Quant gives you data. Qual gives you context. Coast gives you clarity.
Understand people. Move forward with confidence.
Coast Insights helps teams make better product, brand, and customer experience decisions through senior-led research and strategic interpretation.
Human-led, AI-augmented
Modern tools help us move faster, but human interpretation remains at the center.
Designed for high-stakes decisions
Built for moments where clarity, confidence, and alignment matter.
Culturally intelligent, globally grounded
Research shaped by local context across markets and audiences.
Always-on audience intelligence
Stop recruiting. Start owning.
Most research starts from zero every time. Coast builds you a standing community of the exact people who matter to your business: customers, prospects, competitors' customers, and decision-makers, ready to survey or interview whenever you need them. No cold recruiting. No waiting. Just answers.
Fuel & Fleet
Leading gas station brand
A standing community of 100 fuel card and fleet decision-makers, including holders of competitor fuel cards, available for ongoing research across pricing, loyalty, and product development.
Enterprise Technology
F100 tech company
A curated community of 30 cloud decision-makers at enterprise organizations, enabling continuous tracking of purchase intent, competitive perception, and emerging needs.
Mobile Workstation
F100 tech company
A community of 25 mobile workstation decision-makers at large enterprises, both clients and non-clients, delivering direct access to the buyers who shape hardware strategy.
What makes Coast different
Research should do more than measure.
It should create clarity, align teams, and drive confident decisions.
Senior-led, End-to-End
Every engagement is led by senior practitioners with decades of experience, bringing continuity and sharper thinking from design through delivery.
Craft over Commodity
We do not outsource the thinking. Our core team leads the work to ensure consistency, quality, and a seamless experience.
Context-driven Understanding
We approach every problem with deep appreciation for how people behave in the real world and the trade-offs they make.
Quality You Can Trust
We apply rigorous standards to recruitment, screening, and validation so insights are built on a strong foundation.
Designed for Action
Every engagement connects directly to decisions across product, brand, or customer experience.
Right-sized, Purpose-built
Each approach is tailored to the question at hand, balancing depth, speed, and rigor without unnecessary complexity.
The team
Credibility you can feel from the first conversation.
Steve Ingledew
Founding Partner
Decades of experience helping organizations understand how people make decisions.
TNSMillward BrownYouGovMaterial+ContextualYGreenbergResearch International
Tommy Slabaugh
Founding Partner
Specialist in advanced quantitative and decision science methodologies, with a genuine love for qualitative research and the human conversations that bring data to life.
ActBlueMaterial+GreenbergEMC Research
The intelligence advantage
The companies that win aren't asking better survey questions.
They're listening continuously.
Build your intelligence advantage.
About Coast Insights
Insight is only valuable if it moves decisions forward.
Coast Insights is a senior-led global research and strategy firm, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zintro, helping organizations understand people and make confident decisions across product, brand, and customer experience.
What makes Coast different
Decades of craft, built for what's next.
Coast was founded by practitioners who have spent careers inside the world's leading research organizations. That depth of experience, combined with an early embrace of AI and agentic tools, means we can move faster and think more clearly.
Deep Research Pedigree
Our founders bring decades of senior experience across Research International, TNS, Millward Brown, YouGov, and other global leaders, spanning qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid methodologies.
AI-First from Day One
We adopted AI and agentic workflows early and intentionally, to accelerate synthesis and surface patterns faster, while keeping experienced human judgment at the center.
Recruitment Advantage via Zintro
Coast is backed by Zintro, a leading expert network and recruitment platform, giving us unmatched access to hard-to-reach audiences with speed and precision.
Founding Partners
Led by experience.
Founding Partner
Steve Ingledew
Throughout his career, Steve has been driven by a deep curiosity about what shapes decision-making: what people think, feel, believe, and ultimately do. That curiosity has guided his work across both B2B and B2C research, helping organizations uncover the deeper motivations behind customer behavior and translate insight into strategies that drive meaningful growth.
His experience spans qualitative and quantitative research, hybrid methodologies, customer understanding, brand positioning, and strategic insight development across enterprise technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer, and emerging technology markets.
Before founding Coast Insights, Steve worked with Research International, TNS, Millward Brown (now Kantar), YouGov, Greenberg, Material+, and ContextualY. He has lived and worked across Australia, the UK, and the US.
