What is it Like to Use Walr for Online Market Research?
In order to understand what it is like to use Walr’s technology and services for online market research, Marketing Director, Beth went undercover as a secret shopper…

How do Insights Professionals Perform Online Market Research with Walr?
I’ve been working at Walr for over 2 years, promoting their technology and services to insight professionals globally. I’ve had many demos of the platform, I’ve heard first-hand from customers what the service is like, and I know the team delivering the projects are all very good at what they do. However, I’m not a researcher, so I’ve been doing what any marketer would – taking what I’ve seen and running with it.
Yet, as everyone says, the key to marketing is “understanding your customer”. So, I decided to go a step further and jump into our clients’ shoes, to see what it was really like to collect data using Walr’s technology and services.
*Full disclaimer: I have a background in biology, I previously worked as an accountant and prior to this role I was at a cloud technology company – so I have no clue about the technical detail of collecting quantitative data. So, if I can do it, I figured others would be able to as well. Let’s go!
How I Found My Research Question
Before I could act out my ‘Secret Shopper’ plan, I had to find a research question. Given Black Friday is just around the corner, I thought that would be a good place to start. I then did what any millennial would do and turned to ChatGPT for some key themes surrounding the event.
With the help of my AI companion, I came up with the following hypotheses. That:
- Spending habits will be impacted by inflation and cost of living increases
- People will shop more online this Black Friday than in person
- Black Friday deals will start before Thanksgiving
- Cyber Monday is a more popular event for consumers than Black Friday
Hypotheses drafted and questions written. It was time to bring in the data collection experts.
My Secret Shopper Experience at Walr
Step 1: Sending a Quote
For this particular survey, I wanted to reach 2,000 people in the US, I wanted the interview to be no more than 5 minutes in length, and for the results to be delivered in PowerPoint. With my budget in mind, I sent my quote to the team.
Within 30 minutes I had a thumbs up and a price far cheaper than what I had allocated. Next up: survey programming.
Step 2: Building My Survey
I had two options here: I could program the survey myself, using Survey Builder and its handy templated questions; or I could get the deluxe experience and ask the team to do it for me (the obvious option for me).
I sent my questionnaire across and let the experts work their magic. When my survey had been scripted, I was sent a test link to run through the respondents’ experience.
Step 3: Finding the Audience
Once I had signed the survey off, we were ready to fill our quota. I enlisted the help of Walr’s Project Management team to recruit respondents using its multi-source, panel agnostic approach.
As part of this process, all panellists passed through Walr’s proprietary quality control tool, Gatekeeper, so I had extra confidence in the final data.
With the quota filled, we could move on to the fun part – visualizing the results.
Step 4: Reporting on the Data
This was the part I was looking forward to, manipulating the data in Analysis & Reporting. Why? I just really like drag-and-drop interfaces that instantly show aesthetic charts… I am in marketing after all.
With the tool, I was able to visualize my data so that it was easy to interpret and share with others. I had the ability to drill down into different demographics and questions to craft my narrative. If I had any queries, I had Walr’s Data Processing team on hand for support.
There was the option to perform advanced statistical analysis, but as I’ve mentioned, I’m not an expert. The ability to keep things simple, meant I had no headaches.
Step 5: Generating the Insights
With my data to hand, expertly turned into charts I could share with others, I was ready to delve into the insights…
Except I didn’t do this part, because that’s not our bag. However, if you would like to see the raw data and come up with your own insights around what consumers think about Black Friday, contact us to get access.
Below is a sneak peek of a chart I created with my data.
Book a demotoday.
Do you want to see our Black Friday data AND get a tour of the Walr Platform? Contact us today.