Inside OLX’s Localized, Multi-Brand UX Research Strategy with Ethnio Web Intercepts

Scaling global UX research without losing local nuance isn’t just translation

OLX is a global marketplace leader, helping tens of millions of users every month—from buying and selling cars to finding housing, landing jobs, and trading everyday goods. From Poland to Portugal, OLX designs platforms that feel native—connecting buyers and sellers in ways that truly resonate locally.

Scaling this across nine countries and multiple brands goes far beyond simple translation or swapping images and adjusting currency symbols. In practice, customer-centric design means understanding how people behave, interact, and make decisions in each market.

That’s where ResearchOps comes in.

We spoke with Ania Kaliska, ResearchOps Project Manager at OLX, about how she and her team balance scale with nuance across multiple countries and cultures.

To get closer to our real users and democratize research, centralized ReOps was essential — we needed tools that enable us to recruit the right participants quickly and securely.Ania KaliskaResearchOps Project Manager @ OLXTheir approach combines a centralized ReOps framework with Ethnio Web Intercepts, capturing over 2 million pageviews per month. Here’s what that looks like in practice: panels auto-update by language and user type, recruitment timelines shrink from weeks to days, and research flows adapt seamlessly to local context—all while maintaining GDPR compliance.

This is how OLX makes multi-brand UX research efficient, scalable, and localized—so your team can apply similar strategies and avoid common pitfalls.

For the full journey behind OLX’s mature ReOps practice, read their customer story👇

Scaling UX research with lean ReOps

How do you scale UX research across nine countries and brands when even participant incentives vary drastically by market?

As a ResearchOps Project Manager on a lean team, Ania supports every stage of the process: activating localized participant pools, managing recruitment, customizing incentives, ensuring GDPR compliance, and evaluating and automating our tool stack, while keeping a close eye on AI innovation and ethics.

At any given time, I’m supporting up to eight active studies across OLX brands.Ania KaliskaResearchOps Project Manager @ OLXFor global marketplaces like OLX, what feels “local” in Warsaw—like browsing habits or payment methods—might completely miss the mark in Lisbon. Messaging, user flows, and buying and selling behaviors differ market to market. Get it wrong, and engagement drops, dev slows, and trust erodes.

That’s why OLX is deeply committed to UX research, driving a major initiative to democratize it across teams. Their goal was to establish processes and tools so that, by the second stage of maturity, researchers (excluding PDWRs) could operate independently, with ReOps providing guidance and support for specific requests as needed.

From agency dependence to agile, localized recruitment

Historically, OLX relied on external agencies to recruit participants, producing inconsistent quality, slow timelines, and frustrated stakeholders.

They needed a process that could:

• Recruit real site users directly

• Maintain high-quality, localized research

• Enable studies to move quickly without operational bottlenecks

The solution was twofold:

1. Centralized ReOps

2. Web intercepts

Centralized processes provided structure, while web intercepts offered flexibility to reach real users mid-flow, support multiple languages, and scale across markets.

Contextual recruitment is key. Eight out of eleven platforms run web intercepts with Ethnio. We target specific user groups, like business users, and screen and book right away.Ania KaliskaResearchOps Project Manager @ OLX

Centralized ReOps + web intercepts in action

Now OLX can:

• Manage multiple concurrent recruitment projects in one platform

• Build and maintain participant panels by language and region

• Launch intercepts in fully translated local languages

• Customize participant communication and incentives

• Ensure GDPR compliance and security at scale

• Ramp up new projects across platforms quickly

I’d be lost without Ethnio. If your tool vendor doesn’t support a clean setup, you can’t scale.Ania KaliskaResearchOps Project Manager @ OLXReducing duplicate efforts and breaking down siloed workflows so teams finally have a shared, real-time view of participant engagement, study progress, and research insights.

Localization that builds trust

Web intercepts, participant communications, and incentives are fully localized by language, brand, and region:

• Intercepts & Screeners

• Scheduling & Messaging

• Incentives

We want our platforms to connect buyers and sellers in ways that feel truly local. That means listening to and learning from over 2 million monthly users in real-time, while they’re actively using the platform.Alexandra MiliciSenior Product Operations Specialist @ OLX

Supporting every type of research study

All studies are fully localized, fully tracked, and fully scalable, making global UX research repeatable without losing nuance.

Ethnio enables OLX to execute a wide range of studies efficiently, including:

• 1:1 Interviews

• Surveys

• Diary Studies

• Continuous Panels

• Beta Testing

Building panels that slash recruitment time

OLX has built participant panels segmented by language, brand, and user type, powered by Ethnio and lightweight automations. Panels auto-update from intercepts, ensuring high-quality participants are always available.

I can start recruiting for a study tomorrow — even same-day. Before Ethnio, that was unthinkable. Ania KaliskaResearchOps Project Manager @ OLXThis agility shifted OLX from vendor dependency to self-sufficient, high-velocity recruitment—a hallmark of mature ReOps.

Executive-friendly impact

Here’s what OLX has achieved with ReOps + Ethnio:

• 189 completed participants — faster, higher-quality recruitment

• 2M+ monthly intercept pageviews — broad top-of-funnel reach

• 130K+ localized emails sent — engagement and panel health

• $11K+ in tailored incentives — efficient budget use and compliance

OLX also leverages Ethnio’s end-of-year reporting to give leadership a clear view of engagement, panel health, and ROI across brands and markets. These reports make it easy to track trends, justify budgets, and demonstrate measurable impact—showing that investment in centralized ReOps and the right tools delivers tangible business value in terms of ROI, speed, and operational health.

Key takeaways for scaling multi-brand, localized UX research

By combining lean ReOps with Ethnio, real user voices now inform every product decision.

Here’s what to apply to your ux research strategy:

• Centralize ReOps: Lean teams can guide research without slowing projects.

• Use real-time intercepts: Capture users mid-flow to get authentic, localized insights.

• Automate panels and communication: Keep recruitment agile, high-quality, and compliant.

• Focus on localization, not just translation: Messaging, incentives, and workflows all matter.

• Measure impact: Show leaders tangible results: engagement, reach, and ROI.

Start building panels that deliver high-quality, localized insights—so every product decision is informed by the voices of real users across markets: