FY24 Annual Report and Accounts

YouGov is an international online research data and analytics technology group.

Our innovative solutions help the world's most recognised brands, media owners and agencies to plan, activate and track their marketing activities better.

With operations in the UK, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia Pacific, we have one of the world's largest research networks.

Our

Purpose

Our

Panel

Highlights

Financial Highlights

STRATEGIC REPORT

Contents

Strategic Report

Our purpose

To give the world a voice through our global community by collecting, measuring and analysing their opinions and behaviours and reporting the findings accurately and free from bias.

Our mission

To supply a continuous stream of accurate data and insight into what the world thinks, so that companies, governments and institutions can make informed decisions.

Our vision

For YouGov to be the world's leading provider of marketing and opinion data. We want YouGov data to be a valued public and client platform used by hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis, enabling intelligent decision-making and informed conversations.

Our panel

A global online community that allows us to produce a reliably representative picture for analysis and predictions.

1 Defined in the explanation of non-IFRS measures on page 35.

Financial and Operational Highlights

Governance Report

Financial Statements

Recognition and Accreditations

ISO 27001 certification

• International standard for Information Security management

Cyber Essentials Plus certification

• External assurance of protection against common cyber threats

SUPER certification

• Single-useplastic reduction achievements in six offices

AIM Awards 2023

• Best Use of AIM (Shortlisted)
• AIM Transaction of the Year (Shortlisted)
• Diversity Champion (Shortlisted)

IR Magazine Awards - Europe 2024

• Best investor event: small to mid-cap (Winner)
• Best annual report: mid-cap (Shortlisted)

Women in Governance, Risk and Compliance Awards 2024

• Team of the Year (Winner)

Chartered Governance Institute Awards 2023

• Team of the Year (Shortlisted)
• Kate Humphreys for Champion for Governance (Shortlisted)

CorpComms Awards 2023

• Best In-House Team: Internal Communications (Shortlisted)

ESG Highlights

• Set near-term and net zero targets for carbon emissions reduction
• Published our inaugural stand-alone ESG Report
• Signed up to the UN Global Compact
• Launched Employee Value Proposition to articulate the unique YouGov experience
• Incorporated ESG objectives into executive remuneration schemes

Additional Information

Chair's Statement

STRATEGIC REPORT

While the year presented its challenges, we took swift action to right-size our organisation and ensure delivery of our long-term strategic growth plan."

Stephan Shakespeare

Chair

My first full year as Chair of the YouGov plc Board of Directors has been one of change for YouGov, as we moved into our third long-term strategic growth plan (SP3), led by our new CEO, Steve Hatch.

During the year, we completed our transformative acquisition of GfK's Consumer Panel Services business ("CPS"), an established leader in household purchase data in Europe serving FMCG clients, welcoming 1,000+ new employees to the YouGov Group and increasing our workforce size by 50%. We also acquired KnowledgeHound, a US based survey data management solution, to aid the extension of our YouGov Crunch survey analytics platform to handle the needs of large brands. More recently, following the end of the reporting year, we acquired Yabble, the New Zealand based company that has pioneered the use of generative AI to deliver audience insights.

Last year, I noted the ongoing challenges and macro uncertainty in our industry, which have persisted into FY24. Client budgets have increasingly come under pressure and the prevalence of fraudulent data has led to greater scrutiny on panel quality across the industry. YouGov invested in further improvements to our systems and we continue to be seen throughout the industry

as the gold standard for high-quality data. However, in the period of uncertainty, clients appear to have eased off from new commitments. We believe that in the new world of AI-powered research, high quality connected and structured data will become increasingly important and we are again seeing increased demand from our most data-savvy clients.

Financial results and dividend

In FY24, while we grew revenue compared to the prior year, growth in the US and UK region was in part offset by slight contractions in the EMEA and APAC markets. Against this slowdown, the Board acted quickly to support management to take significant cost action towards the end of the financial year, which is expected

to generate annualised cost savings of £20 million. The guiding principle was to right-size our organisation and ensure we are resourced in more strategically focussed areas to maximise our capacity and efficiency. While these decisions are never easy, the cost optimisation initiatives were determined with a view to sustaining profitability levels and ensuring delivery of our long-term strategic growth plan, SP3, which is set out in further detail in the CEO's Report.

