Using Audience Quotas

Audience Quotas is where users can manage quotas that involve a combination of targets, percentages, and variance. Although audience quotas are imagined to work best with quotas used in representative sampling, any quota could potentially be managed here. Quotas that appear here must be programmed with the audience sheet tag and reference an audience sheet.

Audience Quotas can be found within the Field > Quotas group in the survey navigation menu.

Quotas vs. Audience Quotas 

Quotas is intended for controlling quotas with a fixed target number, e.g., 100, for each quota group option. The software will only consider this number when deciding if a quota has been met. However, quotas in Audience Quotas are controlled by a calculated maximum quota. Here, the user inputs a total target number, and the software automatically assigns percentages to each quota group option, distributing the total target N accordingly across the quota groups. The software will consider both the quota's target and the permitted variance when determining if a quota has been met or not.

Overview

Each quota is represented by a table, and each row represents a different quota bucket (group). Individual quota buckets change colors depending on the progress being made against their targets. Cells that are editable are highlighted in light blue.

Search filters 

Audience Quotas includes filters for viewing and searching. Users may keyword search for specific quotas via the Quick search field, or use the dropdown menus to search for quotas by audience type or quota name.

The Quick search field allows users to search for quotas based on their names or descriptions; the quota bucket text is not searchable.

The Audience dropdown displays the available audience groups for the survey. It's directly linked to how audience quotas are programmed and categorized with the audience type tag. If no audience types are assigned, this dropdown menu won't appear in the toolbar.

The Fields dropdown displays the available quotas and lists them by their ID (name). The quotas are displayed in the order they are programmed.

Users may select one or more options from the dropdowns, and also combine these selections with the Quick search field if needed.

Actions

Audience quotas can be downloaded in Excel for reporting purposes only; uploads are not supported.

Quota history is available for review. Only Survey Makers and Team Leaders+ can see who made specific changes.

Audience quota reports can be saved and scheduled for delivery from the three-dot  actions menu. First, create the export file by giving it a name. Then, click Save & Schedule Export to continue. You'll be redirected to Deliverables to continue the scheduling process.

Bucket colors

All buckets start off without coloring. When certain percentage milestones are reached, they change colors. Percents are rounded to the nearest 0.01%. The colors and their corresponding percentage ranges are shown below.

Setting quota caps

Audience quotas are designed differently than standard quotas. They can exceed the target N if the Variance column is set above 0%. Audience quotas are marked "full" once the Calculated Quotas value is met.

The total target N and variance set in the Audience quotas row applies to all quotas displayed on the screen. While the variance can be adjusted for each quota option, the target N cannot.

N (total target)

To set or alter the N, click into the first cell in the N column. Next, enter your new maximum target. The software will look up the audience sheet associated with each quota using the audience sheet tag in the survey. Then, it will automatically fill in the percentages assigned to each quota bucket, distributing the total target N accordingly across the quota groups.

Enter numbers with the keyboard or use your mouse/trackpad's scrolling action to increase or decrease the number. Click outside the cell to save the new maximum. The quota bucket's row may change color to reflect its percent completion towards the cap.

Variance

Variance is an important part of representative sampling methodologies — the lower the variance, the more precise the data should be. Variance also helps researchers be more efficient and optimize their sampling strategy.

The Variance column defaults to 0%, with no percentages shown in the column. To set or alter the permitted variance for a quota, click into the first cell in the Variance column. Then, enter your new variance, and the cells for all quota buckets will be filled with the same value.

You can also manually adjust an individual cell if needed without affecting the other quota groups. A quota group's N and permitted variance will give you the calculated quota target.