FAQ

Where will my study be hosted?

Critical Mix maintains a portfolio of "anonymous domains" for the exclusive use of client studies. There is no mention of Critical Mix or any other organization at these domains, and the main screen of each contains no links - a visitor needs the specific URL at one of these domains in order to access a study. Domains include:

How quickly will my study be programmed?

Critical Mix can generally program even the most complex study within 2-3 business days. We request a week's advance notice for scheduling purposes, and we recommend 1-2 days for testing and revisions. Your study can generally be "live" within one week of providing us with a final questionnaire.

If I have a list of email addresses provided by my client, can Critical Mix send the email invitations?

Yes, we send email invitations on behalf of our clients. Critical Mix uses a broadcast email service provider which can handle large quantities of emails going out at once. We have the ability to customize each email by "piping in" recipients' names, unique passcodes with which to take the survey, and other information. We provide detailed reports after each send showing the number of bounced email addresses, if any, and other key statistics.

We have several requirements which have been put in place to make sure that the email invitations sent by us are not mis-interpreted as "spam." These requirements are designed to protect us, you, and your client, and we believe them to be in-line with generally accepted ethical email marketing practices.

Critical Mix will optionally send email invitations on behalf of Client, to a Client-provided list, with the following conditions:

Critical Mix will not send "blind" emails: respondents must be informed how their email address was obtained.
Client and the list provider (typically Client's own client) must sign the CASRO Suggested Client Certification of E-mail Sample List Compliance document: http://www.casro.org/emailcompliance.cfm
Invitation and sample list must be approved by our broadcast email service provider (Vertical Response, Inc., San Francisco, CA) whose name, logo and default "unsubscribe" link must be included at the bottom of each email
The email must be "from" an actual person with a valid return email address, and a valid postal address must be included at the footer of each email
Critical Mix will only send emails in English; Critical mix will not send emails outside the US; Critical Mix will not send emails to doctors.

There is a large number and wide variety of software in use by individuals, companies, and ISP's to prevent unwanted email solicitations from being properly delivered. Everything from the wording of an email subject line to the IP address of the originating computer or network could trigger the blocking of an email invitation. Critical Mix has chosen an email service provider which requires that their service only be used for permission-based communications, and which enforces the requirements detailed above. We believe that our choice in an email service provider minimizes the likelihood of an otherwise valid email address from not being delivered, but we will not be responsible should this actually occur.

What factors influence email response rates?

Email response rate is influenced by the following factors:

Quality of list
Blind vs. sponsored
Relationship between recipient and sponsor (whether blind or sponsored, a neutral to positive relationship is desirable)
Appropriateness of topic (i.e. a high quality list of older Americans may have little interest in baby toys)
Incentive

Anecdotally, the better the list, the more positive the relationship, the more appropriate the topic, and the better the incentive... all contribute to higher response rates...

In what format should I provide images for an online survey?

All images to be presented in an online survey should meet the following requirements:

.gif or .jpg image files
72 dpi
The widest an image should ever be is 770 pixels, in order to avoid horizontal scrolling to see the entire image - and this is for displaying on a screen by itself, separate from any question
If multiple images are to be displayed side-by-side on a screen, then the combined width of those images should also be no greater than 770 pixels.
Image height is generally less important since a little bit of vertical scrolling is usually okay, but height should be 500 pixels or less if you want an entire image to display with no vertical scrolling.
If images are to be included in a question, with select-boxes or rating scales next to them, images should be about 125x125 pixels (width x height) max, and the image tiles should include any text or additional info that you want to display with the images - i.e. that info should be part of the image.
In discrete choice store-shelf exercises, images may be up to 175x175 or 200x200 depending on how many are shown on a screen at a time.
We request images to be named as 1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg, etc... with a separate key provided showing what product/brand each image file corresponds to.

Can Critical Mix program multi-lingual studies?

Yes! Critical Mix has successfully programmed and hosted many multi-lingual studies. We've done so for a variety of industries including finance, healthcare and technology, and in most Western European languages as well as Asian languages including Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. We've even done complex discrete choice modeling (conjoint) studies in multiple languages.

We strongly recommend that the English (US) version of the questionnaire gets programmed first, and that it is made to be inclusive of whatever localization differences might occur in the other languages. In this way, the English "master" version can be thoroughly tested first, especially with regard to skip logic, so that the other languages only need to be reviewed for content once they are programmed.

Can I embed video content into surveys?

Yes, you can! Critical Mix has the ability to transform most common video formats into the same kind of files used on YouTube.com and Google Video. Embedding your video in this popular format helps ensure that respondents are able to view your presentation without having to install software they may not have.

What video formats do you accept for embedding in surveys?: We are able to convert the following video file types into embedded videos: .mpg (MPEG), .wmv (Windows Media Video), .mov (Quicktime), .asf, .avi
Do you offer streaming audio/video?: Our embedded multimedia files use Progressive Download technology. This method allows respondents to view a video as it downloads, and eliminates the cost of expensive full streaming media services.
How large (file size) can my video be?: We recommend keeping your video files below 10MB.
How can I keep my video private?: Critical Mix disables and/or conceals many of the user's browser controls when a survey begins. However, when any piece of information is presented from the internet a temporary copy of that file is stored in a folder on visitor's hard-drive. This folder is by default routinely emptied automatically and not easily accessible to the typical home user. In fact many users are unaware of its existence. When this folder is emptied the files are deleted and not sent to the Recycle-Bin, or Trash for later retrieval. There is no way to remotely empty a user's cache folder.