How to write an effective screener for a B2B or healthcare study.

A screener is the short set of questions at the start of a survey that decides who qualifies for your study. To write an effective one, list the traits every respondent must have, turn each trait into one specific closed-ended question, hide the answer you are looking for and keep the screener as short as possible.

What is a screener in market research?

Before people complete a study, they answer a set of questions that help identify if they’re the right fit for the research needs. For example, a screener can help confirm if a respondent uses a specific software or travels to specific locations. A good screener lets in the people whose opinions you need and keeps everyone else out.

A respondent who does not qualify is "screened out" or "terminated," which means the survey ends for them. A quota is a limit on how many respondents of one type you accept, such as a set number of hospital pharmacists and a set number of retail pharmacists.

Why does the screener matter so much in B2B and healthcare research?

B2B and healthcare audiences are small. There are far fewer cloud security buyers or practicing oncologists than there are general consumers, so every qualified person who drops out of a confusing or lengthy screener is costly to replace. These audiences also earn higher incentives, which gives bad actors a reason to pretend to be them. If your screener lets the wrong people in, your dataset becomes unreliable.

What steps should you follow to write a screener?

The six steps below work for most B2B and healthcare studies.

1. Write down who must qualify before you write any questions.

Sort your criteria into three lists: 1) traits every respondent must have, 2) traits that rule someone out and 3) traits that are useful for quotas or analysis but do not decide who qualifies.

Imagine a study about how mid-size companies choose cybersecurity software. The lists might look like this:

• Respondents must work at a company with 250 or more employees and must have helped choose security software in the past 12 months.
• Respondents are ruled out if they work for a cybersecurity vendor or a market research firm.
• Industry, company size and current security vendor are useful for quotas and analysis.

Based on the criteria in your lists, develop questions to identify respondents who meet all of it.

2. Hide the answer you’re looking for.

Experienced survey takers can often guess which answer qualifies them. If you ask "Have you purchased endpoint security software in the past 12 months?", anyone who wants the incentive can simply say yes. A better approach is to list the target among several options.

In the past 12 months, which of the following types of software have you helped your organization choose? Select all that apply.

• Accounting software
• Customer relationship management (CRM) software
• Endpoint security software
• Human resources software
• Project management software
• None of these

Only respondents who select endpoint security continue. Because every option looks equally likely to qualify, a respondent cannot tell which answer you need.

3. Get specific about amounts and time frames.

Words like "often" and "many" mean different things to different people. If you ask a doctor "Do you treat many patients with type 2 diabetes?", a family physician who sees a few each month and an endocrinologist who sees dozens each week might both say yes. Ask for an amount within a defined period and offer ranges.

In a typical month, approximately how many patients with type 2 diabetes do you personally manage?

• None
• 1 to 10
• 11 to 25
• 26 to 50
• More than 50

Decide which ranges qualify before you launch.

4. Find out the respondent's real role in the decision.

In B2B and healthcare, the person who uses a product, the person who recommends it and the person who approves the purchase are often three different people. A screener that only asks whether someone "works with" a product can fill your study with users instead of buyers.

Which statement best describes your role in choosing electronic health record (EHR) software at your organization?

• I make the final decision.
• I recommend options to the person who makes the final decision.
• I use the software but have no say in choosing it.
• I am not involved with this software.
• I don't know.

If your study is about purchase decisions, the first two answers qualify. If your study is about day-to-day usability, the third answer may describe the group you need most.

5. Give every respondent a truthful way out.

Every closed-ended question should include an option such as "None of these," "Other" or "I don't know." Without one, a respondent who does not fit will pick the closest answer, and your study will fill with people who only look qualified.

6. Keep the screener short and the language plain.

Every extra question gives a qualified professional another reason to close the survey. Use plain wording and the terms your audience uses at work. Cut any question that does not decide who qualifies or which quota a respondent fills. Questions about attitudes and opinions typically belong in the main survey.

How can you check that a respondent is who they say they are?

Even a well-written screener depends on people answering honestly. Two techniques help you catch respondents whose answers don’t add up.

The first technique is a consistency check. Ask about related facts in two places and compare the answers. For example, ask a physician for their specialty early in the screener and later ask which procedures they performed in the past month. A respondent who says they are a dermatologist and then reports performing cardiac catheterizations deserves a second look.

The second technique is an open-ended question that a real practitioner can answer easily. You might ask an IT buyer, "Briefly describe the last time you evaluated a security vendor. What made you choose or reject it?" A real buyer can write a specific answer in a sentence or two. Vague, off-topic or copied answers are warning signs.

These checks catch some bad respondents, but the source of your respondents matters as much as the questions you ask them.

How does Emporia help your screener do its job?

Emporia targets respondents based on verified signals.

Emporia can invite respondents to studies based on more than 3,000 signals. A signal is a verifiable fact attached to a respondent's profile, and it comes from sources that are independent of any single study. These sources include professional and employment records, credentialing and licensure data, organizational affiliations, trusted healthcare data partners and respondents' past participation with Emporia.

B2B signals can include data like whether someone makes decisions about a software category, whether they are involved in procurement, their company's monthly ad spend and their business type. Healthcare audiences can be defined by specialty, role, patient volume and tenure.

Because invitations go to people whose profiles already match your audience, your screener spends less effort finding the right people and more effort confirming them. This leads to shorter screeners, fewer screen-outs and higher quality respondents.

Every Emporia respondent is checked with anti-fraud technology.

Emporia uses its own AI-powered anti-fraud technology to check respondents before they reach a study. It looks at three areas:

• Professional identity: It confirms that a respondent's work email belongs to a real company, checks their claims against live LinkedIn profile data and compares them with records of past and flagged identities.
• Technical and network checks: It catches people who create many accounts from one device. It also flags hidden connections such as VPNs and proxies and detects AI-generated profiles.
• Response quality: It reviews open-ended answers for respondent fit and filters out gibberish and low-effort answers. Difficult cases go to Emporia's sampling experts for human review.

Members of Emporia's verified practitioner community are verified on a recurring basis, and if respondents from third-party sources are added, they go through the same anti-fraud screening. Your consistency checks and open-ended questions then add a final layer on top.

What should you check before you launch your screener?

• Every question maps to a must-have trait, a ruling-out trait or a quota.
• Qualifying answers are hidden among believable alternatives.
• Questions ask for specific amounts and time frames.
• Role questions separate decision makers from users.
• Consistency checks and open-ended questions help confirm respondent quality.