YouGov continues to maintain a progressive dividend policy and, in line with this, the Board is pleased to recommend a dividend of 9.0p per share payable on 9 December 2024 to shareholders on the register as at 29 November 2024. This will be tabled for shareholder approval at our Annual General Meeting ("AGM") on 5 December 2024.

SP3 - Commencing the third strategic growth plan (SP3)

Our vision is for YouGov to be the world's leading provider of marketing and opinion data. To support our realisation of this vision, we choose to operate using the tool of medium-to-long term strategic growth plans to enable us to allocate resources, make investment decisions and to create a close link between corporate performance and executive remuneration. In FY23, the Board approved the strategic direction for our third long- term strategic plan, SP3, to commence from FY24. In this first year of the plan, the Board was delighted to welcome new members of senior management, product owners, and clients, to join our annual strategic offsite in May 2024 where we considered "SP3 in the age of AI". It is clear to us that there is huge potential in AI technology not only to create more efficiencies within our workflows but also to access new layers of value from our unique connected dataset.

Governance and Board composition

During FY24, the YouGov plc Board also saw some changes. In February 2024, Sundip Chahal stepped down as an Executive Director and Chief Business Officer (CBO). Sundip contributed significantly to the Company's first two long- term financial plans during his tenure as CBO and formerly as Chief Operating Officer. In April 2024, in line with our previously disclosed succession plan, Rosemary Leith stepped down from the Board of Directors after nine years. We are grateful to have had Rosemary's outstanding contribution

to our Board as Chair of the Remuneration Committee and formerly Senior Independent Director during her tenure. In June 2024, we welcomed Deborah Davis to the Board and as Chair of the Remuneration Committee. Deborah has extensive global experience in platform business models, software, fintech, telecoms and e-commerce businesses, and her appointment further strengthens our governance capabilities. I am confident that we have a strong and balanced Board of Directors to support our growth and strategic ambitions.

In addition, Steve has strengthened the senior management team through the year, in both functional and regional leadership, as detailed in his CEO's Report, putting the Company in an advantaged position to realise our ambitions.

Environmental, social and governance ('ESG')

Building on a foundation of ethical, sustainable, and responsible business practices, our commitment to ESG is a natural continuation of who we are as a company, and I am pleased to report on a number of ESG highlights in the year.

Our CEO delivered on his ESG objective to formalise and champion YouGov's policy on neutrality. The principle of neutrality is essential to YouGov's mission to give a voice to what the world thinks. While it has always been a core principle within the market research industry, the introduction of this formal policy ensures that we share a clear understanding of what neutrality means to YouGov and how we apply it to our research

and editorial output. Additionally, our new Employee Value Proposition ("EVP") was launched, laying the foundations for a combined, enriching culture as our teams at YouGov and CPS come together to form one, unified business.

In May 2024, we published our inaugural stand-alone ESG Report (available on our corporate website at: corporate.yougov.com/esg). Introducing our net zero targets and our social mission framework, this report reflects our continued commitment to transparency and accountability in our ESG approach. YouGov's social mission framework incorporates our commitments to support and engage our panel members, clients, employees, and the wider community. From providing unparalleled access to free public data, to maintaining a representative and accessible panel, we are driven by a desire to make a positive social impact. We are also in a unique position to support our clients with their own ESG agendas, and the case studies in our ESG Report illustrate how our trusted insights inform a range of ESG approaches.

Looking ahead and conclusion

On behalf of the Board, I want to reiterate our appreciation of the resilience of all our employees and their dedication to the YouGov values - be fast, be fearless, get it right, trust and respect each other. I wish to commend Steve on his ability to adapt swiftly to the difficult changing conditions we have seen this year and his commitment to a positive, inclusive culture. As we welcome our new colleagues from KnowledgeHound, CPS and Yabble and work through the integration plan for our enlarged business, we are committed to maintaining

the strongest aspects of culture and learning from our new colleagues to make YouGov a place people can continue to thrive. While the next year will not be without its challenges as we implement our cost actions, I believe our chosen business model and strategy, including our unique and valuable panel asset, is what enables us to continue to deliver long-term value to our stakeholders, and will make YouGov the world's number one market research company.

Stephan Shakespeare

Chair

5 November 2024

Business at a Glance

STRATEGIC REPORT

Offices worldwide

52

Clients worldwide

4,600+

Employees worldwide

3,000+

Registered Members worldwide

29m+

No. of panel markets

63

#2

Most quoted market research source worldwide

Our divisions

Our business is structured into three divisions, and the connectedness of our products and services serves as a strong differentiator.

