The New ResTech Landscape

The second version of the ResTech landscape is finally complete. When we launched the first iteration of the scape, we couldn’t have imagined the attention it would receive and the collaboration it would generate. I believe the ResTech scape is helping all of us to find our place in this broad, continuously-expanding industry.

Through all of this, we learned quite a bit about the industry and how companies work together within it. In our ideating, we’ve found two things to be true. First, we learned that the ResTech scape will never be perfect; it will always be a work in progress. So, if you find yourself reconsidering the way we’ve categorized your company or others in the space, please continue to share your feedback.

Second, we decided to create some rules around placing companies in categories: there is one bucket per company unless a company is truly a top-three player in another. We also solidified the definitions we use to define the four major areas of the landscape and the various categories within it. For those of you who are curious about how we defined each ResTech category, the definitions can be found at the bottom of this post.

Thank You All

Lastly, I also have to thank everyone who shared feedback on the ResTech landscape. Without the immeasurable time and expertise contributed toward this project, the finished product wouldn’t be anywhere near as comprehensive as it is today. Special thanks to all of the companies listed below.

Adidas	Global Surveys	Oculid
Advanis	GlobaLexicon	OnePulse
Aha!	GMO Research	Opinion Capital
Alida	Google	Paradigm Sample
Amazon	Grassy Pathways	Permira
ANOVAX Research	Gray Matter Thinking	Phebi.AI
Apothem	GroupSolver	Pilotly
Appinio	Guaipeca	Pollfish
Applied Marketing Science	Guidepost Growth Equity	Potentiate
Arborwood Partners	HarmonizeAi	Potloc
Askia	Hearsay Platform	Powr of You
Astro	Helixa	Prodege
Attest	Highlight	Protobrand
b3intelligence	IDG Enterprises	Q One Tech
BAV Group	iMAD Research	Q2 Insights
Big Sofa Technologies	inBrain	Quantilope
BitBurst GmbH	Infotools	QuestionPro
Borderless Access	Ingress	Qutee
Braingineers	InMoment	Realeyes
Brightstar	Insaas GmbH	Remesh
CatalystMR	Insights Association	Research Management technologies
Catalyx	Insights Network	Research on Mobile – ROM
Cauliflower GmbH	Insights Platform	Research Strategy Group
Cerenti Marketing Group	Intellex Dynamic Reporting	response:AI
Chadwick Martin Bailey	intelliSurvey	Revelry Labs
Civis Analytics	Internet Research Bureau	Rival Technologies
Clyx	Ipsos	RIWI
College Pulse	Ipsos Mori	Robas Research
Comscore	IRI	Rubinson Partners, inc.
Conjoint.ly	JTN Research	Rybbon
CULTURE ENGINEERS	Kantar	SaaSconversion.io
Currant Fielding	Kantar Marketplace	SampleCon
DataDiggers	Kantar Media	Sawtooth
David Shanker Consulting	Kantar Profiles	ScanmarQED
Dialsmith	KPMG	Schlesinger Group
Directions Research	Latana	SKIM
DISQO	Lewers Research	SPLENDID RESEARCH
Dumbstruck	LivePanel	STRAT7
Dynata	Madai	SurveyMonkey
e-mazing	MAi Reseearch	Sweet Insight Group
EasyMovie	Market Cube	Tap Research
eCGlobal	Maru Blue	Tchibo GmbH
ECI Research	McClatchy	The Experience Agency
Embee Mobile	MDI	Theorem Reach
Escalent	MDRG	Toluna
Eureka	Measure Protocol	Total play
Excelerate Digital	Medallia	Tremendous
EyeSee	Mercury Analytics	TripleScoop
Feedback Loop	Michelin	Trusted Talent LLC
Fieldwork Inc.	MindProber	W5 Insight
FocusVision	MIS Group	Wiseworks
Fuel Cycle	mo’web reseach	Wizer
Further	Nebu	Zappi
GapFish GmbH	NewMR	Ziff Davis
Gazelle Global Research Services	Nielsen	Zinklar
GfK	NielsenIQ
	NW Compass Point Consulting

ResTech Category Definitions

Research – Typically Marketing Research Agencies (MRAs) have large teams of researchers and professionals who can design survey instruments that answer their customers key questions.  MRAs have large centralized teams that manage the entire data collection process from end to end.

Consulting Firms – Typically Consulting Firms have large teams of consultants and professionals who can uncover their customer key challenge and implement change.  Consulting firms have many decentralized teams that hire third party agencies, market makers, or audience companies to manage the entire data collection process.

Full Stack Survey Platform – A survey platform that is typically used as a general purpose survey tool that can fill a significant number of research methodologies and use cases.  FSSP companies also provide a deep data analysis and visualization capability. Usually, these platforms offer the user maximum flexibility in terms of survey design and data analysis.

