As a marketeer or researcher, you want neuromarketing insights that are both reliable and relevant. With our phones, laptops, or tablets, humans are online all the time. This gives a unique chance to gather real-world insights quickly and at scale. But how do you make the most of this opportunity while keeping your results trustworthy? In this blog, some of the benefits and limitations of online neuromarketing research are addressed. FaceReader Online is based on the desktop version of FaceReader. In some cases, you might want to invite participants to the controllable surroundings of your lab or office, but doing online research also has its benefits. This blog can help you choose the right solution for your study.
Easily include participants from all over the world
FaceReader Online allows testing to occur at home or other settings (like a living lab or restaurant). These more natural environments can elicit more ‘real’ facial reactions or viewing behavior. It also enables reaching a broad and diverse audience, including populations in different cities or countries and non-student populations. This will make your research either more generalizable to a wide population or allow you to test a specific sub-population which is otherwise difficult to reach. For example, most on-site lab tests operate in normal business working hours, e.g. 9-17, while large segments of the population can only attend such tests outside these hours.
When you do not have to invite participants to your lab/office, it becomes easier to recruit large numbers of participants. There is (practically) no limitation on how many people can be tested at the same time, which significantly speeds up data collection. It is more cost-effective because your participants will spend less time on the study, and you will not have to pay for travel expenses. Recruiting participants is also simple and can be done directly via FaceReader Online.
Running a lab-based study often takes months: setting up equipment, coordinating tools, and scheduling participants. With online research, you can design your study and collect data in as little as a week. This makes FaceReader Online perfect not just for full research projects, but also for quick pre-testing. So you can refine ans select your stimuli before investing in a full lab study.
Limitations of online research
There are also some limitations when doing online research. The quality of the recordings could be lower, due to bad lighting or low quality cameras. You do not control the setting in which the data is collected, so camera position could be suboptimal. Therefore, it is important to instruct your participants well (see tips in this blog). It is, however, likely that you will have to exclude more participants than in a lab study, but with the lower costs, you can easily compensate for the loss of participants by collecting more data. Therefore, with appropriate preparations in advance, you can create an equally reliable study with online data collection.
FaceReader Online is ideal for measuring reactions to video stimuli, questions, or website visits. You can randomize or combine these tasks to form a complex design. However, if your research requires human supervision or a combination with tools such as EEG, the desktop version of FaceReader is a better fit. A lab setting is also recommended when you need to capture very brief micro-expressions, as it requires higher-quality data and a higher frame rate.
Pricing model
When purchasing FaceReader you get a license to use the software. This is a single investment, and then you can use it as much as you want. FaceReader Online is based on a system where you pay per minute of analysis; it can easily be used for a single project, for example, when you are uncertain how much you will use it. If you intend to use it regularly or for a large project, we offer several favorable bundles. If you already have the desktop version of FaceReader, you can also use FaceReader Online to collect data via the internet and then export your project into FaceReader for more advanced analysis (e.g. Action Unit analysis). See for example, this project that used a combination of FaceReader and FaceReader Online to develop a custom expression for engagement.
Getting started
Do you want inspiration for the type of research you can do with FaceReader Online? Have a look at our case studies.
Are you ready to start doing facial coding or eye tracking yourself? Just start a trial account for FaceReader Online, or if you do not want to do online research, contact Noldus for more information regarding FaceReader.
| Benefits | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Fast and easy | Lower quality data |
| Record in a natural environment | Less controllable environment |
| Reach a broad audience | Suitable for simpler studies |
| Low costs |