Our reach

YouGov has one of the world's largest research networks

  YouGov Partner Panel

  YouGov Panel

Panel split by region (FY24)

Mainland Europe 40%

Americas 35%

UK 19%

Asia Pacific 6%

YouGov Global Affiliate Partnerships Programme

YouGov's Global Affiliate Partnerships Programme offers research agencies access to YouGov's platforms, expertise and (where required) panel, while establishing the YouGov brand and data products in the local market.

Learn more at:business.yougov.com/global-affiliate-partnerships

Investment Case

STRATEGIC REPORT

Our Competitive Advantages

Our proprietary panel

YouGov recruits, maintains and utilises its own proprietary panel of over 29 million registered panel members across 63 markets. We constantly strive to improve our member experience and ensure our panel remains representative, inclusive, and accessible.

This deeply profiled panel of registered members plays a crucial role in maintaining our consumer intelligence database, providing

Our rich, connected dataset

For over 20 years, YouGov has been using its highly engaged panel

to build an ever-growing source of connected consumer data that powers all our products and platforms.

The depth, breadth and connectedness of this data acts as a strong differentiator as clients increasingly look to understand their audiences better and extract more value from their research

Our strong brand

As innovators and pioneers of online market research, we have a strong reputation as a trusted source of accurate data and insights.

Testament to this, YouGov data is regularly referenced by the global press, and the company regularly receives top rankings in independent studies on panel quality and data accuracy.

This strong brand reputation instils

a constant flow of opinion and behavioural data that can be leveraged by our clients.

All of our products and services draw upon this detailed understanding to deliver accurate, actionable consumer insights.

programs.

Combined with our strong research expertise, the accuracy of this dataset is second to none and ensures YouGov maintains its reputation for high-quality data solutions.

a high level of trust, not only among clients, but also our registered panel members who continue to share their personal data with YouGov on a daily basis.

5

Enhanced profitability

Solid profitability with actions taken to underpin long-term ambitions

£20 million

cost optimisation plan underway

6

Strong leadership

Highly motivated and experienced leadership team with a clear goal of enhancing shareholder value and employee experience

27

average years of professional experience

[YouGov has] the amount of data, that no matter what we want to measure, [YouGov can] always find enough samples and respondents. That's why I don't have to go anywhere else."

YouGov US Client

Chief Executive Officer's Statement

STRATEGIC REPORT

YouGov has delivered a resilient performance in FY 2024, while the business has undergone a period of transition and change."

Steve Hatch

Chief Executive Officer

08 YouGov plc Annual Report & Accounts 2024

FY 2024 was a year of transition for the industry and at YouGov. Having concluded my first year at the company, I am fully convinced that the strength of our data, brand and people remains unrivalled.

Over the past year the business has seen a number of successes and challenges, from the completion of the transformational CPS acquisition and a successful UK General Election cycle to our disappointing trading update in June 2024 and the subsequent announcement of our cost optimisation and restructuring plan. While several factors, both internal and external, have contributed to the challenges we have faced, I am confident the actions we have taken will set the business up for sustained success in the future. I would like to thank all the employees at YouGov and our new colleagues at CPS for their hard work and commitment.

The market research industry has had to adapt to several market forces over the year from the rise of AI-based insights to addressing panel quality issues and the continued high interest rate environment leading to a cautious spending profile from clients. Consequently, the global Market Research sector recorded growth of 5% in 20231, in line with inflation and growth rates seen in the prior year, with some of the largest players in our industry recording year-on-year declines. Against this backdrop, YouGov reported 3% underlying2 growth in FY24 and 30% reported growth reflecting the CPS acquisition.

FY24 Priorities

We have made considerable progress over the past year in our areas of priority for FY24 and this will set us up for growth in the medium term. These priority areas are:

CPS

• Completed the transformational acquisition of CPS, the European leader in household purchase data with panels across 18 countries, for a headline purchase price of €315m, in January 2024.
• The division has continued to perform well post-completion with clients continuing to receive the high level of service they had prior to the deal. Additionally, the CPS and YouGov teams are beginning to collaborate on research opportunities, particularly in Germany and Italy.
• With the integration process well underway, we will be investing in strategic growth initiatives for the CPS business to accelerate future growth, including:

1. • Development of a new platform, SimIT Web, in conjunction with Circana™, which is expected to launch in FY25. The platform will represent a significant step forward in the
2. According to the ESOMAR Global Market Research Report published in September 2024.
3. Defined in the explanation of non-IFRS measures on page 35.

shopper analytics industry owing to its efficient data accessibility and visualisation, export capabilities, AI chatbot, collaboration features, automatic report updates and user-friendliness.

