Field Experimentation in Marketing Research

Abstract

Despite increasing efforts to encourage the adoption of field experiments in marketing research (e.g., Campbell 1969 ; Cialdini 1980 ; Li et al. 2015 ), the majority of scholars continue to rely primarily on laboratory studies ( Cialdini 2009 ). For example, of the 50 articles published in Journal of Marketing Research in 2013, only three (6%) were based on field experiments. The goal of this article is to motivate a methodological shift in marketing research and increase the proportion of empirical findings obtained using field experiments. The author begins by making a case for field experiments and offers a description of their defining features. She then demonstrates the unique value that field experiments can offer and concludes with a discussion of key considerations that researchers should be mindful of when designing, planning, and running field experiments.