Build the right audience, right from the start
Getting the right insights starts with reaching the right people. A message test that reaches the wrong audience produces the wrong answers, and an audience understanding study that can't find the people whose opinions are actually in play is just noise. That's why, for Grow Progress clients, audience definition has always been one of the most consequential decisions in the research design process. Today, we're making that process more powerful with a new audience-building workflow for both Rapid Message Tests and Audience Understanding Surveys.
The new workflow gives clients significantly more control over who they're reaching, earlier in the study setup process. Instead of specifying audience parameters through back-and-forth with a Grow Progress researcher, clients can now build their target audience directly in the platform, selecting from an expanded set of demographic, geographic, and political targeting options, and seeing estimated sample availability in real time before the study launches.
This is more than a workflow improvement. It changes what's possible. When you can see your audience composition in real time as you build it, you can make smarter tradeoffs: trading a little geographic specificity for a larger sample, or tightening a demographic filter to focus on exactly the slice of the electorate you need to understand. You can experiment with audience definitions before committing, and you can ensure that the study you field is the study you designed, not an approximation of it.
The expanded targeting options now include more granular geographic targeting (down to the congressional district level for RMTs and AUS studies in key states), a broader set of political and behavioral targeting options including vote history and self-reported party lean, demographic targeting across a wider range of age bands, education levels, race and ethnicity combinations, and gender identities, and the ability to layer multiple targeting criteria with boolean logic, so you can field to audiences like "women 35–54 in competitive suburban districts who voted in 2022 but not 2020."
For campaigns and advocacy organizations targeting persuadable audiences in specific geographies, these improvements mean you can field research that actually reflects the electorate you're trying to move, not just the national adult population or a state-level approximation. For issue campaigns where the relevant audience is defined by behavior, identity, or belief rather than geography, the expanded targeting options mean you can reach the people whose opinions are actually at stake, with the statistical confidence to act on what you find.
Advanced audience targeting is available now for all new Rapid Message Tests and Audience Understanding Surveys. Existing Grow Progress clients will see the new audience builder the next time they launch a study. If you have questions about what's possible for a specific research design, reach out to your Grow Progress researcher, we're happy to walk through the options and help you build the right audience for your next study.