• Build out of passive consumer panels in the Nordics through automated receipt data collection, thereby increasing the potential commercial opportunities with brands and retailers in the region.

Panel Quality

• Following the publication of our industry leading white paper in November 2023 on how we maintain superior data quality in YouGov BrandIndex, we have been able to catch fraudulent and inattentive respondents in real-time, eliminating slow, manual processing. This has resulted in measurably better response quality in our surveys. For example, the percentage of US respondents in YouGov BrandIndex that failed attention checks has dropped from 5% in early 2023 to about 1% in August 2024.
• The quality of our panel was put to the test at the 2024 UK General Election and we were extremely pleased that YouGov's predictions called 92% of seats accurately, surpassing the accuracy of all major pollsters including the exit poll.

Product Innovation

• Based on feedback from clients and our assessment of our Data Products proposition, we identified the need to improve the user interface and user experience of our syndicated subscription products to increase their ease of use and discoverability of the data. Following the acquisitions of KnowledgeHound and Yabble, we have developed a product roadmap that includes a series
  of enhancements and new AI-enabled features to be introduced in FY25.
• Additionally, we further identified the need for us to have more category-specific products that serve a wider base of clients and address their most immediate needs in a cost- efficient way, allowing us to tap into the upside potential with brand clients. We were able to rapidly develop and test these products using our existing YouGov BrandIndex dataset while expanding into category-specific data
  to track industry behaviours, attributes and products. Subsequently, we have launched YouGov CategoryView in the US covering seven different categories across the FMCG, Automotive and Financial Services sectors, with several more planned for launch during FY25.

Commercial Rigour

• One of the areas that has undergone a notable transition and change over the past year has been the structure of our commercial teams. Beginning with the appointment of a new Chief Commercial Officer, Tom Fisher, in January 2024, we changed the reporting structure and accountability to be more regionally aligned.

• Under Tom's leadership, we have thoroughly evaluated our sales incentive programme and moved our account management teams to quarterly targets and more focussed client accounts in terms of numbers and sectors. Additionally, we have appointed a new leader for our UK business and will imminently be appointing a leader for our DACH business. Overall, we believe we have the right measures and leaders now in place to ensure we continue to expand our share of wallet with existing clients and win new business in the coming years.

US Expansion

• The US has seen robust underlying2 growth in FY24, in line with the market, with variability in performance across different sectors. After a short pause in FY23, the technology sector returned to strong growth in the year. However, this was offset in part by a slowdown in the gaming sector which has undergone a period of restructuring and the academic sector which is expected to return to growth in FY25 ahead of the 2024 US Presidential Election.

Cost optimisation plan

Following the lower than expected growth achieved in FY24, we accelerated our internal operational and strategic review of the YouGov business and subsequently commenced a cost optimisation plan. The strategic review included an assessment of our entire product portfolio, reviewing the size and profitability of some of our local operations and evaluating our support function needs for the next 12-18 months.

The Company identified several areas where we could reduce our cost base and reallocate resources to be a more focussed and efficient business. We expect these streamlining measures to lead to annualised cost savings of £20 million, through a reduction in support functions, discontinuing under- performing products, scaling back in certain non-core regions and curtailing third-party supplier costs. It is anticipated that about 70% of the annualised cost savings will be realised in FY25, weighted towards the second half of the year.

Third strategic growth plan ("SP3")

YouGov's current strategic growth plan aims to deepen YouGov's strategy and complete the final stage of positioning ourselves as a platform business with a dual go-to-market strategy targeting enterprise sales and a digital path to purchase. This strategic growth plan is underpinned by three key growth areas:

• Deepening client relations and increasing market penetration through our syndicated data products and customised research;
• Driving greater usage of our self-serve client platform, through single sign-on and a digital sales and marketing approach; and
• Targeting greenfield opportunities, such as newer products and M&A.

