Product seeding & testing,
defined.

Product seeding

Product seeding is sending free product to selected people, such as creators, superfans, reviewers or potential customers, so they try it and talk about it. Success is measured by what comes back: content, reviews, feedback or sales.

In Portifer: A seeding campaign in Portifer covers recipient selection, shipping, tracking and the feedback or content each recipient sends back.

Product testing (consumer)

Consumer product testing is putting a physical product in the hands of target consumers and collecting structured feedback on how they use it, before or after launch.

In Portifer: Testing campaigns pair a box with a survey and photo or video upload tasks, and summarise the responses.

In-home usage test (IHUT)

An in-home usage test is a product test where participants use the product in their own home over a set period and report back, instead of trying it once in a lab or store.

Product sampling

Product sampling is giving away small or full-size samples to drive trial. Sampling is usually broad and volume-driven; seeding is usually targeted at fewer, chosen recipients.

Influencer seeding

Influencer seeding is sending product to creators without a paid posting agreement, in the hope that they choose to feature it. It differs from a paid partnership, where content is contracted.

User-generated content (UGC)

User-generated content is photos, videos and reviews created by customers or testers rather than by the brand. Brands need the creator's permission before reusing it in marketing.

In Portifer: Recipients upload photos and videos on a branded page; uploads are stored against the campaign and the recipient.

Account-based gifting

Account-based gifting is sending a physical gift or product to specific people at target companies to start or advance a sales conversation, usually coordinated with a CRM.

Direct mail

Direct mail is printed or physical marketing sent by post to a named recipient. Product seeding and gifting are forms of direct mail that ship a product rather than a printed piece.

Kitting

Kitting is assembling several items, such as products, inserts and packaging, into one ready-to-ship box before dispatch.

In Portifer: The box builder defines what goes in each box and generates packing lists.

Packing list

A packing list is the item-by-item list of what goes into a shipment, used by whoever packs the box and to check what was sent.

Fulfilment partner

A fulfilment partner is a third-party warehouse that stores your stock and picks, packs and ships orders on your behalf.

In Portifer: On the Assisted and Fully Managed plans, fulfilment partners pack and ship campaign boxes and update status in their own portal.

Carrier account

A carrier account is a business agreement with a shipping company such as Bring, PostNord, DHL, UPS or FedEx that gives you API access and your negotiated rates.

In Portifer: Connect your carrier accounts to print labels and track parcels inside the campaign.

Tracking link and QR code

A tracking link or QR code is a unique URL printed on or in a package that tells the sender when the recipient opened it.

In Portifer: Each recipient's QR code opens a branded welcome page and records the scan on the campaign.

Sample size

Sample size is the number of participants a test needs for its results to describe the larger group with a chosen confidence level and margin of error.

In Portifer: Use the free sample size calculator to work out how many testers you need.

Margin of error

Margin of error is how far a survey result may be from the true value in the whole population, at a given confidence level. Smaller margins need larger samples.

Confidence level

The confidence level is how sure you can be that the true value falls inside the margin of error. 95% is the most common choice.

Sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is automatically classifying written or spoken feedback as positive, neutral or negative.

In Portifer: Responses are sentiment-scored and summarised automatically, and video feedback is transcribed.

Seeding ROI

Seeding ROI compares what a campaign cost (product, packaging, shipping and handling) with what it produced, such as content value, reviews, meetings or sales.

In Portifer: The free campaign ROI calculator estimates the return of a testing campaign from your own inputs.