Quota groups let you control the demographic mix of your sample—setting the proportion of responses you want from each group directly on the Target Market page.
In This Article
- Setting Up Quota Groups
- Locking a Group's Number
- Using Quota Presets
- What Happens When You Apply a Preset
- Where Presets Are Available
- Common Setup Pattern
- Cloning a Quota Group
Setting Up Quota Groups
- On the Target Market page, scroll to Demographic quotas and make sure Quota groups is selected. It is selected by default on new surveys.
- Use the sliders and drop-downs to set the demographic traits for your first quota group.
- Click ADD at the bottom of the block to create the next group. The label beside the button tells you which group you're about to add—2nd Quota Group, 3rd Quota Group, and so on.
- Once you have more than one group, each group collapses into a summary card. Click EDIT on a card to open its sliders and drop-downs, then APPLY to keep your changes or CANCEL to discard them. If you haven't changed anything, the button reads CLOSE instead.
- Give each group a name by clicking its title. Unnamed groups display as Quota group 1, Quota group 2, and so on.
- To change the proportion of responses from each group, click the number beside the group name and type a new value. The other groups adjust automatically to keep your totals balanced. The smaller figure underneath shows the same target in the other unit—n=120 under a percentage, or 40% under a count.
- Optional: once you have two or more groups, use the View mode: toggle above the list to switch between percentage (%) and count (N). Percentage is the default.
⚠️ Note: In N view, changing a group's count changes your survey's total sample size to match the sum of all groups. In % view, your sample size stays put and the groups are recalculated against it.
Locking a Group's Number
Every group card has a lock icon. A closed lock means that group's number is fixed: when anything else changes, aytm leaves that group alone and redistributes the difference across the groups that are still unlocked. An open lock means the group can absorb the difference.
You rarely need to click it, because editing a group's number locks that group for you. That's what makes the "set each one and let the last one settle" pattern below work.
⚠️ Note: If every group is locked and the percentages don't add up to 100%, aytm has nowhere to put the difference and flags all the groups as invalid. Unlock at least one group—or correct the numbers so they total 100%—to clear it.
💡 Tip: A group that works out to 0% or 0 respondents is marked invalid and will block your survey from launching. Either give it a share or delete it with the group's trash icon.
Using Quota Presets
Instead of creating custom quota groups from scratch, you can fill them in with one click from the presets drop-down at the top of the Quota groups block. The presets carry census proportions for your survey's country—a quick way to ensure demographic balance without building groups manually or looking up any figures.
What the drop-down is called, and what it offers, depends on the country your survey is targeting:
| Country | Drop-down label | What you can choose |
|---|---|---|
| United States | US Census quota presets | Single traits—Gender, Age, Income, Region, Race, Hispanic—plus crossed pairs such as Age & Gender, Age & Region, Region & Race, and Race & Hispanic. |
| Canada | — | No census presets for quota groups. Canadian census balancing is available under Quota balancing instead. |
| All other countries | Presets | Age and Gender, each on its own. There is no crossed age-by-gender preset outside the US. |
💡 Tip: The presets use the same census figures as the default preset under Quota balancing. If you want the census mix with exact control at the intersection of traits, build it here with Quota groups; if you want aytm to balance each trait independently, use Quota balancing.
What Happens When You Apply a Preset
Picking a preset does four things at once:
- It replaces every existing group. Any groups you built by hand are removed, including ones from a preset you applied a moment earlier. Groups aren't merged or appended.
- It names and targets each new group. An Age preset produces groups like Age 18-34, Age 35-54, and Age 55+, each narrowed to its own age bracket. A Gender preset produces Males and Females. Traits the preset doesn't cover stay at your survey's default targeting.
- It converts the census shares into respondents for your current sample size. All but the last group are locked; the last group takes the remainder, so the counts always add up to your sample size exactly.
- It shows the preset's name in the drop-down so you can see what's applied.
For example, a UK survey of 200 respondents given the Age preset comes back as three groups at 29%, 34%, and 37%; the Gender preset comes back as two groups at 49% and 51%.
⚠️ Note: The preset itself isn't saved with your survey—only the groups it produced are. As soon as you edit any group, the drop-down goes back to its placeholder, and it will show the placeholder again after you save and reload. Your groups and their numbers are kept. To start over, simply pick the preset again.
Where Presets Are Available
The presets drop-down only appears when there is something to offer, so it is hidden rather than empty. If you don't see it, one of these applies:
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| Your country has no census data on file | Build your groups by hand, or ask your Account Manager whether census figures can be added for that country. |
| Your survey is set to Canada | Use Quota balancing for Canadian census targets, or build groups by hand. |
| Your survey uses a specialty panel (for example, B2B) | Census presets apply to general-population panels only. Build your groups by hand. |
| You changed the country and the list changed with it | That's expected—switching countries rebuilds the preset list and resets your target market to the new country's defaults. Re-select Quota groups after the switch. |
Common Setup Pattern
If you want to collect equal responses from each segment of a single trait—for example, equal numbers from each age group—here's an efficient approach:
- Click ADD to create a second quota group.
- Set the demographic filter for that group (for example, a different age bracket).
- Repeat for each bracket you need.
- Set each group to the same target percentage—for example, 25% each for four age groups. Each number you type locks that group, and the last group you leave alone absorbs whatever is left, so all four land on 25%.
Cloning a Quota Group
CLONE copies a single quota group, with all of its targeting, into the same survey. It's the quickest way to build a set of near-identical groups: set one up the way you want it, clone it, then change the one trait that differs.
- Make sure the group is collapsed into its summary card. CLONE sits beside EDIT on the card, so if the group is open for editing, apply or close it first.
- Click CLONE. A copy appears at the bottom of the list.
- Click EDIT on the copy and adjust its traits, name, and number.
💡 Tip: To reuse a whole quota structure on a different survey, copy the survey itself—the quota groups come with it. Cloning works within one survey only.