A B2B incentive can be ten times a consumer one. So can the fraud. If your ITDM study is filling suspiciously fast at a low CPI, that's not good luck.

Key takeaways

  • B2B sample is a fraud target because incentives are high and incidence is low.
  • Profile on role, company size, industry and purchase authority, not job title alone.
  • Add knowledge questions only a real practitioner can answer quickly.
  • Accept that senior audiences take longer to field, and plan for it.

Why B2B is targeted

Fraudsters read the same screeners you write. "Are you involved in IT purchasing for your company?" is an invitation. They learn which answers qualify and reuse them across studies.

Profile beyond the title

"IT Manager" means very different things at a 20-person agency and a 20,000-person bank. Good B2B sample captures company size, industry, the specific categories a person influences (security, cloud, networking), and whether they recommend, evaluate or sign off. That profile should come from the panel, then be confirmed in your screener.

Identity and employment checks

For professional audiences we validate identity at recruitment and re-verify periodically: professional network matching, business email domains, and consistency with prior profiles. It's not glamorous work, but it's what separates verified B2B sample from a list of self-reported titles.

In-survey validation

A couple of quick knowledge questions go a long way. Ask an ITDM which of several tools their team uses for endpoint management, with one invented product in the list. Ask a CFO about a standard reporting practice. Real practitioners answer in seconds. Imposters hesitate, guess or pick the fake option.

Open ends help as well. "Describe the last software purchase you approved" gets specific, slightly messy answers from real people and generic ones from everyone else. See AI-generated open ends for what the generic ones look like now.

Realistic feasibility

C-suite and senior specialists are busy. Expect longer field times, higher CPIs and smaller feasible counts, especially outside the US. Ask for feasibility by country early so nobody promises n=300 CISOs in Poland by Friday.

FAQ

How do you verify B2B survey respondents?

Combine identity checks at recruitment, detailed firmographic and role profiling, screener consistency checks and in-survey knowledge questions. No single step is enough.

What incidence should I expect for IT decision makers?

It depends heavily on company size and category. Broad ITDM definitions among full-time employees can be workable; narrow roles at large enterprises can drop to low single digits.