Panel Recruitment

Panel recruitment lets you publish your own signup form so participants can opt in to future research — building a reusable pool of your own candidates instead of starting recruitment from zero for every study.

​

What Panel Recruitment Is (and Isn’t)

A Panel is a study type you build and own: a signup form that adds people directly to your own Candidates database as they opt in. Participants sign up once, consent to future contact, and share details like their role, company, and interests — all searchable and segmentable later.

Note: This is different from External Recruitment, which sources participants from third-party marketplaces (like Respondent or User Interviews) rather than growing your own pool. A study can only use one or the other — a Panel study can’t also turn on External Recruitment. If you’re looking to recruit from an outside participant marketplace instead of building your own list, that’s a separate feature.

​

Why It Matters

Recruit without starting over each time. An established panel gives you continuous access to qualified participants, so you’re not repeating outreach or screening for every new study. Deeper conversations over time. Panel members grow familiar with your company and products, which leads to more context-rich conversations than one-off recruits. Target the right people, fast. Because panelist data lives in your candidate database, you can filter and segment for specific personas, product areas, or demographics whenever you need to recruit. Anyone can recruit consistently. Any teammate — not just researchers — can pull the right people from your panel while keeping candidate data consistent.

​

Common Use Cases

​

Set up panel recruitment

​

Step 1: Create your study

1. Navigate to Studies in the left-side menu.
2. Click New study and select Panel recruitment (“Drive opt-ins to participate in future research”).
3. Add your core study details — title and research goal, participation limit, participant segments (optional), a screener (optional), consent form, custom study attributes, automatic slot-release settings, and participant language preferences.
4. Review your plan, then click Next.

Segments here are about filtering your own candidate database once people are in it — they aren’t a way to target or pull from an outside audience. As your panel grows, use segments to group panelists by persona, product area, or demographics for future recruiting.

​

Step 2: Set up your screener (optional)

Add multiple-choice, text, or scale questions using the screener editor. Apply logic under Preferences or view the full rules under All Logic, then review and click Next.

​

Step 3: Customize your signup form

Use the built-in signup form creator to design your questions and tailor the experience:

• Add and configure questions. Add questions in the supported formats (multiple choice, scale, text). Include helper text to clarify instructions where useful, and mark questions as Required when a response is necessary to proceed.
• Get help writing questions (optional). Use AI-assisted question generation to draft questions based on your research goal, then review, edit, add, or remove them before publishing.
• Enhance questions with media. Add images to signup-form questions for context or visual reference. Supported file types include PNG, EPS, JPEG, and GIF.
• Customize logic and data mapping. Use Attributes to map responses back to candidate profiles, and apply Skip Logic to control question paths based on responses.
• Reuse existing content. Insert saved questions from the Question Library or Templates to speed up setup and stay consistent.

​

Step 4: Review and publish

Check all sections for accuracy. When ready, click Create to publish your study.

​

Manage your study after publishing

Once your panel is live, the areas you configure and monitor fall into three groups.

​

Setup

• Plan — Adjust details such as participant limits, incentives, study attributes, or segments.
• Signup Form — View your signup form and make adjustments.
• Screener (if applicable) — Edit screener questions or update logic.
• Emails — Customize participant-facing communications, including screener invitations, study invites, task reminders, and completion emails.
• Pages — Update the Landing Page and Screener Disqualification Page.
• Automations — Send invitation reminders to candidates who have not responded within 24 hours, and task reminders to participants who have not completed after 24 hours.
• Notifications — Choose which email alerts you want to receive for this study.

​

Execution

• Participants — Add candidates, track their progress, and take actions such as inviting, removing, or reviewing status. This is where most post-publish activity happens.
• Stats — View email performance metrics such as delivery, opens, and clicks.
• Screener Responses (if applicable) — Review individual or aggregate responses to determine eligibility.

Note: Stats cover email performance only. There’s currently no analytics on the signup form itself — no per-question drop-off, view counts, or completion rate. If signups are low, you won’t get a funnel breakdown showing where people are dropping off.

​

Results

• Repository — View the artifacts related to this study.
• Summary — See both a high-level and participant-level view of your Signup Form results. Use the Export CSV button toward the top right to export.

​

Best Practices

Share the link Great Question generates for your signup form. Using the intended link (not a bookmarked or modified URL) is what routes participants through your screener as expected. Review new candidates periodically. Panel signups aren’t validated for things like duplicate or malformed email addresses today, so a quick periodic check of new candidates helps keep your database clean. Keep a large default panel for general use, then create smaller panels for specific target groups. Short forms complete better, so focus on what matters most, and use reminder automations to keep your panel warm. Apply segments after people join, not before. Since segmentation happens against your candidate database, think of it as organizing panelists for future recruiting rather than a way to pre-qualify who can sign up. Test the form yourself before leaning on iteration. Since there’s no drop-off or completion analytics to diagnose a low-converting form after the fact, your best signal is walking through it yourself (or asking a colleague to) before it’s live — check length, clarity, and whether required questions feel like a chore.

​

Troubleshooting

Issue	What’s Happening	How to Fix
Panel study not appearing	You may be viewing My Studies instead of studies created by others.	Switch to All Studies to see panels created by your teammates.
Wrong consent form is used	The study’s Plan settings point to a different consent form than expected.	Go to Plan → Consent and confirm the correct consent form is selected.
Low signup rate	Long forms and unclear landing-page messaging both suppress completion — but since there’s no drop-off analytics, you won’t see exactly where people are leaving.	Shorten the form, refine the landing-page messaging, and test the flow yourself. Check screener responses for patterns if a screener is in use.
Recruitment is live but participation is low, with no clear reason why	There’s no funnel visibility into the signup form — no view counts, per-question drop-off, or completion rate are tracked today.	Narrow it down manually: confirm the signup link and landing page are correct, review screener responses for obvious friction points, and consider shortening the form.
New signups not appearing as candidates	The Candidates page may not have refreshed, or the participant didn’t fully complete the form.	Refresh the Candidates page and confirm the participant completed the signup form.
Participant attributes not saving	A signup question isn’t mapped to the candidate attribute it’s meant to update.	Review Signup Form → Attributes and confirm responses are mapped correctly.
Participants not receiving emails	Automation settings, email configuration, or a bad participant email address can each block delivery.	Check Automations, confirm email settings, and verify participant email addresses.
Can’t turn on External Recruitment for this study	Panel studies can’t use External Recruitment — it’s one or the other, not both.	If you need to recruit from an outside marketplace, create a different study type instead of a Panel.
A returning panelist has to fill out the whole form again	There’s currently no shortcut for returning participants — every signup goes through the full form, including consent.	This is expected today; there’s no way to pre-fill or skip steps for repeat signups yet.

---

Still need help? Contact us at support@greatquestion.co — median response time is 19 minutes during support hours.