Chief Executive Officer's Statement

continued

CEO Q&A

STRATEGIC REPORT

Following the announcement of our cost optimisation plan in August 2024, we will be prioritising our investments in areas where we see the greatest potential for return to ensure we remain on track to delivering on SP3. Some of the identified areas of initial investment include:

• Upgrading our Data Products, as outlined above, to make the interface more intuitive and adding features and pre- built content that increase the speed and ease at which clients can derive the data and insights they need.
• Further building out our AI-enabled capabilities to enhance operational efficiency through workflow automation and develop client-facing product innovations. Beginning with YouGov Profiles, our flagship audience intelligence tool, we will look to introduce conversational search and analytics to make the data within our vast dataset more discoverable.
• Enhancing our sales organisation through the appointment of new regional leaders for UK and EMEA to drive improved performance.

Following the completion of the CPS transaction, the Group revised its medium-term guidance to include the contribution from CPS, and our ambitions remain unchanged:

• Medium-termrevenue of £650 million; and
• Medium-termadjusted operating profit margin of 25%.

The Board is confident that our identified investment priorities and cost optimisation measures will allow the Group to focus on its long-term strategic plan and deliver on the ambitious financial targets over time.

Current trading and outlook

• Trading for the current financial year is broadly in line with the prior year as expected, reflecting the slower sales bookings in H2 FY24.
• Continue to see demand for our high-quality Custom Research data, while seeing longer sales cycles for Data Products subscription sales.
• Sales bookings momentum is expected to pick up in Q2 and Q3 FY25 as we head into renewal season for our Data Products, supported by the launch of new products and features as well as an improvement in market conditions.
• We expect the Group to meet current market expectations for FY25, which will be second half weighted due to the ongoing restructuring process.
• We maintain a disciplined approach to cash management, and as of 31 July 2024, the Group has a robust balance sheet, with approximately £74 million in cash and cash equivalents and €16 million of the revolving credit facility remains undrawn.
• Moving into FY25, enhancing our core Data Products, further development of AI capabilities and building up our team of expert researchers and data scientists will be our key investment areas.

Leadership team

In my first year at YouGov, I have been thoroughly impressed, not only by the calibre of the staff and their dedication to the company, but also their enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit. As we evolve into a market leader in our field, it is vital that we become a more globally connected organisation with a clearer corporate structure, which in turn will lead to better accountability and performance.

Beginning with the aforementioned appointment of a new Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), we have reorganised our sales and regional teams to enable greater collaboration, clear roles and responsibilities and alignment of goals. Under the new structure, regional heads have full responsibility of the commercial and delivery teams and report into the CCO. This will enable us to better serve our large multi-national clients using a more global approach to our key client relationships.

Furthermore, we have strengthened our senior leadership team with the appointment of Marc Ryan as Chief Product Officer (CPO) in September 2024. Marc's initial focus will be on YouGov's Data Products, and he joins YouGov to oversee our product strategy with a focus on customer-centric innovation. As CPO, Marc will set our long-term product vision across the entire product ecosystem, including cross-product convergence. With over 30 years of experience in the market research industry, Marc has an exceptional track record as

a transformational leader specialising in data, product, and scaling growth across dynamic B2C and B2B environments. Marc joins us at an exciting time for the industry as advances in zero party data and AI see clients demanding more from their research. Combining Marc's expertise with YouGov's renowned data products and our unrivalled proprietary data set, we will continue to be the innovation leader in our industry.

Over the past year, I have witnessed firsthand how YouGov's talented team have worked tirelessly to deliver on the Company's clear purpose and mission. While the year has been one of the most challenging in YouGov's history, I remain excited about our future knowing that we have the right products, people and strategy in place.

Steve Hatch

Chief Executive Officer

5 November 2024

Artificial Intelligence

How do you envision AI impacting YouGov and the wider market research industry?

From my perspective, I see AI impacting YouGov across two key fronts: how we use it deliver higher-quality data and insights to clients in both improved and new data products, and how we can harness this technology further to work more efficiently.

While it is important to understand the benefits AI can bring, we also need to be aware of the limitations that come with any new technology. Ultimately, all AI models are judged by the quality of their outputs, which are really defined by the quality of the inputs. This is where YouGov is perfectly placed based on the trusted relationship we have with our global panel who trust us with their most sensitive opinion, attitudinal and behavioural data. At the moment, there are many peers and clients experimenting in this space but are not ready for wide-scale commercial use. We are making sure that YouGov is staying at the cutting edge of that conversation and how this technology evolves.

