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Be Part of the Future of Health Research
Whether you're a researcher or participant, Alethios makes health research effortless and impactful.
If you're a D2C health brand with real-world customers and a product you believe in, you don't need a clinical trial to start generating structured evidence. Part 1 of this three-part series walks through how to build a post-purchase observational study on Alethios — from defining your population to choosing endpoints to writing your participant-facing copy.
You've launched a product. Customers are buying it, and some of them are telling you it's working. But anecdotes aren't evidence — and in today's market, the brands that can show structured, real-world data on how their product performs are in a meaningfully different position than those that can't.
If you're not yet ready for a full IRB-approved clinical trial — or if you want to generate cleaner real-world signal before investing in one — there's a middle path. Using Alethios, you can design a structured observational study that follows your customers after they've purchased your product, collecting meaningful data on outcomes, usage patterns, and experience in a way that's far more defensible than a survey or a review page.
This is Part 1 of a three-part series on how to do that. Here, we cover building your study.
This is not an IRB-approved clinical trial. You don't have a control arm, you're not randomizing participants, and you're not making drug-like efficacy claims. What you are doing is collecting structured, prospective data on a defined population using validated or structured endpoints — surveys, wearables, or both.
That's more than most brands have. And it's enough to start building a real evidence base.
This type of study is sometimes called an observational or single-arm interventional study, a structured testimonial program, or a real-world evidence study. The label matters less than the design: structured intake, defined endpoints, consistent follow-up.
When you build this study in Alethios, you're making a few key decisions:
1. Define your population. Who do you want to study? Think about the characteristics that make someone a meaningful participant: age range, health status, relevant history. If your product is a sleep supplement, you probably want people who are actively experiencing sleep challenges — not everyone who bought it.
2. Set your screening criteria. Your screening survey determines who qualifies to participate. This is where you can include questions about when they purchased, what health context they're in, and whether they meet the profile you're studying. Keep your criteria realistic — overly restrictive screening will slow enrollment and may skew your population in ways that reduce generalizability.
3. Choose your endpoints. What do you actually want to measure? Alethios supports validated survey instruments, symptom tracking, and wearable-derived endpoints like sleep, resting heart rate, HRV, steps, and more. Choose endpoints that are meaningful to your product's proposed mechanism, and that you'd actually be willing to share publicly.
4. Design your study schedule. When do you want participants to check in? A typical structure might include a baseline survey at enrollment, periodic check-ins during use (weekly or bi-weekly), and a final assessment at the end of the observation window. The schedule should match the timeframe over which your product is expected to produce effects.
5. Write your participant-facing copy. Participants need to understand what they're agreeing to, what data you're collecting, and why. Clear, honest copy improves enrollment rates and completion. Alethios provides templates to work from.
Once you've configured these elements in the Study Planner, your study is ready to move into recruitment — which is what Part 2 covers.
[Continue to Part 2: Recruit Your Customers →]
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Whether you're a researcher or participant, Alethios makes health research effortless and impactful.
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