Outside of work, you'll usually find Steve surfing at Dillon Beach, following the emotional rollercoaster that is Middlesbrough FC, or enjoying a good glass of wine.
Throughout his career, Tommy has been fascinated by how people make decisions, interact with physical and digital systems, and process information. That curiosity has guided his work helping organizations better understand the people they serve, both at full-service research agencies and when building in-house research teams.
His experience spans market research, customer insights, and user experience research across mixed methods research designs, uncovering the perceptions and motivations behind user behavior and translating complex datasets into strategies that drive meaningful decisions.
Before founding Coast Insights, Tommy worked with ActBlue, Greenberg, Material+, EMC Research, and MaPS (now Kantar Brand Strategy). He holds a BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley and is pursuing an MS in Human Factors in Information Design at Bentley University.
Outside of work, you'll often find Tommy exploring the outdoors, volunteering in his community, or planning his next hiking adventure inspired by his love of the Pacific Crest Trail.
At the same time, it's never been more important to trust the validity of what you're getting. Speed is possible. But only if the foundation is solid.
That's why everything at Coast starts with knowing exactly who is in your sample, before a single question is asked.
KYS
Know Your Sample
Our foundational protocol. Every participant is verified, known, and re-engageable before any research begins.
Know Your Sample
The protocol that changes everything.
Traditional panels treat respondents as anonymous, one-time data points. KYS flips that model entirely. We verify, profile, and maintain relationships with every participant, which means we can go back to them, go deeper with them, and trust what they tell us.
Verified identity
Every participant is screened and validated before entering any study. No bots, no professional survey takers, no fraudulent responses.
Known profile
We build rich participant profiles over time. When you need 20 cloud procurement leads at enterprises over 5,000 employees, we know exactly who to call.
93%+ recontact rate
Industry average recontact is near zero. Ours is over 93%. That means your quant study can become a qual deep-dive with the same people, not a fresh recruit.
How we run projects
No black box. No surprises. No waiting until the end.
The best research isn't delivered to stakeholders. It's built with them. We run every engagement as a collaborative process, bringing your team into the work at every stage so that by the time findings land, they're already advocates, not skeptics.
Agile by design
We check in at every step, share emerging findings in real time, and adapt the approach as we learn. Research shouldn't be a black box you drop into and emerge from six weeks later.
Stakeholder-first
We run meetings with your team throughout the engagement, not just at the kickoff and readout. When the final report lands, the room already believes the findings because they helped shape the questions.
Built for decisions
Every deliverable is structured around a specific decision your team needs to make, not a generic set of findings. We ask "so what?" before we ever ask "what?"
Senior-led, always
The person who scopes your project is the person who runs it. No handoffs to junior teams mid-engagement. The senior thinking you bought is the senior thinking you get.
Beyond the one-off project
Research communities woven into every engagement.
We don't just recruit for a study and disappear. Coast builds standing communities around every engagement, so your best respondents become a long-term asset, not a one-time expense.
Traditional model
Recruit. Field. Report. Done.
Each project starts from zero. Same audiences re-recruited. Same screeners rebuilt. The same learning repeated, over and over.
The Coast model
Build. Learn. Go deeper.
Every project builds a community. Every community fuels the next study. Insights compound. Understanding grows. Your research gets better over time.
The engine behind the work
AI handles the heavy lifting. So we can focus on you.
We've built an AI-First operational backbone that handles the work most research firms spend the majority of their time on, so our senior researchers spend the majority of their time on yours.
⚡
Recruitment at scale
We use internal recruitment powered by AI agents through Zintro to move faster, screen more efficiently, and detect dishonest respondents better than ever before. Niche audiences that would take traditional firms weeks to find are ready in hours.
🔬
Digital twin testing
We run screeners through digital twins before launch to identify weaknesses, improve logic, and anticipate participant behavior, before a single real recruit enters the field.
🧠
Senior time, protected
Because AI handles logistics, recruitment, and operational overhead, your senior researchers are free to do what they do best: think, interpret, and advise.
Our framework
The COAST Approach.
Context. Observation. Analysis. Strategy. Transformation. A structured but flexible process that ensures every engagement ends with action, not just answers.
