS. We’re looking at adding more screener styles soon.
Can I specify the position of the pop-up? I don’t want it to block certain features of my page.
You sure can. It’s really fun to play with too. Just drag-n-drop.
What types of survey questions are available?
Single line text fields, yes/no radio buttons, multiple choice radio buttons, multiple choice checkboxes, and dropdowns.
How many questions is too many?
We find that the response rate drops when screeners get too long. Generally less than 10 is a good goal, though we’ve done successful studies with as many as 13 or 14. (Those numbers include the questions for consent and contact information.)
Can I do branching based on the response to a question?
Sorry, Ethnio doesn’t do that yet.
I need certain language on the screener for legal reasons—can I change the fine print footers?
We’d rather you didn’t. If you need a custom solution, just drop us a line. We’ll see what we can do.
I need to make a screener in a language other than English — how do I do that?
The Ethnio screener will accept any Unicode characters. We're working on making the Ethnio screener more international friendly, with customizable "next" and "close" buttons.
How does the preview work?
The large preview (linked at the top of the page when you are logged in) uses an iframe in the background to load your page. This is an easy way for us to show you how your current design might look on top of your page but it can't be completely accurate because the screener is not actually interacting with your site. You need to take care to test your screener before putting it on a live site.
Screener Results
Where is data stored? Do you have to pay for access?
Data is stored on our super-secure server. You can access and download your data at anytime.
Can you download the screener results?
Yes, you can extract your results to a .cvs or XML file, which are both easily imported into Microsoft Excel and many other programs.
As users are taking their survey, is there a list of people to go through the testing?
You’ll see a list of all screener respondents, which you can sort by any column. You can set the state of any of your recruits to better track them. For example, you can mark people you've interviewed as "completed".
How secure is the data my users submit?
The screener data is stored in our secure, off-site, servers. All of your data is backed up daily. It is important to realize that unless you prefix the URL in the activation code to HTTPS, the data your users submit will not be encrypted. In most cases, it's just fine to have your users submit their data over regular HTTP.
How is my users’ privacy safeguarded? Do you remove responses from your database after a certain amount of time?
We keep user data very secure with our off-site, nightly-patched servers. We do not remove data from our database unless you specifically request it of us. We're worked with lots of different security-minded companies in the past. If you have specific security concerns, just drop us a line.
How long will my data remain available in my Ethnio account?
As long as you need it. If you no longer want your data stored, let us know