Pollfish

Pollfish is a survey technology company founded in 2013 that built its business around reaching respondents through mobile applications and websites. Rather than relying exclusively on people who join a conventional research panel, its platform distributes surveys within a network of digital publishers. This approach connects survey buyers with people while they are using participating apps or browsing participating sites. Pollfish describes its sampling approach as Random Device Engagement, or RDE. The distinction matters because recruitment happens through digital activity, rather than only through a standing community whose members have specifically registered to take market research surveys.

The company offers a self-service platform for creating questionnaires, selecting an audience, collecting responses, and reviewing results. Customers can define respondent requirements using demographic and geographic criteria, and screening questions can narrow eligibility further. Its questionnaire tools support formats such as multiple-choice questions, rating scales, and open-ended responses. Survey logic allows researchers to direct respondents through different paths according to their answers. These capabilities make Pollfish both a questionnaire-building product and a source of survey respondents, rather than simply software that requires customers to bring their own mailing lists. Its commercial model includes purchasing responses from the audiences customers select.

Pollfish also provides research options beyond a basic opinion questionnaire. Its offerings include conjoint analysis and MaxDiff, two established methods for studying preferences. Conjoint research examines how people value combinations of product attributes, while MaxDiff asks respondents to identify the most and least preferred items within sets. Pollfish has also promoted concept testing, brand awareness research, and advertising testing as applications of its platform. These uses connect its survey infrastructure to concrete business questions: which product configuration consumers prefer, whether an audience recognizes a brand, or how respondents react to a proposed advertisement. Results are accessed through the platform’s reporting interface.

A major event in Pollfish’s corporate history was its acquisition by Prodege in 2022. Prodege operates consumer rewards and research businesses, including Swagbucks, MyPoints, and InboxDollars. The transaction brought Pollfish’s survey technology and publisher-based respondent access into a company already active in consumer insights and rewarded participation. John Papadakis, Pollfish’s co-founder and chief executive, was publicly associated with the company’s development and acquisition announcement. The deal is an identifiable milestone separating Pollfish’s independent startup history from its subsequent place within Prodege. Taken together, its publisher distribution model, self-service research tools, and acquisition explain Pollfish’s particular position in the online market research industry today.