Nielsen Pulse vs Pinecone Research

Nielsen Pulse offers email-based support for US panelists at uspulsesupport@nielsen.com. The website also includes a Contact Us page with the same email address. There's no live chat or phone support listed.

The terms also allow panel members to contact Nielsen directly to request account deletion if they choose to leave.

Given that Nielsen is a large, established company, their support infrastructure should be reasonably reliable — though response times are not published, and the absence of live chat may be frustrating for users with urgent account issues.

One remarkable aspect of this research firm is the professionalism and user friendliness about their business.

We have had a few interactions with the company ever since I enrolled as a member, and every piece of my communications to the company has been greeted with polite and timely responses.

Once we had trouble with the PayPal side, and the customer service officer was so helpful that she seemed to take it upon herself to get the matter resolved.

There are many survey panels out there, but we’ve never come across another one that pulls off such excellent service.

The biggest sticking point for many users will be the privacy trade-off. The app requires you to grant location permissions, notifications, and install a research VPN on your device. Nielsen uses this access to track your device usage, web activity, streaming behaviour, and purchases. The terms explicitly state that this can include sensitive personal information such as race and ethnicity.

You also won't know if you qualify until after you complete the eligibility survey. Those who don't qualify are put on a waitlist, with no guarantee of ever being admitted to the panel.

Membership is household-wide by agreement. When you sign up, you're agreeing on behalf of all household members whose devices the app is installed on — and you're required to inform them and get their consent before doing so.

People employed by TV networks, cable or satellite providers, digital media platforms, or other media companies are not eligible to join. You also must keep your panel membership confidential and are not permitted to publicly identify yourself as a participant — including in app store reviews.

Points expire after 12 months and have no cash value. If you leave the panel for any reason, any unredeemed points are forfeited. Nielsen can also modify or discontinue the rewards program at any time.

There is a chance you may not qualify to be part of the panel at any given time as PineCone will have certain needs for certain demographics.

Also, although they are accepting all males residing in the US currently we have gotten some responses that applications were turned down based on zip code although this is rare.