Social science and commercial researchers rely on surveys to ask people questions so that attitudes and behaviors are inferred from self-reported responses. Yet response rates decline, frames are difficult to sample, people cannot remember depth of their digital behavior and attention spans diminish while survey research consumer need holistic information. Devices people use provide opportunities to address these persistent issues with less intrusiveness on experience. Roughly 30% of US web surveys are completed on a mobile device and these participants can tell us more than asking questions can provide! The authors present addition
al uses of mobile technology to provide information beyond what is traditionally gathered in surveys. We provide two case studies to illuminate not only what to do to gather these new forms of information, but also the mechanics of collecting the data. These case studies use multi-media and passive monitoring that will be shown to provide additional information about populations of interest in less intrusive and more engaging ways. The passive monitoring case study empirically illustrates the depth of behavior obtained to fully understand digital consumption by party ID married with attitudinal profiling. The industry will see how passively metered behavior can improve ability to understand people’s thoughts and behaviors. Case two enumerates how tipping points with a visual record of web path and decision points with visceral in-the-moment reactions recorded using mobile multimedia data capture can advance insights. Providing our industry an understanding of data capture considerations we review practices that are used for passive metering of persons and ‘in the wild’ active user experience. We examine findings concerning sample representativeness and data quality, with an eye toward reducing the biases associated with mobile samples. Moreover, we assess the relevance definitions of sample compliance have on data quality.