On-line survey among young people at work in Lombardy

In February and March 2015, Ares 2.0 carried out a research on the behalf of a national trade union on young people’s working conditions, professional expectations and choices of social participation and representation in Lombardy. A structured questionnaire was distributed to more than 1.000 young persons living in the region aged 17 to 34 according to the CAWI methodology.

The participants’ identification and recruitment took place on social network, thanks to a promotion campaign carried out on Facebook, using this social platform’s advertising programme1 developed for the sale of advertising spaces to targeted and localised users.

The advertising system has been used to identify the survey’s sample, stratified by province, selecting young people resident in large and small districts and aged 17 to 34 to be reached through the promotion campaign. This target group was invited to click on the external link directing to the online survey platform, specifically implemented for this research, and was explicitly asked to fill in the questionnaire.

In order to ensure a click through and compilation rate useful and economically sustainable, unlike the main USA models (Ramo et altri 2012), which foresee awarding mechanisms (extraction with awards for those who completed the questionnaire), Ares 2.0 decided to develop a direct engagement approach, based on individual motivational aspects. The action (click and fill in the questionnaire) has been stimulated during the survey promotional campaign through an explicit reference to territorial identity, considered as the qualifying and distinguishing characteristic explaining the project’s interest in knowing the interviewee’s point of view.

Thanks to the recruitment and engagement methodology aimed at maximising the efficiency of the messages inviting young people to respond to the questionnaire, the respondents’ recruitment costs have been optimised and the reply and completion rates have improved for each group, with lower distortions (low reply rates for specific socio-demographic segments or for particular territorial areas).

The objective was to reach at once both a high number of click per impression – and therefore of direct access to the questionnaire’s webpage – and the highest possible number of completed questionnaire for each access to the online survey platform, by respecting the quota fixed by the sample and stratification plan.

Ares 2.0 experience demonstrated that, thanks to a targeted phase of efficiency test carried out on the promotional messages, it has been possible to complete the survey on 1.000 young Lombard people, collecting as many as valid questionnaires with adequate, coherent and complete answers and respecting the chosen sample territorial stratification. The questionnaire was composed by more than 20 questions with some complex items as well as multiple-choice questions about work, social participation, representation and expectations about the future.

The Facebook recruitment and CAWI self-administration campaign carried out over 45 days between February and March 2015 foresaw 35 online promotion actions, each directed to one specific Lombard district. The campaign generated 2.3 million impressions, reaching 457 thousand young people aged 17-34 . On the basis of the impressions, there have been 7.669 clicks of single

1 An other test campaign launched at the same time on Twitter and carried out with similar advertising functions users to the survey platform, bringing to a click through rate (CTR) for each young person reached by the campaign to 1,7%.

The overall cost of the campaign was € 2.281, equal to € 0,99 per 1.000 impressions and to € 5,06 per 1.000 single persons reached, with a cost of about € 0,30 per person/click, while the average final cost per valid and complete questionnaire was € 2,3, costs have fluctuated between € 1,5 and € 3,5 according to the territorial administration decisions, continuously improved on the basis of the tests carried out.