The product, already available in the US and Australia, gives UK businesses direct online access to a panel of tens of thousands of consumers. Users can be targeted according to gender, age, location, household income, children’s age, technology use and education.

Panellists are recruited via SurveyMonkey surveys and are incentivised with charitable donations; UK respondents can currently choose for their donation to go to Mencap, Barnardos, Oxfam or the RNLI.

This news comes alongside the release of a report, The Democratisation of Insight, by SurveyMonkey, which revealed that most business leaders ( 91%) believe powerful customer insight is the preserve of big brands. The study, which gathered feedback from 400 business leaders, also showed that 39% of respondents complained that their business lacks the customer data required to make timely decisions, and 83% would like to access customer insight more regularly but complain it’s too expensive and too time-consuming to gather.

Consequently, claims the report, 73% of the 400 business leaders said they make decisions based on gut instinct alone.

“It’s not surprising that with all the data available today, business decision makers still rely on gut,” said Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey (pictured). “This is because it’s hard to get quality, actionable data as fast as the speed of business.”