intrusive, Blumenthal says. “We’re not shoving a foot under the virtual door or bothering them while they’re eating,” he says.
Pollsters routinely use statistical adjustments to make their poll results better predict election outcomes, because the small percentage of adults who actually respond to a survey usually aren’t representative of the whole electorate. Blumenthal says. SurveyMonkey pollsters may need to do fewer of these mathematical corrections because it has access to such a broad range of Americans. “They’re incredibly diverse,” he says of the people who respond to polls through the site.
As a fledgling pollster, SurveyMonkey is entering a field that may be even more competitive than an early presidential race. The dozens of contenders include private companies such as Gallup and Harris, research institutions, universities, and news organizations. Tech companies are getting in on the act. Google Consumer Surveys, which does market research for clients, collaborated with predictive analytics firm Echelon Insights to identify the early frontrunners in the presidential primary race for the 2016 Republican nomination. The industry is also under the scrutiny of a tier of journalists and blogger websites that rank their accuracy, including Pollster.com and FiveThirtyEight.
SurveyMonkey’s Cohen, a former vice president of research at Pew Research, declined to say how the potential market opportunity in election polling might compare to the company’s current revenue base from customers such as businesses and consumers. SurveyMonkey doesn’t disclose its revenues, but says that its $250 million equity fundraising round in late 2014 pegs its private valuation at about $2 billion. The company, founded in 1999, has 650 employees in Palo Alto.
Cohen says SurveyMonkey’s research team has been exploring ways to mine the social media environment to deepen its understanding of survey results, although this isn’t currently the primary focus of its election work. In a partnership with Microsoft Research and the University of Pennsylvania, SurveyMonkey asked respondents in an election-related poll in the state of Virginia to provide their Twitter handles. The researchers were then able to compare the survey responses with the participants’ dialogues on Twitter.
Blumenthal says he hopes to dive more deeply into the underlying beliefs of voters, and their views on the issues that candidates are raising.
“We’re doing more than the horse race,” Blumenthal says.