For example, the area of synthetic data and personas has been gaining traction over the past year. Despite only acquiring Yabble in August, their team is already working closely with Marc Ryan (our new Chief Product Officer) to understand how we can use Yabble's cutting-edge AI-based tools as an extension of YouGov's accurate, continuously updated data source to augment our flagship subscriptions products, as well as a build disruptive new products.

Secondly, whether it's leveraging custom AI agents to reduce the time it takes to get our surveys into field or replacing traditionally resource heavy third-party services like translation with leading AI tools, AI will enable our teams to move faster and service clients better.

True to the company's heritage, YouGov is a innovation- led research company. From founding the online research methodologies, to first adopting machine learning techniques such as MRP, we're fully embracing the opportunities AI present with a smart approach that is wise to the limitations but excited by the potential.

Data Governance

In a world moving towards increased online privacy, how does YouGov ensure there is a fair deal for those willing to share their data with you?

YouGov sits at the intersection of two of the biggest trends that we're seeing in society with regards to data governance: firstly, people want far greater control over their data and privacy and the ability to have control the use of that data, rather than the terms being dictated to them by companies. Alongside that is the general understanding that there is value in their data and that value should be recognised by organisations. YouGov is perfectly placed between these two trends, where the value exchange with our panel members is crystal clear, not just in the ability for them to share their opinions, but also in making sure that they are rewarded its usage.

We make sure to do the basics well, which goes a long way in gaining the trust of our panel members. We ensure members receive their rewards on time, send them surveys that are relevant and enjoyable, and allow them to see how their opinions are shaping the global news. It is this combination of years of hard work by our teams that we've been able to maintain our Trustpilot rating of 4.5 from over 50,000 reviews. By building this trust and transparency we have cultivated a community that is proud to be a part of the YouGov panel and see their opinions shared through the strength of our about public brand.

Social Mission

How do you see YouGov's role in society, especially in such an important year for democracy and elections?

One of the many reasons that I joined the company, and the same is true for many of us at YouGov, is in service to our stated purpose of giving the world a voice. Through our global community of panel members, we are uniquely positioned

to help shape companies, governments and institutions' decisions through an accurate and real-time understanding of the world's opinions and behaviours.

While this voice is most associated with the world of politics, we find that people are interested in participating across a whole host of other topics and issues. We begin every global townhall with a video of our panel members who speak highly of how they appreciate having their voice heard on not only various social topics, but also about brands, their services, and the all the products they use and spend their hard-earned money on.

Elections are a fantastic opportunity to put our methodology to the test. While many claim to have a high-quality panel, we stand out from the competition through our track record of accuracy in political polling - particularly in the last seven national elections, including the 2024 UK General Election, where we called 92% of seats accurately, leveraging the machine-learning powered MRP model. While only a small percentage of our revenue comes from political research, the data is drawn from the same proprietary panel that we use for our commercial work. So, elections are a good way for us to test ourselves and demonstrate our accuracy and data quality

- not only in politics but also to our clients.

Our Markets

STRATEGIC REPORT

Size of Market Research segment1

$54bn

YoY growth of Market Research segment1

+5%

YouGov's underlying2 revenue growth of

+3%

in FY24

YouGov operates in the global insights industry, which is valued at $142 billion, and includes the market research, research software and reporting segments. The industry seeks to help organisations discover, classify and analyse data and insights on their customers and target markets, with an aim to streamline their services and make more-informed business and political decisions.

More specifically, YouGov is largely a constituent of the more mature Market Research segment of the industry. This segment is seen to be the most representative of the industry and typically records growth in line with the overall economy. As a pioneer of online market research, YouGov has been a challenger to the more established research peers that have historically relied on more traditional research methods.

The highly fragmented nature of the market has led to clients engaging several research suppliers for their global research needs. Consequently, this has resulted in disconnected datasets being utilised by end users. Unlike the other players in the industry, maintaining our own proprietary global panel and having a full suite of research solutions - from syndicated brand tracking and audience profiling tools to complex, customised trackers - allow us to offer a unified offering for our clients.

Against a difficult macro backdrop, the segment saw a slowdown in 2023 with absolute growth of 5% and inflation-adjusted net decline of 0.3%, with two of the top three players reporting negative growth. With a sectoral market share of only 0.7% and top 20 ranking, YouGov is uniquely positioned to continue to gain market share over the long term.