1
Context
Understand the market, audience, and cultural landscape before asking a single question.
2
Observation
Capture real behaviors, experiences, and unmet needs through verified, trusted participants.
3
Analysis
Synthesize insights across data sources, methodologies, and markets. Always with senior eyes on the work.
4
Strategy
Translate findings into clear, actionable direction that your stakeholders already believe in.
5
Transformation
Enable teams to apply insights, track outcomes, and build smarter research programs over time.
Ready to work differently?
Let's talk about what a Coast engagement actually looks like.
Bring us a question. We'll show you a better way to answer it.
Our approach to artificial intelligence
AI Where It Helps. Humans Where It Matters.
We use AI extensively inside our operation. We are deliberate about where it belongs in our research.
How we use AI internally
Our internal systems use AI extensively.
We deploy AI agents across our operation to move faster, reach further, and operate more efficiently than traditional research firms.
Participant recruitment
AI agents scale recruitment across populations that would take human teams weeks to reach manually.
Audience identification
We use AI to identify highly specific audiences based on nuanced criteria across large, complex populations.
Deductive reasoning
AI applies deductive reasoning during participant sourcing, evaluating screening criteria at scale before any human reviews a single profile.
Screener pressure-testing
We've built proprietary tools that run project screeners through digital twins before launch, identifying weaknesses, improving qualification logic, and anticipating participant behavior before a single recruit enters the field.
Operational efficiency
AI reduces overhead and accelerates project execution, so our senior researchers spend their time on interpretation and strategy rather than logistics.
AI-First infrastructure
Even our phone screening infrastructure is being built with a long-term goal of becoming fully AI-First, delivering faster, more consistent first-pass qualification at scale.
The result is a research operation that's faster, more scalable, and more efficient than traditional approaches, without sacrificing the quality or integrity of what we deliver to clients.
Our position on AI moderation
We love the technology. We're just selective about when we use it.
AI moderation is genuinely impressive. It's great for scaling interviews, it keeps getting better as it conducts more conversations and learns from more data, and the pace of improvement has been remarkable. We're enthusiastic about where it's heading.
But unless a client specifically asks for it, Coast does not use AI moderators for qualitative research. The reason is straightforward.
The most valuable moments in qualitative research rarely come from the discussion guide. They come from the follow-up question. The hesitation before an answer. The subtle change in tone. The unexpected story that emerges when an experienced moderator recognizes there's something worth exploring.
Qualitative research is ultimately about human understanding. The best moderators don't simply ask questions. They build trust, read emotions, adapt in real time, and know when to probe deeper. We believe those moments still belong to humans — at least for now.
"AI Moderation is a transformative technology. We use it for internal research, scaling screening, and more. We just choose not to use it unless our clients ask for it."
Coast Insights position on AI moderation
Our perspective on synthetic data
Fascinating technology. Not for client research.
We think synthetic data is one of the most important technological developments in research and analytics, and it has already demonstrated meaningful value across a variety of applications.
But synthetic data is not part of our client research process. Whether we're conducting qualitative interviews or quantitative studies, we believe insights are strongest when they come from real people sharing real experiences, opinions, and behaviors. Our clients hire us to understand humans. So that's who we talk to.
In client research
Coast does not use synthetic respondents or synthetic sample in any client-facing research project. Full stop.
Behind the scenes
We use AI, simulation, digital twins, and synthetic environments internally to test workflows, pressure-test research designs, improve recruitment strategies, and build better tools.
Your data stays yours
We do not use client data to train models or share it with other clients.
What you share with us stays with you. Client data, participant responses, research findings, and any other information generated during an engagement is never used to train AI models, and is never shared with or exposed to other clients.
Your research is your competitive advantage. We treat it that way.
Our philosophy
Human-obsessed. AI-First.
We believe the future of research isn't humans or AI. It's humans and AI, each doing what they do best.
We use artificial intelligence aggressively behind the scenes so we can stay relentlessly focused on real intelligence from real humans.
Want to know more?
Let's talk about how we work and why it matters.
Contact
Let's connect.
Whether you're exploring a new market, refining a product, or trying to better understand your customers, we'd love to hear from you.
