Research panel (traditional definition)
(Market research panel)A pre-recruited group of real people who've agreed to answer surveys or studies over time, typically managed by a research firm or platform.
The traditional, real-respondent definition.
In its traditional sense, a research panel is a pre-recruited group of real people who've agreed to participate in surveys or studies over time, typically managed by a research firm or a panel platform that handles recruiting, compensation, and quality control.
Why panels are recruited this way
Pre-recruiting a panel lets a research firm reach a known, demographically-tracked population repeatedly without recruiting from scratch for every study — valuable for tracking studies and for reaching niche or hard-to-find respondent groups reliably over time.
How this compares to a synthetic panel
A synthetic panel borrows the word "panel" but not the recruiting infrastructure behind a traditional one — there's no pre-existing pool of real people being managed. It's generated fresh from a description each time, trading the traditional panel's real-respondent grounding for speed and the ability to represent an audience with no existing panel access at all.