# FeedbackEngine — frequently asked questions ## The method **What is a digital respondent?** A digital respondent is an AI persona with a complete profile — age, city, income, education, household, habits and life context — that answers your questionnaire in character. It is not a generic chatbot given a costume: the profile is built from the segment parameters you set, and the answers are generated to stay consistent with that profile across every question in the test. **How is this different from just asking a chatbot?** A chatbot gives you one answer from one averaged point of view. FeedbackEngine runs a whole panel: each respondent holds a distinct, internally consistent profile, answers independently, and the results come back as a distribution — means, Top-2-Box shares, and grouped open-ended answers — rather than a single opinion you have to trust. **Does this replace traditional research?** It replaces the part of traditional research that was too slow or too expensive to run at all — the pretests and screenings that get skipped because they take weeks. For high-stakes final decisions, the sensible pattern is to use synthetic testing as a filter and live research to validate the finalist. **Where is the method weakest?** Digital respondents reproduce reasoning and stated preference well, and sensory experience poorly. They will tell you whether a film idea is clear and distinctive; they will not tell you how a fabric feels or how a drink tastes. Group dynamics — the thing a focus group is actually for — are also outside the model by design, which is a feature when you want independent answers and a limitation when you want a discussion. ## Running a test **What can I test?** Six test types cover the common cases: static creatives and key visuals, names and slogans, ideas and concepts, video ideas from a script or storyboard, open audience surveys with no material at all, and side-by-side comparison of a longer short list. **How long does a test take?** Minutes from launch to a finished report. Setting the test up — writing the segment and uploading the material — usually takes longer than running it. **How do I define the audience?** Through structured parameters — gender, age, cities and regions, income level, education, marital status and children — plus a free-text description of behaviour, which is where most of the precision comes from. Segments are saved, so you can go back to the same audience for a follow-up test. **What file formats can I upload?** JPG, PNG, GIF, PDF and DOC, up to 8 files per idea. **Do I have to write the questionnaire?** No. Each test type ships with a questionnaire built for it, following the standard methodology for that kind of pretest. The Insights test is the exception, and there by design: you write up to five of your own questions, open-ended or scaled. ## Results **What is in a report?** A summary of the findings, scaled results per metric, an overall ranking of the variants tested, and the open-ended answers grouped by sentiment — positive, neutral, negative — with verbatim quotes. **What is Top-2-Box, and why use it?** Top-2-Box is the share of respondents who gave a 4 or a 5 on the 1–5 scale. It is the standard headline metric in pretest research because it tracks the people who actually reacted positively, rather than a mean that a mass of indifferent 3s can quietly prop up. Reports also carry the mean and Top-1-Box. **What do I do if every variant scores badly?** Read the open-ended answers. A uniformly low ranking is a finding: it usually means the problem is upstream — in the idea or the message rather than in the executions — and the verbatims tell you which. **Can I export the results?** Yes. Reports are available in the app and can be exported for sharing and for the decision deck. ## Account and pricing **Can I try it before paying?** Yes — the first test is free as a demo, with a reduced number of ideas and questions. It is a real test on a real panel, not a mock-up. **How do I get started?** Create an account, pick a test type, define your segment and launch. There is nothing to install and no sales call in the way. **What does it cost?** Plans and panel sizes are set out on the pricing page. Larger panels, deeper segmentation and API access come with the higher tiers.