Keeping Your Data Clean
As technology becomes more sophisticated (such as AI deepfakes), fraudulent responses are a growing issue in the market research community, for both large and small research operations. It can cause long- and short-term damage even amongst the most vigilant of firms, and it’s not just about data quality or incentive budgets. It could also mean lost future business if high-profile clients decide to cut off the partnership.
In fact, according to Tremendous in its blog, “7 ways to protect your market research data from fraud,” “Fraudsters cost the market research industry an estimated $350 million in 2024 — about 10% of total incentive spend across the industry.” Tremendous further notes that damage is often not limited to data integrity: “There’s a lot of cleanup to do after fraud infiltrates a study. Research teams must often re-run compromised studies, implement new security measures, and dedicate staff time to fraud investigation. This creates substantial operational overhead. In-the-moment consequences aren’t the only type, either. Businesses may lose future revenue if high-value clients break ties after a fraud incident. In short, fraudulent market research data cracks the foundation of an organization. It’s crucial to know the signs that your research could be compromised. The sooner you catch potentially phony responses, the easier it is to keep your data clean.”
To prevent or reduce fraud and combat scammers, Tremendous advises using a multilayered approach. This includes:
- Use multilayered identity verification techniques: When you’re building a pool of participants, use more than one technique to verify each person’s identity. The strongest authentication combines digital identity verification tools with human oversight.
- Send single-use survey links: One of the easiest ways to prevent multiple submissions from one respondent is to generate unique, single-use URLs for each participant. Add a time-based expiration to the codes to make it even harder to reuse them.
- Use adaptive survey designs: When you design your survey, use dynamic questioning that adjusts based on a participant’s previous responses. This makes it harder for bots and fraudsters to provide consistent fake answers throughout a survey.
- Perform pattern analysis on the responses: Compare all incoming survey data against historical survey results to spot any inconsistencies. Establish baseline metrics for typical response patterns in your research and create automated alerts for responses that deviate significantly from these expected patterns.
- Audit data throughout every stage of your research process: Don’t wait until your study is done before you check the quality of the responses. Instead, make it a habit to monitor response quality in real time. This way, you can catch fraud attempts before they contaminate your full dataset.
- Build fraud prevention into your incentives workflows: One of the simplest ways to help prevent market research fraud is to choose a research incentive platform with built-in fraud detection. A robust solution will use AI and custom rules to detect suspicious patterns in real time. Look for features that analyze browser, IP, device, and payment destination data to flag recipients who are cycling through multiple identities.
- Create an exclusion list of previously blocked fraudsters: Maintain a database of known fraudulent participants and their identifying information across all your studies. Share this fraud data across your organization to prevent repeat offenders from trying to participate in new projects.
Identifying Fraud Patterns in Market Research
During TMRE 2025, Prateek Mehta, Head of Product, Fraud, at Tremendous, will hold the session, “Unmasking Fraudsters: Insights to Stop Fraud and Save Money.” Fraud is a significant and growing problem in the market research industry, impacting budgets and data quality. In this session, we’ll examine the size of the issue, share practical methods to identify fraudsters, and explore tools that can help prevent fraud in your research. Gain actionable insights to protect your studies, safeguard your budget, and ensure the integrity of your data.
Key takeaways: gain insights into the scale of fraud in the market research industry; discover effective methods for identifying fraudulent participants; learn how to implement fraud prevention solutions to protect budgets and ensure data integrity.
Staying Vigilant to Prevent Data Fraud
The issues surrounding market research fraud are not going away anytime soon. In fact, as technology such as AI has developed, it’s becoming more challenging for detection tools to keep up.
According to Tremendous, the global AI in fraud detection market is projected to reach $108.3 billion by 2033, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.5%, reflecting the industry’s urgent need for advanced protection.
“Next-generation fraud prevention combines behavioral analysis, real-time monitoring, and machine learning to identify suspicious patterns that identity verification alone would miss. These impactful systems examine response timing, linguistic patterns, and cross-study behaviors to catch experienced fraudsters before they contaminate datasets,” advises Tremendous.
High-profile fraud cases, unfortunately, will not be going away anytime soon. Let that serve as a wake-up call for the industry. “It’s time to adopt comprehensive fraud prevention strategies,” says Tremendous. “For market research firms like yours, success depends on building one that evolves as quickly as the threats themselves. By implementing multilayered verification, adaptive survey designs, and collaborative fraud detection networks, you are better positioned to protect both the quality of their data and the trust partners have in their brand.”
Video: “Ep. 6 – Fraud, AI, and the Broken Supply Chain of Research with Tyler Lewtan, CEO of Zintro,” courtesy of Happy Market Research.