Global Market Research Industry Segments

7% YOY growth

23%

Reporting and other

12% YOY growth

39%

Research software

5% YOY growth

38%

Market research

1. According to the ESOMAR Global Market Research Report published in September 2024.
2. Defined as growth in business excluding impact of current and prior period acquisitions, and movement in exchange rates.

Marketplace in action

How YouGov addresses the issue of suspect behaviour on its proprietary panel

YouGov, as mentioned, is one exception. Across all plausible criteria for evaluation, it stands apart. Over the years, it

has released a collection of detailed methodology statements revealing a sophisticated sample selection process and the use of its own proprietary panel. Its data has been analyzed by third parties, used by academics, and found to outperform other nonprobability data. It has also amassed a decade-long record of solid results in election polling."

'The Problem With a Crowd of New Online Polls', New York Times

27 September 2024

Case study

Challenge

Solution

Result

STRATEGIC REPORT

The purpose of brand tracking is to measure changes in consumers' attitudes toward brands and understand the causes of these changes. Data quality issues are a constant concern in tracking studies. Variations in sample composition can compromise over-time comparisons of brand metrics. Increasing activity by survey farms and bots further threaten data integrity and declining respondent engagement can add large amounts of noise to tracking data.

Data quality problems in market research panels have been widely reported across the global research industry over the last two years. In the past, YouGov had mostly been insulated from these problems as we rely more on long-term respondent engagement instead of short-term incentives. Nonetheless, we have not been completely immune to the problems plaguing the industry. Despite using standard attention checks to detect respondent inattentiveness, we noticed increasing variability in brand awareness, both in the aggregate and at the individual brand level.

We developed a new approach called Awareness Cross Entropy (ACE) that uses machine learning to directly detect response anomalies. In contrast, traditional approaches to response quality are indirect and not based upon the answers to the tracking metrics themselves. This is an important distinction because many respondents find tracking metrics to be tedious to answer and they may be more vulnerable to poor response quality than other types of questions.

We used the cross entropy of a particular respondent's awareness answers and those given by all other respondents as an indicator of anomalous responses. Entropy refers to the amount of disorder or uncertainty in a probability distribution. Cross-entropy compares the distance or discrepancy between two probability distributions. We began comparing the discrepancy between one respondent's answers and those given by a random draw from the rest of the population. A high ACE score indicates that the respondent's awareness answers are anomalous and likely unusable.

We validated ACE scores against our existing response quality measures. People with high ACE scores failed nearly half of our standard quality checks in the same survey, so it was safe to remove them from the panel. For example, they failed attention checks at over 8x the rate of other panellists. On the other hand, respondents with low to medium ACE scores were shown to be providing valid data and could be kept in the sample.

The new ACE methodology is applied automatically when brand metrics are collected. The adjustments using ACE scores were applied retroactively to the beginning of 2022 to take into account removal of panellists with high ACE scores. We observed that this new methodology raises average awareness and exhibits much better stability, with the largest increases emerging for the best known brands, as well as notable declines for brands with low awareness.

Our Business Model

YouGov's vision is to be the world's leading provider of marketing and opinion data.

STRATEGIC REPORT

Our stakeholders and the value

we create for them

Panels members

Our capacities

Our Technology

• Pioneer of online market research
• Innovative market-leading technology and analytics tools
• Technology platform connecting panel, research experts and clients

Our Panel

• Large proprietary panel with long-term panellist relationships
• High engagement levels providing unparalleled depth and breadth of connected data

Our People

• Talented, driven professionals
• Strong culture and reputed management team
• Global reach supported by Centre of Excellence (CenX) model

Our Reputation

• Respected brand name known for quality data
• Strong media presence
• Ethical approach, fully embracing EU GDPR and CCPA practices

Our Financial Strength

• Cash-generativebusiness enabling continuous reinvestment
• Market-leadinggrowth with expanding profit margins over the past decade

Ouroperatingtionalmodel

by three user

groups interacting as a virtuous circle and providing mutual benefit to each other

Underpinned by our commitment to ESG

Benefits to the public

ESG Roadmap

Our ESG Roadmap is our long- term strategy to integrate ESG principles throughout our operations. The goals and initiatives within this roadmap build upon the solid foundation set by our prior roadmap, and reflect our commitment to sustainable practices and responsible growth.

Social mission framework

Our social mission is to make people's opinions heard for the benefit of our local, national, and international communities. This encompasses our public data offering, our efforts to ensure our panel is truly representative, and our socially oriented research to support clients with their own ESG ambitions.

Data commitment