Enhancing Participation in Web Tracking Studies Through Monetary Incentives

Web tracking studies provide unique insights into digital behavior but face challenges related to participant recruitment and attrition. This study examines how different monetary incentive structures - unconditional and conditional - and incentive amounts affect key recruitment stages: consent to participate in web tracking, installation of tracking software, and attrition after installation. To assess the effectiveness of monetary incentives across probabilistic and nonprobabilistic recruitment methods, we implement a preregistered experiment with 1,862 participants in the GESIS Panel.dbd - an academic infrastructure for collecting and linking digital behavioral data with survey data in Germany. Results show that unconditional incentives increase consent rates, whereas conditional incentives more effectively foster installation and, in particular, sustain participation after installation. While probabilistic recruitment poses challenges for initial consent, participation levels hereafter remain comparable across recruitment methods. These findings contribute to the development of cost-effective incentive strategies aimed at enhancing participation in web tracking studies.