Agile Research – A survey platform that is typically used as a specific purpose tool or fully automated tool with a limited number of research methodologies and use cases.  Agile research platforms provide analysis and visualization based on the subset of methodologies that they support.  These  platforms tend to offer the user speed, agility, and automation instead of breadth of flexibility of survey design and data analysis.

CX Specific -A technology platform that allows businesses to measure, manage and improve their customer experience, by collecting information about each customer’s interactions with the company, analyzing it and interpreting outcomes and responses.

Employee Experience – A technology platform that allows businesses to measure, manage and improve their employee experience, by collecting information about each employee’s interactions with the company, analyzing it and interpreting outcomes and responses.

Media Measurement – A platform that allows businesses to measure the reach and effectiveness of their media across all the devices their consumers use.

Marketplaces – A platform where buyers and sellers of research respondents meet to efficiently transact.  Marketplaces don’t typically own their own panel assets or develop research but rather focus on matching buyers and sellers in a stable, quality controlled environment.

Mobile Ethnography – A platform that allows the observation of consumers in a natural environment (not a survey), allowing you to gain a reliable understanding of their behavior, values, and beliefs.

User Experience – A platform aimed at understanding the digital user experience, finding insights and identifying issues so that developers and product managers can improve their products.

AB Testing & Optimization – A platform or tool that allows researchers to test making a change to an experience or design against a control. Researchers can target the effect of different changes on different groups and deliver insights which help optimize outcomes.

Social Polling – A platform which combines social media and opinion polling to deliver natively sourced feedback.

Syndicated Insights – A platform which focuses solely on specific types of data to provide a broad long-term view of a product or service environment. Rather than custom market research, syndicated insights can provide turnkey data for researchers to start with.

Brand Tracking – A platform or tool that can provide longitudinal data to examine the attitudes toward and awareness of a brand over a set period of time.

Communities – A Company with an at-the-ready pool of respondents who’ve opted in for ongoing research engagement. These respondents can provide a high degree of speed and efficiency and are a core tool for agile research.

Eye Tracking – A technology that can use various types of hardware for user experience testing to measure a users attention by tracking where their eyes are looking.

Qualitative – A platforms that researches a respondent’s motivations, thoughts, and attitudes towards a product or ad. Qualitative research brings depth to data collection analysis by providing context and insight to confirm a hypothesis.

Text Analytics – A platform that translates unstructured text into quantitative data to uncover insights trends, and patterns. This technique enables companies to understand the sentiment of customers by studying patterns in text.

Social Media Listening and Analytics – A platform that monitors online conversations taking place via social media and can be used for brand tracking, competitor analysis, crisis management, trend monitoring, audience profiling, and more.

Dashboards, Visualization, and Infographics – A platform that enables a researcher to take data and visualize it in various ways with the goal of finding patterns and insights and being able to translate data into a visually coherent form.

Survey Analysis – A platform or tool that helps researchers analyze the results of their surveys via data tables, dashboards, visualizations, advanced analytics, and more.

Visual Analytics – A platform that allows researchers to analyze visual assets and identify attributes and design influences that are translated into insights.

Statistics & Data Science – A platform that allows researchers to run complicated quantitative analysis on a range of sources. They can include advanced statistical methods and may also include visualizations and dashboards as well.

SEO & Keyword Search – A technology that gives insight into how frequently and when certain words are searched in order to drive strategy around how a product optimizes itself for online search.

Global Audiences –  Broadly, the term “audience” refers to the modern definition of panel or sample – meaning how users or respondents are recruited into ResTech platforms.  Global Audience companies have large volumes of capacity in all four major research regions:  NA, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM.

Regional Audiences – Regional Audience companies either focus on one or two regions at the most.

Market Makers – These are typically data collection and sample fielding specialists that provide buyers with the tools and services needed to succeed in their research objectives.  These tools and services include matching buyers with sellers, programming and hosting, translation, data cleaning, data reporting, and more. Market Makers play an integral role in the overall ecosystem with a strong correlation to their role in financial services.

DMP / Identity – A platform that unifies, collects, organizes, and activates first, second, and third- party audience data supporting data-driven marketing and customer insights.

Expert Networks – A company that specializes in connecting researchers with subject matter experts who can deliver high quality insights on a variety of topics.

Quality – A platform that helps researchers get a better sense of the quality and suitability of a respondent for a survey in order to raise the integrity of a research project.

Loyalty – A platform which helps companies reward or incentivize user behavior often by managing the process of sending gifts or prizes to customers and respondents.

Behavioral Analytics – A platform that focuses on collecting and analyzing patterns of online human behavior, providing insight into the actions of users in order to optimize for specific business outcomes.

CRM – Customer relationship management platforms help organizations manage and administer their interactions with customers, often yielding a large volume of first party data which organizations can use to better understand their customers.