{"id":12043,"date":"2016-01-31T21:37:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T21:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sisinternational.com\/online-market-research\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T09:55:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:55:33","slug":"%e7%bd%91%e4%b8%8a%e5%b8%82%e5%9c%ba%e7%a0%94%e7%a9%b6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sisinternational.com\/zh\/%e7%bd%91%e4%b8%8a%e5%b8%82%e5%9c%ba%e7%a0%94%e7%a9%b6\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Online Market Research? A B2B Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"SIS<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

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Online Market Research can be either Qualitative or Quantitative.  Qualitative Online Tools include Video Ethnography and Market Research Online Communities (MROCs).  Quantitative Online Methods include mobile and app surveys.<\/p>\n

This research can evaluate the performance of a product or service and may allow companies to glean insight into consumer purchasing behavior. With the rising use of the Internet, online \u7814\u7a76<\/a> has become a popular tool among market research firms.<\/p>\n

\u5728\u7ebf\u7814\u7a76\u53ef\u4ee5\u63d0\u4f9b\u6709\u5173\u4e70\u5bb6\u7684\u66f4\u591a\u4fe1\u606f\uff0c\u4f8b\u5982\u5979\u4e4b\u524d\u7684\u8d2d\u4e70\u5386\u53f2\u3002\u5728\u7ebf\u7814\u7a76\u9879\u76ee\u53ef\u4ee5\u7531\u516c\u53f8\u81ea\u5df1\u8fdb\u884c\uff0c\u4e5f\u53ef\u4ee5\u7531\u53d7\u96c7\u7684\u7814\u7a76\u516c\u53f8\u8fdb\u884c\u3002<\/p>\n

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In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of recorded household Internet users, making online shopping more popular.\u00a0 As businesses have become more global and virtual, their target audience has expanded well beyond any specific geographical location.\u00a0 A company can conduct an online survey in which it selects is respondents from all over the world in a less costly manner than it would with mail, telephone, or in-person interviews.<\/p>\n

Online retail and transactions have become more popular in recent years. In countries like the U.S., where the internet is readily available to almost every household, online retail spending is expected to increase. As consumers increase their participation in online shopping, it may become more convenient for retailers to maintain a database of their consumers\u2019 purchasing history.  Companies can effectively utilize this data throughout the course of their online research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What Is Online Market Research and How Leading B2B Firms Use It<\/h1>\n

Online market research is the digital collection of buyer, competitor, and market evidence through structured instruments deployed over the web. For Fortune 500 industrial leaders, it has shifted from a tactical survey channel into a primary intelligence layer feeding pricing, product, and capital allocation decisions.<\/p>\n

The category covers programmatic surveys, online B2B expert interviews, digital ethnography, mobile diaries, online communities, virtual car clinics, remote usability sessions, and passive behavioral tracking. Each instrument answers a different question. Treating them as substitutes is the most common error executives make when scoping a study.<\/p>\n

Why Online Market Research Has Become a Strategic Asset<\/h2>\n

Three forces moved online market research from cost-saver to strategic asset. Buyer access improved as senior engineers, procurement leaders, and plant managers became reachable through verified professional panels. Instrument quality improved as max-diff, conjoint, and Van Westendorp pricing models became natively digital. Speed compressed: a global pricing study that once required twelve weeks now closes in four.<\/p>\n

The implication for industrial markets is concrete. Installed base analytics, aftermarket revenue strategy, and supplier qualification audits can now be informed by buyer evidence inside a single planning cycle rather than after the budget is set. That timing shift is where the competitive advantage sits.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

According to SIS International Research, B2B industrial clients running quarterly online tracking against a fixed buyer panel detect share-of-wallet shifts roughly two quarters earlier than clients relying on annual studies, which materially changes how account teams sequence retention investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The Methods That Define Modern Online Market Research<\/h2>\n

The instruments cluster into four working categories. Each has a defensible use case and a failure mode when misapplied.<\/p>\n

Quantitative Online Studies<\/h3>\n

Programmatic surveys, conjoint exercises, and pricing studies sized to detect statistically meaningful differences across segments. The discipline is sample design. A study fielded against a generic B2B panel will not reliably reach Tier 1 OEM procurement leaders at Caterpillar, Siemens Energy, or Honeywell. Targeted recruitment from verified professional networks and industry associations is what separates a directional read from a defensible one.<\/p>\n

