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Use Participant Profiles for recruitment with Optimal Panels

Learn about setting up Profiles in Optimal to recruit participants.

Participant Profiles with Optimal panels helps you define and manage who takes part in your usability testing studies.

You can create multiple targeted profiles within a study, each with its own criteria and quota. This gives you finer control over participant fit, better coverage of your target segments, and greater predictability in how your study fills.

Profiles are designed to give you:

  • More precise targeting

  • Better control over participant mix

  • Clear visibility into recruitment progress

  • Reduced manual coordination and duplication

Each profile includes:

  • Targeting criteria

  • A defined quota

  • Independent recruitment tracking

Setting up Profiles

With Profiles, you can recruit for B2C or B2B audiences.

Start by going to the Recruit tab > Participant source > Optimal panels > + Add a participant profile.

For moderated interviews, you can get started with Profiles in Optimal Interviews. You'll need to set up an Interviews schedule with your availability before you can finalize recruitment and publish the study. Recruitment will start when you publish your study.

Targeting options

You can combine criteria to build highly specific participant definitions. The following targeting options for Profiles are available for:

  • Usability Testing

  • Live Site Testing

  • Prototype Testing

  • Interviews

All

B2C

B2B

  • Gender

  • Age range

  • Education level

  • Employment status

  • Location, including country or city (select multiple)

  • Language spoken

  • Topics

  • Industry

  • Job function

  • Job title*

  • Seniority

  • Company size

The following targeting options for Profiles are available for:

  • Card Sorting

  • Tree Testing

  • First-click testing

  • Surveys

All

B2C

B2B

  • Gender

  • Age range

  • Education level

  • Employment status

  • Country

  • Topics

  • Industry*

  • Job function

  • Seniority

  • Company size

Select B2B criteria under the Professional criteria section.

* The industries option may not always be available. Industries will be dependent on which country is selected.

Once you've finalized your criteria, you can go to the Finalize recruitment tab to view an estimate on fill time, feasibility level, and cost. Recruitment will begin when you publish your study.
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Exclusion controls

Exclusion controls are currently available for Usability Testing, Prototype Testing, Live Site Testing, and Interviews and will be rolling out across the rest of the platform.

Use exclusion controls to automatically exclude participants who have completed studies for your Workspace studies within a specified timeframe. This can help reduce study fatigue and exposure bias.

Deleting and duplicating profiles

You can access duplicate and delete options with the three dots menu (⋮).

Important things to note

  • Once you select Optimal Panels for recruitment, you cannot share the study link directly with your own participants. Support for using both Optimal Panels and your own participant link to recruit for the same study is planned for a future release.
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  • After launching your study, you will not be able to add additional profiles or edit existing profiles or quotas for the study. If needed, you can duplicate your study to add additional recruitment or contact our team for additional recruitment requirements.
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  • You will need to plan and finalize your recruitment profile needs before launching a study, which aligns with best practice.
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  • Note that publishing the study will launch the recruitment orders at the same time.

Recruiting for multiple profiles per study

You can run multiple Participant Profiles within a single study, each with its own quota.

A quota allows you to define exactly how many participants you need per segment. Specify the quota in the top right.

For example:

  • 30 brand managers (US)

  • 20 operations managers (UK)

Each profile recruits independently, so you can:

  • Balance participant mix intentionally

  • Avoid creating separate studies for each audience group

Adding screening questions

Screening questions help you identify participants who meet your recruitment criteria before they're invited to your study.

You can add a unique set of screener questions to each participant profile, making it easy to recruit different audience segments within the same recruitment order.

Customizing the participant invitation

This invitation is shown to all participants before screening. You can use the description to include:

  • Who the study is for (at a high level)

  • What participants will do

  • How long it takes

  • Any requirements, like screen or audio recording

Visibility and recruitment tracking

Once your study is live, you can track recruitment progress in real time on the Recruit tab under Finalize recruitment. See how each profile is tracking towards its quota.

On the roadmap

Participant Profiles will continue to evolve with planned enhancements, including.

  • The ability to invite on your own - recruit with a study link - and use Optimal panels for the same study

  • Save and reuse profiles across studies and users

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