New open access publication in Social Science Computer Review

Once recruited, probability-based online panels have proven to enable high-quality and high-frequency data collection. In ever faster-paced societies and, recently, in times of pandemic lockdowns, such online survey infrastructures are invaluable to social research. In absence of email sampling frames, one way of recruiting such a panel is via postal mail. However, few studies have examined how to best approach and then trans­ition sample members from the initial postal mail contact to the online panel registration. To fill this gap, we implemented a large-scale experiment in the recruitment of the 2018 sample of the German Internet Panel (GIP) varying panel recruitment designs in four experimental conditions: online-only, concurrent mode, online-first, and paper-first. Our results show that the online-only design delivers higher online panel registration rates than the other recruitment designs. In addition, all experimental conditions led to similarly representative samples on key socio-demographic characteristics

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