Qualitative Online Research<\/h3>\n

Video-based depth interviews, online focus groups, and asynchronous bulletin boards. The strength is reach. A single study can convene specifiers from twelve countries in a working week. The discipline is moderation. B2B industrial topics, total cost of ownership debates, predictive maintenance sizing, reshoring feasibility, demand technical fluency from the moderator, not just facilitation skill.<\/p>\n

Online Communities and Panels<\/h3>\n

Standing buyer panels engaged across multiple touchpoints over six to twenty-four months. The output is longitudinal: how positions on bill of materials decisions, supplier consolidation, or aftermarket service pricing evolve as conditions change. Panels are the closest online analog to having a permanent listening post inside the buyer organization.<\/p>\n

Passive and Behavioral Data<\/h3>\n

Search trend analysis, digital footprint tracking, review mining, and procurement portal monitoring. These signals are unbiased by survey artifact. They are also incomplete on their own. The value sits in triangulating passive signals against structured interviews to confirm what the behavior actually means.<\/p>\n

Where Online Market Research Outperforms Traditional Methods<\/h2>\n

Online market research is not a cheaper version of in-person work. It is a different instrument with different strengths. The firms extracting the most value have stopped framing the choice as online versus offline and started matching method to decision.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Decision Type<\/th>\nMethod Strength<\/th>\nTypical Cycle<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Pricing and packaging<\/td>\nOnline conjoint, Van Westendorp, Gabor-Granger<\/td>\n4-6 weeks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Market entry sizing<\/td>\nOnline expert interviews plus desk research<\/td>\n6-10 weeks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Brand and message testing<\/td>\nOnline quantitative with qualitative follow-up<\/td>\n3-5 weeks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Product concept refinement<\/td>\nOnline communities, asynchronous boards<\/td>\n8-12 weeks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Win\/loss intelligence<\/td>\nVideo depth interviews with lost prospects<\/td>\n4-8 weeks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n

Source: SIS International Research<\/em><\/p>\n

The Quality Question Most Executives Underestimate<\/h2>\n

The single largest source of bad online research is sample. Generic panels optimized for consumer studies do not reliably deliver Fortune 500 industrial buyers. Bot traffic, professional respondents, and straight-lining inflate sample sizes while degrading signal. The firms that produce defensible work treat sourcing as a separate engineering problem from fielding.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SIS International’s B2B expert interview programs across industrial manufacturing, energy, and logistics consistently show that hand-recruited samples from named target accounts produce insight density three to five times higher than open-panel equivalents, even at smaller base sizes. The economic case for targeted recruitment is rarely close.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Three quality controls separate credible online market research from theater. First, attention and consistency checks embedded in the instrument, not bolted on after. Second, open-end coding by analysts who understand the vertical, so a comment about ISO 20022 migration or CMMC readiness is not flattened into a generic theme. Third, triangulation against a second method. A pricing study confirmed by win\/loss interviews carries weight that neither would alone.<\/p>\n

How Leading Industrial Firms Structure the Function<\/h2>\n

The pattern across high-performing industrial firms is consistent. Online market research sits inside a broader intelligence function that includes competitive intelligence, market entry assessments, and voice of customer programs. It is not a procurement line item managed against the lowest bid.<\/p>\n

Three structural choices distinguish the leaders. They maintain a small standing panel of named target accounts engaged quarterly, rather than commissioning ad hoc studies each time a question arises. They invest in instrument design once and field repeatedly, building trended data that compounds in value. They pair every quantitative study above a defined budget threshold with qualitative validation, refusing to act on numbers without understanding the mechanism behind them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Based on SIS International’s analysis of competitive intelligence engagements across industrial sectors, clients who institutionalize quarterly online tracking against a fixed buyer cohort are materially faster to detect category disruption than peers running episodic studies, particularly in aftermarket revenue strategy and supplier consolidation cycles.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The SIS View on Where Online Market Research Goes Next<\/h2>\n
\"SIS<\/figure>\n

The instruments will keep improving. The differentiator will increasingly be the integration layer: how online market research connects to internal CRM, win\/loss data, and pricing systems so insight reaches the decision rather than the deck. SIS International has spent four decades building primary intelligence programs across 135 countries, and the pattern that holds across verticals is simple. The firms that win are not the ones running the most studies. They are the ones whose buyer evidence flows into pricing, product, and capital decisions on the cycle those decisions actually run on.<\/p>\n

For VP-level decision makers scoping an online market research investment, the first question is not which platform or panel. It is which decisions the evidence needs to inform, on what cadence, and with what defensibility. Method follows from that. Budget follows from method.<\/p>\n

\u5173\u4e8e SIS \u56fd\u9645<\/h2>\n

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