Coast Insights, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zintro, is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal data when you use our services or visit coast-insights.com.
1. Who We Are
Coast Insights provides organizations with senior-led research and strategic insight services across product, brand, and customer experience. We are a subsidiary of Zintro.
Contact us at: hello@coast-insights.com · 68 Harrison Ave #605, PMB 27193, Boston, MA 02111
2. Information We Collect
Directly from you: name, email address, company name, job title, comments, feedback, and communications. Automatically: IP address, browser type, device data, and browsing behavior. We may also receive information from third-party services such as social media platforms or referral sources.
3. Legal Bases for Processing
We process your personal data only where we have a legal basis: your consent; performance of a contract; our legitimate interests in operating and improving our services; and compliance with legal obligations.
4. How We Use Your Data
We use your information to respond to enquiries and provide our research and strategy services; process engagements and transactions; improve your experience; communicate with you where you have opted in; and ensure compliance with our legal obligations.
5. Sharing Your Information
We may share your personal data with service providers, our parent company Zintro and its affiliates, legal and regulatory authorities, and analytics partners. We will never sell your personal data to third parties.
6. International Data Transfers
Data is stored and processed in the United States. Transfers from the EEA are protected by appropriate safeguards including standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.
7. Data Retention
We retain personal data for seven (7) years or as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes of collection. To request earlier deletion, contact hello@coast-insights.com.
8. Your Rights
Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or receive a portable copy of your data, and to opt out of marketing at any time. Contact hello@coast-insights.com. We respond within 45 days.
9. Security of Your Data
We use industry-standard technical, administrative, and physical safeguards to protect your personal data. No method of internet transmission is entirely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
10. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
Our website may use cookies and similar tracking technologies to analyze usage trends and improve your experience. You can manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings.
11. Third-Party Links
Our website may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites and encourage you to review their policies.
12. Children's Privacy
Our services are not directed at individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. Contact hello@coast-insights.com if you believe a child has submitted information.
13. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time and will revise the effective date. Continued use of our website constitutes acceptance of any updated policy.
14. Contact Us
Email: hello@coast-insights.com Mailing Address: 68 Harrison Ave #605, PMB 27193, Boston, MA 02111
This policy is effective as of June 2025.
A new approach to research
Know Your Sample
Breaking open the black box of quantitative research, so your data becomes a door, not a dead end.
The problem with traditional quant
You've always had data. You've rarely had the person behind it.
For the longest time, quantitative research has been a black box. You send out a survey, numbers come back, and somewhere in between, the actual human being disappears. A respondent gives you their answer, and then they're gone. You never get to ask why. You never get to watch how they think. You never get to go deeper.
Most researchers could never pick particular respondents to follow up with, interview, or re-engage. The sample was anonymous, untraceable, and one-directional. That's not a limitation of research. It's a limitation of how it's been done.
✕
Traditional quant
One session. Anonymous respondent. Data in, data out. No follow-up, no context, no continuity.
✓
Coast Know Your Sample
Known respondents. Multiple touchpoints. Interview or survey them as you need. The person behind the data is always within reach.
Know Your Sample
KYS: the protocol that changes everything.
Coast Insights is built around a foundational security and quality protocol we call Know Your Sample (KYS). Rather than working with anonymous panels where respondents vanish after a single survey, KYS ensures that every person in your research is verified, known, and re-engageable. We can go back to them. We can go deeper with them. We can watch their views evolve over time.
The recontact problem
In traditional research, recontact rates have been extremely low or impossible to achieve.
Once a respondent completes a survey, they're effectively gone. Panels are anonymous, opt-outs are high, and re-engagement is rarely even attempted. For most firms, following up with specific individuals from a quant study simply isn't possible.
93%+
Coast recontact rate
Because we know our sample, we can reliably reach them again whenever you need.
Multiple data points
Because we know our sample, we can engage the same individuals across studies, tracking how attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors shift over time rather than capturing a single frozen moment.
More emotion, more truth
A follow-up interview with someone who completed your survey unlocks what numbers can't show: the hesitation, the passion, the contradiction. Real emotion lives between the answer options.
Natural circumstances
Knowing your respondents means you can reach them in context: right after a purchase, mid-project, or during a decision. Not just in a sterile survey environment detached from real life.
