Key takeaways
- Multi-country qualitative research used to mean weeks of travel and significant cost. Online qualitative platforms now make it possible to run studies across multiple markets at once, remotely, from a single dashboard.
- The benefits are cost and time savings, richer in-context insight, in-the-moment moderation, faster analysis, and the ability to run multiple markets at the same time rather than one after the other.
- Tips for getting it right: have a clear objective, partner with local research experts, allow time for translation, respect time-zone differences, and always run a kick-off call to get everyone aligned.
- With Indeemo, tasks localise automatically into 30+ languages, participant experiences render in their own language, and submissions can be transcribed, translated, and analysed with generative AI.
- If you don't have in-market expertise or international recruiter networks, our Catalyst team can support you through recruitment, moderation, and analysis.
What makes multi-country qualitative research possible remotely?
Traditional multi-country qualitative research — focus groups, in-depth interviews — required lots of travel and significant time in transit to gather and analyse data from participants across multiple markets.
Not anymore.
Online qualitative research platforms now make it possible to conduct research in multiple markets remotely. Indeemo's mobile-first approach makes multi-country research more accessible and cost-effective than ever. Using the Indeemo app, tasks are delivered to participants in multiple markets at the same time via push notifications. Launching the study, onboarding participants, collecting data, and probing responses is all done from your own desk.
The time savings are significant, and because research is no longer constrained by geography, teams can run more projects per year. This post covers the benefits of using online qualitative research for multi-country studies, and the practical tips that help projects run smoothly.
Why does online qualitative research work for multi-country studies?
Online qualitative research platforms like Indeemo are well-suited to multi-country work because the platform itself handles most of the logistics that used to require travel.
Indeemo is localised into 30+ languages. When setting up a project, you or your in-market partners provide translated tasks, which are programmed into the platform. Once participants register, Indeemo automatically detects the language settings on their phones and localises the user experience into their local language.
All participant uploads appear in the dashboard in the participant's local language. For many major languages — Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and others — automated video transcription renders in the local language. Videos and text can then be searched for keywords in the local language using Indeemo's filters.
What are the benefits of running multi-country studies online?
1. Cost savings
The cost of running a remote multi-country online qualitative study is significantly lower than a traditional methodology. Without travel, accommodation, or focus group facility rental, mobile qualitative research is a much more affordable option.
2. Time savings
Remote qualitative research saves time. With the whole project hosted online, researchers across different markets and locations can collaborate through the Indeemo dashboard. Uploading tasks, probing responses, managing activity, and analysing data all happen through a browser-based interface.
3. Richer, contextual insight
Allowing participants to complete tasks privately, in their own time and their own environment, means the context-rich responses you gather don't suffer from researcher effects or group bias. Participants complete tasks in the moment, giving you a raw, unfiltered view of everyday life without post-rationalisation.
Longitudinal research across multiple days also lets you notice repetitive behaviours that build trust in the insights you surface.
4. In-the-moment moderation
Indeemo's platform lets participants submit responses — videos, photos, screen recordings, texts — any time, from any context. The social networking-style comments functionality lets you comment privately on participant uploads. Your comments and probes arrive as push notifications, which means you can get under the skin of what's really happening and clarify insight as it surfaces.
5. Faster analysis
Indeemo lets researchers access, analyse, tag, and export responses almost immediately. With an intuitive Pinterest-style interface, powerful search, keyword analysis, and video transcription, it's possible to draw conclusions even before the study completes, and share findings with stakeholders in real time.
6. Run multiple countries at the same time
It might seem obvious, but many research platforms don't support concurrent multi-market research well. With Indeemo, a single login and powerful filtering let you see uploads from multiple projects at the same time. Flexible roles and permissions mean you can see all markets as the project owner, while your in-market partners can be restricted to the participants they're managing on your behalf.
What tips help ensure a multi-country study succeeds?
Multi-country online qualitative research is faster to set up and more affordable than traditional methods, but it still needs thoughtful planning. Five tips consistently separate smooth projects from painful ones.
1. Have a clear objective and design participant-friendly tasks
Make sure you've planned exactly what you (or your client) want to achieve from the research, because that shapes task design. Light-touch, user-friendly tasks elicit more valuable insight than long, dense, complex ones that overburden participants.
Context-awareness matters too. Participants in some cultures may not be comfortable recording video in public; in those markets, asking for photos with captions gets you the insight without putting participants in an awkward position. Our strategists can help with task design if needed.
