Good Words Are Worth Much, and Cost Little: Can Panel Maintenance Communication Be Effective in Increasing Survey Completion in a Volunteer Online Panel?

Abstract

Online panels tend to be more affected by nonresponse bias than cross-sectional online and offline surveys due to an accumulating effect of attrition over time. Further, nonprobability panels that do not offer monetary rewards can be more sensitive to nonparticipation, but the existing research on panel maintenance strategies to increase survey completion in nonprobability/volunteer online panels is still scarce. To identify between-wave communications that could serve as cost-effective panel maintenance activities to increase survey completion, a survey experiment was carried out, and two solutions were empirically tested: sending survey results in a report (a long report or an infographic) and sending a prenotification before the following survey (a short or a longer prenotification). The results showed a small effect of sending an infographic, either with or without a short prenotification. Additionally, a positive effect was observed when emailing a short prenotification to those who completed the previous survey questionnaire, indicating a differential impact of between-wave communication. In summary, this study demonstrates how the survey completion rate can be increased in nonprobability online panels with non-monetary incentives, which can be incorporated into panel maintenance strategies for different types of panels.