Finding participants and sending your recruitment messages with FindParticipants is simple, and takes just a few minutes to reach your desired participant group!


The first step is to locate your desired participants using the "Find Participants" page, and select any applicable demographic variables needed for your target group:



Do note that for optimal filtering of available participants, you should only indicate the demographic criteria that is necessary for your study; completing all fields is not necessary and may exclude participants that would otherwise fulfill the criteria for your study.


Once you have made your participant selections, and clicked the "Send message now" button, you'll be taken to your "Send Message" page.



Recruitment Message Content and Requirements


In order to send your recruitment message, you must indicate the following (items in bold are required):

  • Your "Recruitment Subject".  This is the message subject line for outbound emails to participants
  • Compensation: If none, simply put "N/A", otherwise indicate what kind of compensation is offered, and how participants receive their compensation.  For example, "Random drawing for five $10 Amazon gift cards", or "$5.00 Paypal payment on completion"
  • URL or Location: This is how participants will begin to take your study.  If you are conducting research online, enter the full URL to where participants can begin your study.  If your study is in-person, provide a specific location where the study will take place
  • IRB Approval #: This is for internal tracking purposes only, and is not presented in recruitment messages
  • Begin Sending: Defaults to the current day, and may be set to a date in the future.  If in the future, your study will begin sending on the date selected
  • Study Expires: If your study is presented publicly to participants on our website and an expiry date is specified, your study will no longer show up in the "recent messages", or "Search studies" pages for viewing
  • Visibility: If the visibility for your message is set to "Hide from Public Pages", your study will not show up in the "recent messages" or "Search Studies" pages
  • Recruitment Message Content: This is your actual participant recruitment message, and it must include:
    • What the study is
    • What requirements there may be for participation, and what it entails
    • How long the study takes
    • Who you are, and what institution you are affiliated with
  • End of Survey Message: If you have entered a Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey link in the URL or Location input, you may track responses using FindParticipants, as well as specifying a custom message to your participants when they have completed your study on Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey (See: Tracking Respondents using Qualtrics and Completion URLs for more information)


Sending the Message


Once you have entered your recruitment message content, you must preview and send a test message prior to sending your message to participants to ensure that you are satisfied with your message, message formatting, and any links in your message are correct.


Once messages have been processed, they may not be edited so reviewing your content is very important, and all three numbered steps at the bottom of the send message page must be selected in order to send your message.


1) The "Message Preview" will present a modal overlay with a preview of what your message will look like when formatted:



2) "Send Test Message" sends a testing recruitment message to your registered email address in it's final layout and format:



3) And finally, "Send Message" will provide you with two additional opportunities to confirm your message is reviewed and is ready for sending:




What Happens Next?


After confirming that your message is ready to be sent, your message will be queued and you'll be taken to the page for your individual message.



If you have not sent previous recruitment messages, you'll see the red warning sign in the top right of your message indicating that a FindParticipants administrator must approve the message.  This is a security step to ensure that messages have all required content and provides an opportunity for feedback and review of initial messages.  Once an administrator has reviewed and approved your message, you'll receive an email confirmation that your message has been approved for sending.


If you have previously sent messages through the system, your message will be automatically approved and queued.


Promoting your Message and Viewing Statistics


All recruitment messages have a customized bit.ly link, as well as several promotion options available from the "Promote" option on your sent message which may be used to share your recruitment message directly to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc...