In this article
1: About Contact Database Sampling
Contact Database sample jobs allow you to draw a random selection of contacts from the Contact Database and upload them to a target survey as participants.
You can configure sample jobs to target a specific number or percentage of the Contact Database population. You can also apply stratification variables to define individual targets for different segments of the population.
During setup, select which Contact Database fields should be uploaded to the survey along with each participant. If a selected field doesn’t exist in the survey participant table, it will be created automatically.
Sample jobs can run once or on a recurring schedule. This means you can set up recurring feeds from various sources into the Contact Database, then automatically draw and load participants into different surveys.
Note: Sampling jobs will be disabled if they fail multiple times. To re-enable a sampling job, click the Enable Job button from within the warning message that appears. If no future runs are scheduled, you can re-enable job in the scheduling section.
2: Sampling process
The sampling engine is designed to help you meet your targets while avoiding over-surveying. It applies the following logic:
Contact Frequency Rules: The engine checks the Contact Database’s frequency rules and excludes contacts who have been surveyed recently.
Unsubscribed Contacts: Only the Contact Database (CDB) unsubscribed status is respected in sampling. Participants unsubscribed from surveys or companies are not excluded. If a contact is marked as unsubscribed in the CDB, they will not be included in any sampling job.
Filters: The job’s configured filters are applied to remove contacts who don’t meet your criteria.
Selection: From the remaining contacts, the engine makes a best effort to draw the number of participants you’ve targeted.
Important: Sampled contacts are not exclusively reserved for your sampling job until they are either emailed from your survey or a respondent opens the link provided. This means that until you email these contacts from your survey or a respondent engages with the survey link, the contacts you've chosen through your sampling job remain available for selection in other sampling jobs.
3: Additional Notes
Email is no longer mandatory. You can use other channels or tracking methods to engage participants after sampling.
Make sure to monitor scheduled jobs regularly to ensure successful runs and avoid job disablement.