It is currently being beta-tested internally but VP of business strategy Brent Chudoba expects it to progress to live testing among actual customers in the next quarter. Customers currently have to fill out a request form and liase with the company to gain access to Audience sample.

SurveyMonkey’s own panel, which it markets to consumers as ‘Contribute’, has been operational for nine months. It has grown to one million members, and caters for around 50 projects a week, Chudoba said.

Those one million panellists are in addition to the 2.5m panellists it acquired with the takeover of MarketTools’ ZoomPanel business in December.

Chudoba explains that ZoomPanel is one of the recruitment sources for the Audience service, though the type of customer using it differs somewhat from the typical Contribute customer.

Contribute was set up to provide fairly small sample sizes of high incidence respondents to companies and individuals who don’t normally buy panel services. ZoomPanel, Chudoba said, is for people more familiar with market research, who have international sample needs (Contribute is US-only) and who require more complexity in audience targeting.

By adding a self-service sample option through the SurveyMonkey platform, the company is looking to match the capabilities of sample companies including Toluna, uSamp and Peanut Labs – all of whom compete with SurveyMonkey to offer DIY survey tools through which you can already get direct access to their panels.