To keep up with consumers today, CMOs and marketing leaders need to understand their target audience. We have to know what motivates people and the underlying factors driving their behaviors. This is where a top marketing research platform can help.
How? By streamlining how data about our target audience is collected and analyzed. But with so many insight solutions on the market, choosing the right marketing research solution can be challenging
As marketers, we know the value of delivering a great customer experience. That’s why when evaluating different marketing research platforms, we have to look not just for robust functionalities, but also the experience they provide research participants.
A marketing research platform is a technology solution that enables organizations to systematically collect, manage, and analyze audience feedback and data to generate actionable insights. It typically includes tools for survey creation, respondent recruitment, data collection (quantitative, qualitative and video), and reporting.
Used by marketers and insight professionals, market research platforms streamline decision-making by making it easy and scalable to have your pulse on your market. These tools deliver insights that help inform better marketing campaigns and business strategy.
Not all research platforms are created equal. As you evaluate options, there are several key features and capabilities that distinguish the top-tier solutions from the rest. Below are some of the most important elements to look out for:
The quality of your marketing research starts with your ability to engage the right participants.
Top platforms offer multiple ways to recruit and reach your target audience beyond just basic email lists or panels. Look for capabilities like multi-channel recruiting (email, SMS, social media invites, WhatsApp, etc.), integration with trusted sample providers, and even the ability to tap into your own customer databases.
For example, a strong platform might allow social-media sampling (via channels like TikTok, Facebook, Reddit) to find niche audiences. Integration with your CRM is also valuable, so you can easily invite your own customers or segment them for studies
Also, look for ways to automate recruitment and screening — for instance, by selecting participants based on profile attributes or past engagement, ensuring you’re always talking to relevant people
If surveys coming out of your marketing research platform feel like a chore, people won’t complete them. It’s really that simple.
That’s why the best platforms focus on participant experience, enabling you to create surveys that are conversational, interactive, and mobile-first. This means the survey interface might mimic a chat or messaging app, making respondents feel like they’re in a friendly conversation rather than a formal interrogation
A mobile-optimized UI is crucial — today’s consumers (especially younger ones like Gen Zs) are far more likely to respond via smartphone rather than logging in from their desktop. Features like SMS survey links, chat-style question flow, and even gamification or multimedia questions can dramatically boost engagement.
Also pay attention to the platform’s survey authoring tools. Top platforms provide a wide range of question types (single-choice, multiple-select, rating scales, image-based questions, video or audio prompts, etc.) along with advanced logic, branching, and skip patterns to design sophisticated questionnaires.
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AI-powered features can further enhance this process. For instance, some platforms offer AI tools to refine the tone of your questions to match your brand’s voice. Afterall, marketing research IS a brand touchpoint. AI tools can make survey creation easier and the output more engaging for respondents.
In short, the best marketing research platform enables you to create conversational surveys that people enjoy taking, leading to higher response and completion rates – which ultimately improves your data quality.
When it comes to deeply understanding your audience, numbers alone don’t tell the full story. It’s the emotions and the additional context that delivers unexpected insights that lead to get marketing campaigns.
That’s why leading marketing research platforms allow you to capture BOTH qualitative insights and quantitative data in one touchpoint. This includes open-ended text responses, photo uploads, and increasingly, video feedback from respondents. Having qual and quant integrated in one marketing research platform is a HUGE advantage, as it lets you “triangulate” the data – for example, you can validate survey stats with verbatim quotes or explore the emotion behind the numbers via video clips.
Look for the ability to easily prompt respondents to record video. These rich media responses can humanize your data and often yield deeper insights (people tend to share more when speaking freely). According to our research-on-research, insights can be up to 8x richer when people respond via video in a conversational fashion.
Another feature to look out for: automatic probing. AI tools like Smart Probe Text can help you automatically ask relevant follow-up questions from open-ends. When paired with Thoughtfulness Scoring, this functionality lets you capture richer qual feedback without annoying your participants!
Collecting data is only half the battle – a top marketing research tool should help you analyze and present insights quickly. Modern platforms come with robust analytics and reporting tools built in. On the quantitative side, expect features like real-time dashboards, automated charting, statistical significance testing, crosstab analysis, and the ability to easily export results (to Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
On the qualitative side, look for AI-driven analytics such as text summarization and sentiment analysis of open-ends. For example, the software might automatically summarize hundreds of free-text responses into key themes, or gauge the sentiment (positive/negative tone) of comments to help you understand the emotional drivers. These AI capabilities save researchers tons of time and help turn raw feedback into clear, actionable findings.
In a global marketing tech stack, your research platform shouldn’t operate in a silo. That’s why if you’re talking to marketing research vendors, you should insist on easy integration with other systems and a secure, scalable infrastructure for data management.
Check for APIs and webhooks that allow survey data to flow into your other tools (CRM, marketing automation, BI dashboards) automatically. Some marketing research platforms (like Rival Technologies) provide native integrations or connectors (e.g. through Zapier) to sync data across applications without coding.