What this makes possible
Painting pictures traditional research misses.
When you can go back to your sample, interview them, resurvey them, probe deeper, research stops being a report and starts being a living picture of your audience. You get the full story: the numbers, the nuance, and the narrative that connects them.
From data point to human story
A respondent who said they're "somewhat likely to switch" in your survey becomes a 20-minute interview that reveals exactly what would tip them over, and what's holding them back. That's the insight that drives strategy.
Longitudinal understanding
Survey your community at the start of a product launch. Interview key members mid-way through. Re-survey after six months. For the first time, you can see the arc, not just the snapshot.
Targeted deep-dives
See a surprising segment in your quant data? Go straight to those specific respondents for a qualitative deep-dive. No need to recruit from scratch. Your sample is already there, already known.
Richer competitive intelligence
Identify the competitor users in your panel. Re-engage them. Understand exactly what's keeping them loyal to the other brand, and what it would take to bring them across.
Ready to go deeper?
Let's talk about building a Know Your Sample program for your team.
Bring us a question. We'll show you how far the answer can go.
Research Communities Designed for Continuous Learning
Custom Research Communities
Research doesn't happen in a moment. It happens over time.
Most research captures a single point in time.
A survey goes into the field. Interviews are completed. A report is delivered. Decisions get made.
But people don't think, behave, or make decisions the same way every day. How someone answers a question before their first cup of coffee can be different from how they answer it after a stressful meeting. Their priorities shift. Their needs evolve. Markets change. Competitors launch new products. Budgets expand and contract.
The reality is simple: time is one of the biggest limitations in research.
The Coast belief
The most valuable insights aren't collected once. They're built through ongoing conversations with the people who matter most to your business.
When insights are gathered over weeks, months, and years, you begin to see patterns, shifts, and opportunities that traditional projects often miss.
Build a community, not just a project
Direct access to the audiences you need to understand most.
Custom research communities give your team a dedicated group of participants ready to provide feedback, test ideas, validate assumptions, and uncover new opportunities. Instead of starting from scratch every time a question arises, your community is already there.
This transforms research from a periodic activity into a continuous source of strategic intelligence.
Your customers
Understand evolving needs, satisfaction drivers, feature requests, and loyalty factors as they change in real time.
Your competitors' customers
Learn why buyers choose alternatives, what they value, and where opportunities exist to win them over.
Ideal customer profiles
Validate messaging, positioning, and product-market fit with the exact audiences you want to reach.
Decision makers who haven't bought
Identify barriers to adoption, misconceptions, unmet needs, and purchase triggers before they choose someone else.
Churned customers
Uncover why customers left, what changed, and what would bring them back. Often the most honest feedback you'll ever get.
And more
Executives, practitioners, buyers, influencers, partners, or niche industry audiences. If they matter to your business, we can build a community around them.
Research with purpose
Collecting opinions is easy. Knowing which questions to ask is much harder.
Research conducted in a vacuum rarely creates impact. That's where Coast is different. We don't simply provide access to participants. We help ensure every research initiative contributes to a larger strategic objective.
Every survey, interview, discussion, or concept test should move your organization closer to a clearer understanding of your market, customers, and future opportunities. Our team connects individual research activities into a broader narrative, so insights don't live in isolated reports. They drive better decisions.
Continuous strategic intelligence
Rather than quarterly snapshots, your team gets a living, breathing understanding of your market that compounds over time. Each study builds on the last.
A narrative, not just a report
We connect individual research activities into a coherent story about your audience, so every stakeholder understands not just what people said, but why it matters and what to do next.
Accessible by design
Continuous insights without enterprise-level costs.
Historically, custom communities have been expensive, complex, and difficult to maintain. We've built a different model. Coast gives teams direct access to their research communities while providing the expertise, infrastructure, and support needed to keep engagement high and insights flowing.
The result is an ongoing research capability that delivers continuous learning without the cost and overhead traditionally associated with large-scale community programs.
The bottom line
The best decisions aren't made from a single snapshot.
They're made from a deeper understanding of how people think, feel, and change over time.
Start building
Let's talk about who you need to understand.
Tell us your audience and your questions. We'll build the community around them.
