Audience research
Part of Five permission records for UGC marketplaces audience research in England
UGC marketplaces target audience: recruiting each role from recent commissions
Define a UGC marketplaces target audience in England from recent paid commissions, with separate rows, screeners and quotas for every role and honest limits.
What to take away
- Here, the UGC marketplaces target audience is a recruitable population tied to one decision: an English brand unit commissioning one short-form creator-made asset.
- Give buyers, creators, agencies, platform operators, representatives and peripheral parties a separate row before you write any screener.
- Anchor eligibility in a recent, evidenced commissioning event, not a job title, profile or follower count.
- Draw frames from named English sources, then log duplicates, exclusions and permitted contact routes.
- Research permission, marketing consent, marketplace acceptance and content licensing are four separate things.
Split the people around one commission
Give every population a separate row before the screener is written. A buyer authorises the work, an agency may run the process, and a platform operator supplies the marketplace. A creator produces the asset. A representative negotiates within documented authority, while featured people and rights holders hold other knowledge.
[figure 1]
Roles Around a Commission
Buyer side
- Authorises work
- Buyer
- Operates process
- Agency
- Supplies marketplace
- —
- Produces asset
- —
- Negotiates
- —
- Other knowledge
- —
Supply side
- Authorises work
- —
- Operates process
- —
- Supplies marketplace
- Platform operator
- Produces asset
- Creator
- Negotiates
- Representative
- Other knowledge
- —
Peripheral
- Authorises work
- —
- Operates process
- —
- Supplies marketplace
- —
- Produces asset
- —
- Negotiates
- —
- Other knowledge
- Audience, rights holder, researcher
No role answers for another. A buyer can describe an approval trail but not a creator's consent. A platform employee can explain a service process but not how an audience read the finished asset.
| Role | Qualifying event | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | Authorised, rejected or corrected a paid creator commission | Redacted approval note |
| Creator | Delivered a briefed, paid short-form asset | Redacted brief reference |
| Agency or platform | Ran matching, contracting or payment on that commission | Redacted service record |
| Representative or rights holder | Negotiated or cleared rights on the asset | Redacted authority note |
Each population gets its own row, its own qualifying event and its own evidence request; agency staff and platform operators never share a row.
| Role | Qualifying event | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | Authorised, rejected or corrected a paid creator commission | Redacted approval note |
| Creator | Delivered a briefed short-form commission for payment | Brief reference and payment record |
| Agency | Ran matching, contracting or payment for that commission on the brand's behalf | Service record or contract reference |
| Platform operator | Hosted or ran the marketplace step for that commission | Marketplace service record |
| Representative | Negotiated the commission within documented authority | Authority note |
| Rights holder or featured person | Was featured in, or asked to clear, the asset | Clearance note or credit record |
| Peripheral party | Was paid or credited without commissioning or delivering the asset | Credit or payment record |
Permissions travel with roles: contact permission, research consent, marketing consent and content licensing are four separate records, and none of them implies that the marketplace accepted the commission.
Example: one worked screener question per role
- Buyer"In the last 12 months, did you personally authorise, reject or correct a paid short-form creator commission for your brand?" Then ask which month, and what their role in that decision was.
- Creator"In the last 12 months, did you deliver a briefed short-form video for payment to a brand or its agency?" Then ask who sent the brief and whether rights were negotiated.
- Agency"Which step of that commission did you run on the brand's behalf: matching, contracting, payment or none?"
- Platform operator"Which marketplace step did your service run for that commission: listing, matching, contracting, payment or none?"
- Representative"Did you negotiate the terms of that commission for a named person, and under whose documented authority?"
- Rights holder or featured person"Were you featured in, or asked to clear, that asset?"
- Peripheral party"Were you paid or credited for that commission without commissioning or delivering it?"
The GOV.UK Service Manual advises defining participant groups and recruitment criteria around the research question, including recruitment bias and access needs. Adapt it for commercial work rather than claiming official approval.
Name the England recruitment frames
Companies House publishes free company data you can filter by registered office region and SIC code; 73110 covers advertising agencies. The ONS UK business activity dataset stratifies VAT and PAYE registered organisations by English region, industry and size.
Neither source identifies UGC buyers, so treat both as sampling frames rather than lead lists. Add permissioned lists you already hold and the ICO register of fee payers. Creator frames come from named creator marketplaces and services — TikTok Creator Marketplace, Instagram Creator Marketplace and YouTube BrandConnect — plus your own past applicants and each creator's own campaign history in the marketplace account that ran the commission.
Creator age uncertainty is a known entry problem, and the UGC marketplace entry checklist treats it as a stop condition rather than a footnote.
Example: to build 40 English buyer candidates, filter Companies House for companies registered in the North West with SIC 73110, cross-check the ICO register, then contact the named marketing lead by a logged route.
Set quotas before the first invitation
Agree a quota for every row before fieldwork starts, and keep agency staff and platform operators in separate rows rather than under one "operators" heading. Indicative planning figures for a qualitative round are 8 to 12 buyers and 8 to 12 creators, with 4 to 6 agency and platform-operator participants split across the two rows, and 3 to 5 peripheral parties; representatives and rights holders carry their own quota line rather than being counted as creators.
Research permission is not marketing consent, marketplace acceptance or a content licence. The ICO's direct-marketing guidance separates genuine research from activity that promotes or enables later marketing.
Stop recruitment if the contact source cannot be justified, safeguarding or access cannot be resolved, or the respondent cannot evidence the qualifying event.
- One row per population, each with its own screener and quota.
- Quota and stopping rule agreed before the first invitation.
- Frame source, date, duplicates and exclusions logged.
- Research permission stored apart from marketing consent.
Report every funnel stage so the sample's limits stay visible.
[figure 2]
Recruitment Funnel Reporting
- Records sampled
- Invited
- Screened
- Eligible
- Participating
- Usable
Segmenting participants into buying types comes later, and the proto-personas from observed commissioning decisions explains why each one needs an expiry date.
Common questions
How many participants do I need per role?
Plan 8 to 12 buyers and 8 to 12 creators, with 4 to 6 operators and 3 to 5 peripheral parties. Add more only while a role's evidence still produces new decision detail.
What evidence should a screener require?
The minimum redacted proof of the qualifying event: an approval note for a buyer, a brief reference for a creator, a service record for an agency or platform operator, an authority note for a representative and a clearance note for a rights holder.
Do I need a separate England sample?
Only if the research question depends on place. Record the operating unit that made the decision, not a registered office, and never infer location from an accent or postcode.
When should recruitment stop?
Stop when the contact source cannot be justified, safeguarding or access cannot be resolved, or the respondent cannot evidence the event. Name who was reachable and who was missing.