2. Find local research partners you can trust
If you're not familiar with the country you're researching in, find local partners who know the market. An experienced local moderator who understands the nuances and cultural differences is invaluable. They can help with task design and suggest how to capture insight effectively.
For example, participants in one market may be comfortable talking to camera while participants in another might find walking around talking to their phone inappropriate. Local moderators can advise on those nuances and adjust tasks to maximise engagement. Similarly, partner with a local recruiter in each market — their insight into who to recruit and how to manage local incentives is hard to replace. Indeemo has supported hundreds of international projects, so if you need introductions, just ask.
3. Allow time for translation of tasks and discussion guides
Even though the Indeemo participant app is localised into 30+ languages, we don't provide a human translation service for research tasks or discussion guides. Local dialects and language differences within the same region mean it's important to allow extra time for translation so you can start your project on time with a comprehensive task list.
We recommend agreeing the tasks with your client in your own language first, and doing a dry run through the research tasks on Indeemo. That way you can experience what your participants will experience and adjust accordingly before passing the finalised tasks to your local recruiter or moderator for translation.
4. Don't forget time zone differences
If you're scheduling tasks to go live at a particular time of day, factor in time zone differences. Timing is critical for eliciting rich, in-the-moment feedback, and poorly timed alerts can result in participants uploading delayed responses at the end of the day.
Indeemo automatically detects the time zone of each participant when they register and adjusts all task reminder push notifications so they arrive at the correct local time. You only specify what time of day the tasks should go live, and the scheduling is adjusted per participant.
5. Kick-off calls are essential
Before the project goes live, make sure everyone on your team in each market understands the objectives. A kick-off call to align recruiters, moderators, and observers is vital. Multi-country projects need active management and moderation — participants in different markets may react differently to the same tasks, so moderation needs to be responsive.
Indeemo are specialists at multi-country projects. We'll onboard all your local moderators and recruiters, walk them through the workflow, and get them trained on the platform. Training typically takes no longer than an hour. For participants, Indeemo is like a simplified version of a private one-to-one Facebook or Instagram. The app has been used by every demographic, from Gen Z to participants in their 70s, without issues. On your kick-off call, we'll also walk your local research partners through the participant onboarding experience so they're familiar with the UX.
How does Indeemo support multi-country qualitative research?
Indeemo is built for multi-market research. Alongside the 30+ language localisation and concurrent-project handling already covered, Indeemo supports the full end-to-end workflow:
- Recruit B2C and B2B participants in hours from a panel of 3 million+ participants across major global markets
- Automated transcription and translation in 30+ languages for cross-market analysis
- Generative AI for summarisation, thematic analysis, and sentiment analysis to speed up analysis significantly
- Flexible roles and permissions so partners in each market see only their participants, while you see all markets from a single dashboard
- Subtitled highlight reels for sharing cross-market findings with stakeholders
Do you need in-market expertise to run multi-country research?
No. Whether you're an international research agency or a brand running research across markets for the first time, Indeemo can support you.
Use the platform independently if you have the in-market partners in place, or partner with our Catalyst team for recruitment, moderation, translation review, and analysis across markets. If you have the ambition but not the in-market capacity, we can lend a helping hand.
Frequently asked questions
What languages does Indeemo support? Indeemo is localised into 30+ languages. Automated video transcription is available in major languages including Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish.
How many participants do multi-country studies typically involve? Most multi-country qualitative studies run with 15–30 participants per market. A 5-market study might involve 75–150 participants total. Because each participant contributes rich multi-format data, sample sizes can be smaller than survey-based research.
How long does a multi-country study typically run? Most multi-country studies run for 7–14 days of fieldwork, sometimes longer for longitudinal programmes. Set-up (including translation, recruitment, and kick-off) typically takes 2–3 weeks before fieldwork begins.
Do you provide translation services for tasks and discussion guides? Indeemo doesn't provide human translation of tasks or discussion guides — that usually comes from your local moderators or recruiters. The platform itself localises automatically for participants, and automated transcription and translation run across submissions during analysis.
Can you run different tasks in different markets? Yes. Indeemo's flexible task structure lets you run variations of your study across markets when that's useful. Many multi-country studies keep the core tasks consistent across markets for comparability, with some local variations where cultural context requires it.