Security and compliance are non-negotiable for enterprise marketing research platforms. Features like Single Sign-On (SSO) and user management let your team use the platform securely and collaboratively with existing credentials
The best customer research platforms should support compliance with privacy laws (GDPR, etc.), have robust data encryption, and ideally hold certifications (for example, ISO 27001, SOC 2, or HIPAA if healthcare-related) to give you confidence in their data handling. Top providers will be transparent about their security measures and may offer features like role-based access control to protect sensitive insights.
Finally, scalability matters: ensure the platform can handle the volume of data and participants you need, including support for multi-language surveys if you run international research. A globally capable platform will let you deploy surveys in various regions and languages while managing all the data in one place — crucial for insight teams at multinational organizations.
While robust marketing research capabilities are important, don’t overlook usability and vendor support.
The platform should have an intuitive interface for both researchers (building surveys, analyzing results) and participants (taking surveys). Clean dashboards, drag-and-drop survey builders, and automated workflows (like scheduling surveys or sending reminders) all contribute to a user-friendly experience. This ease of use will save your team time and encourage adoption across your organization.
Equally important is the level of customer support and services provided. Some companies want a DIY tool, while others prefer more guidance or even full-service research support. The best marketing research companies will offer flexibility when it comes to services. Ask whether you’ll have access to a dedicated customer success manager or support team who can assist with training, study design, and best practices.
An excellent support team can drastically increase the success of your marketing research projects — it’s like having an extension of your insights team. In fact, many Rival Technologies customers value the partnership and expertise that come with its customer success services.
In summary, the best marketing research platforms combine powerful technology with human support to ensure you can fully leverage the tools.
Once you have a shortlist of promising marketing research providers, it’s wise to speak with each vendor and ask detailed questions to assess fit. Below are some key questions to consider:
Asking these questions will not only give you concrete information, but also a sense of how the vendor communicates and supports its clients. The answers should help you discern which platform will be the best partner for your insights needs.
If you’re looking to get closer to your consumers, Rival Technologies is a top solution for effective marketing research. The reason is simple: Rival built a conversational research platform designed to engage modern consumers and deliver insights quickly.
Rival pioneered a chat-like survey experience that feels natural on mobile devices. This approach has led to exceptional engagement. For example, Carnival Cruise Line’s insight community (powered by Rival) sees 83% response rates from participants of all ages — a testament to how enjoyable and easy the experience is for respondents. Participants often respond within hours, not days, allowing you to get marketing insights in real-time.
Rival’s conversational UI and mobile outreach (e.g. via SMS) are especially effective at reaching younger demographics as well as typically hard-to-engage groups like Gen Z.
With Rival, researchers and marketers can capture quantitative data, qualitative feedback, and video responses in one platform. This was a huge benefit for Carnival, whose insight community could share not just ratings but also record video feedback, bringing the data to life for stakeholders.
Many companies use Rival to run insight communities (ongoing engagement with a group of consumers) where they can continuously collect rich audience feedback. For instance, John Deere launched a next-gen multi-market insight community through Rival to harvest deeper, faster insights from customers across different regions. The ability to combine survey results with video testimonials or in-the-moment mobile diary entries makes Rival a powerful tool for storytelling and understanding the “why” behind the numbers.
AI-powered analysis and fast insights: Rival Technologies has AI features that enhance — not replace — your capabilities as a researcher. Our conversational research platform includes tools for AI-based probing as well as summarization, helping insight teams quickly synthesize unstructured data. These intelligent features ensure that rather than replacing researchers, the technology augments their work – allowing humans to focus on strategy and interpretation.
The result is faster time-to-insights without sacrificing data quality. Insight teams that use Rival Technologies often note that they can deliver results to their leadership much quicker than before. In one case, a Rival client was able to gather and present actionable feedback to decision-makers in under 24 hours — something that would have been impossible with traditional methods
One of the reasons why Rival is a top marketing research platform is because it doesn't sit in isolation. It offers integrations (including an open API) to connect with panels (through our Voice of Market solution) or and with enterprise systems like CRMs. A great example of Rival’s integration capability is Brunswick Corporation, which connected their system of record (customer database) with a Rival-powered insight community to obtain a more nuanced understanding of their customers (in this case, boaters).
One factor that makes Rival one of the best marketing research technology companies today is its customer support and full suite of research serivces.
Users consistently praise Rival’s customer success team for being proactive partners in their research programs. Whether you need technical onboarding, survey design advice, or help interpreting results, Rival’s team is there to help. This flexible service model means you’re not just buying software — you’re gaining a true extension of your team.
👉 If you’d like to see how much Rival customers love our customer success team, feel free to check out our G2 reviews!
In summary, Rival Technologies offers all the key features you want from the best marketing research platform – and it does so with an emphasis on engagement, speed, and service.
Rival’s platform is built for the modern era of marketing and insights, where conversational engagement and AI-powered efficiency go hand in hand. If you’re searching for a top marketing research platform that can operate globally and check all the boxes we’ve outlined, Rival Technologies is certainly worth your consideration. The combination of an innovative toolset and real-world success stories (like those above) makes Rival a compelling partner for any insights leader or CMO looking to elevate their research capabilities.
Investing in the right marketing research platform will ultimately drive more accurate insights, stronger customer relationships, and better business outcomes. By focusing on the features that matter and asking the right questions, you can confidently choose a platform that will be your ally in understanding your market. Rival Technologies is one such ally that has proven it can deliver on this promise.
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