Targeting Subgroups and Why

Selecting the right audience is just as important as writing the right questions. The groups you target determine the quality, reliability, and usefulness of your results.

Targeting subgroups helps you:

• Focus your insights on the people who matter most to your decision.

• Avoid noise from respondents who aren’t relevant to your topic.

• Compare differences between key audiences (for example, customers vs. non-customers, or users of one brand vs. another).

• Ensure quality responses, since participants who meet your criteria are more likely to understand and engage with the content.

In the Audience section of the platform, you can apply filters or quotas to make sure you’re reaching the right mix of respondents. Common subgroup dimensions include:

• Demographics (age, gender, location)

• Behaviors (purchasing habits, category usage, brand familiarity)
  Attitudes (preferences, motivations, satisfaction levels)

You can use screeners at the start of your survey to confirm that participants fit your target profile before they continue.

• Start broad, refine later. If you’re unsure who to target, test multiple subgroups and compare results.

• Be realistic. The more specific your target, the harder it may be to find respondents - and the higher the cost / longer the field time. 

• Use quotas to maintain balance (for example, equal representation by region or age group).

• Document your rationale. Knowing why you targeted a certain group makes it easier to interpret and defend your findings later.

1. Use the WAVE functionality to clearly capture and compare results from different audiences or time periods. This makes it easy to combine data while keeping subgroup differences visible and organized.
   

2. Use the Crosstab tool if you’ve collected a broad sample and want to look at results by different subgroups (for example, by age, gender, or user type). Crosstabs allow you to slice your data dynamically and spot key patterns across groups.