Peanut Labs says it has the ability to target residents based on age, gender, employment status and marital status. Survey participants are typically offered virtual currency to spend within networks and online games in exchange for taking part in research.

Senior vice president Sean Case said Australia is the first step on a planned international expansion for the company this year. The San Francisco-based business launched in the UK in February 2009.

Case said: “Our goal for this year is to become more proactive about understanding and addressing our clients’ research needs. We recognize that there is an increasing demand for access to respondents outside of North America and the UK and are planning to roll-out our family of social media sample internationally throughout 20 different countries in order to best meet such requests.”