Home
Data quality

Verification

Data quality and fraud prevention for B2B sample

We check the employment claim, not just the click. Every complete passes three verification layers before it counts toward your quota.

B2B fraud is a genuine person claiming a role they do not hold. Device and bot checks cannot catch it. This page explains what does.

The problem

Two different kinds of fraud

Consumer grade quality tools were built for the column on the left. Everything that breaks a B2B study is in the column on the right, and none of it fails an identity check.

01Caught by identity checks Every sample provider does this, and it is a solved problem

Bots and scripted entries
Duplicate accounts and devices
Respondents outside the target market
VPN and proxy masking
Speeding and straightlining

02Only caught by checking the claim Where B2B studies actually break, and where almost nobody looks

A real person claiming a job title they do not hold
A manager at a firm of 20 answering as enterprise IT
Someone who picked the most senior option on the list
An employee of a company that does not exist
Fluent open ends written by a language model

In practice

What the review stages do to a batch

Illustrated for 1,000 screener starts at 18% incidence, the IT decision maker figure. The share each layer removes varies by audience and is reported on every project.

1,000 screener starts

180 qualify at 18% incidence

180

Qualifiedstart here

174

After participation review6 removed

164

After employment review10 removed

159

Delivered5 removed by response review

159 verified completes delivered, 12% of qualified completes removed before deliveryIllustrative for 1,000 starts at 18% incidence. The share removed at each stage varies by audience and is reported per project. This is a single batch before replacement: the removed completes are refielded at no cost, so the delivered count still meets your quota.

The layers

Three layers, then the record

Layer 1
Participation
Device, network, location and duplicate signals are reviewed the moment a respondent enters, across every supply source on the project.

What it assesses
Whether the same person or device has entered before, whether the connection is masked, and whether the respondent is in the target market
What it cannot establish
Who the person is professionally. A clean device tells you nothing about the job title, and a VPN flag on its own is not proof of fraud
Layer 2
Employment
The stated employer and title are reviewed against employment evidence: a corporate email domain, a professional record, or both, depending on the audience and source. Company size is asked as a number and compared with the employer's known size.

What it assesses
Whether the employer exists, whether the person can be associated with it, and whether the stated seniority and company size are consistent with the record
What it cannot establish
Buying authority or category involvement. A corporate email supports an association with an employer; it does not on its own establish what the person decides
Layer 3
Category knowledge
One open ended question with an answer a practitioner tends to give specifically: which ERP, which identity provider, how the close runs. A person reviews it against the stated role and company before the complete is accepted.

What it assesses
Whether the respondent describes the category the way someone who works in it does, and whether the answer is consistent with the role and employer they reported
What it cannot establish
Certainty. A plausible answer can be generated, and a terse one can come from a real practitioner. Borderline cases are reviewed against agreed criteria rather than removed by default
Delivery
Documentation
Every removal is logged with the reason and the review stage, and the log ships with the data alongside the replacement completes.

What it assesses
Which completes were removed, why, at which stage, and how each was replaced, so base sizes can be defended in a debrief
What it cannot establish
It is a record, not a check. It exists so the three review stages above can be audited, by you or by your client

Rejection criteria

What gets a complete rejected

Duplicate device, account or person across sources
Location outside the target market or masked
Employer or title that does not match a record where one exists
Company size inconsistent with the named employer
Category knowledge answer that is wrong, generic or generated
Speeding below 40% of median length
Straightlining on grids combined with any other flag
Open ends that are gibberish, copied or off topic
Internal inconsistency between stated role and described responsibilities

Rejected completes are replaced at no cost and never invoiced. The share removed depends on the audience and the source mix, and it is reported per project with the denominator stated: removals as a share of qualified completes, before delivery. A high removal rate is not a quality score; the goal is a defensible accepted sample, not the largest possible exclusion list.

Afterwards

After delivery

If you find a delivered complete that fails our own criteria within 30 days, we replace it and update the log. We would rather hear about it than not.

Respondent privacy

Verification uses data respondents have consented to share and professional records that are already public. We do not deliver personally identifiable information with survey data unless the study is designed for it and the respondent has explicitly agreed. Handling is consistent with GDPR and CCPA. Our respondent privacy notice explains what is collected and why.

Industry standards

Answers to the ESOMAR 37 questions for online sample are available on request, along with a description of the supply sources used on your project at category level.

What you receive

The rejection log

Every removal is recorded with the layer that caught it and what we did about it. It ships with the data, so the base sizes can be defended in the debrief.

rejection-log.csv extract

Table comparing Respondent, Layer, Reason and Action
Respondent	Layer	Reason	Action
VN-4417	Employment	Domain does not match stated employer	Replaced
VN-4422	Knowledge	Named a consumer product, not an enterprise platform	Replaced
VN-4431	Identity	Duplicate device across two supply sources	Replaced
VN-4448	Employment	No professional record for stated title at employer	Replaced
VN-4460	Identity	Completed in 4 min against a 14 min median	Replaced

Illustrative extract. Every project ships with the full log, so the base sizes can be defended.

Questions

B2B data quality: frequently asked questions

Why is B2B verification different from consumer data quality?

Consumer quality tools catch identity fraud: bots, duplicates, wrong country. B2B fraud is mostly a real, unique person claiming a role they do not hold, which identity checks are not designed to detect. Catching it means verifying the employment claim and testing category knowledge, which is what layers two and three do.

Does verification slow field down?

Slightly. Verification runs continuously during field rather than at the end, so the effect on the window is usually a day. The field window quoted at feasibility already includes it.

Do I pay for rejected completes?

No. Only verified completes that land in a quota cell are invoiced. Replacement of rejected completes is included.

Can I see the verification data for each respondent?

You receive the rejection log, which shows what was removed and why, and a description of the method for delivered completes. Individual respondents' identity and employment data are not delivered, because they are personal information.

What is your rejection rate?

Eight to fifteen percent of raw completes on typical B2B decision maker sample, higher for C-suite, and reported on every project. A vendor with near zero rejections on these audiences is not checking.

Send the spec. Get real numbers back.

Audience, market, target n, expected interview length. Feasibility the same business day for standard audiences, with reachable counts, an estimated qualification rate we believe and a quoted cost per complete that stays fixed for the agreed brief.

Request a project quote