The same questions a recruitment specialist asks on the first call, laid out as a form a coordinator can complete in one sitting: who you're recruiting, where, by when, with what budget, through which screener, and the three numbers to track. Fill it in before recruitment starts, or the day enrollment starts slipping.
A fillable PDF, sent straight to your inbox.
Written for coordinators and PIs, not marketers. Every field is one a recruitment plan actually depends on, and nothing is there for decoration. Type into it, save it, keep it with the study file.
Title, PI, site, IRB number and status, study type. The reference block every other decision points back to.
Target and current enrollment, age, sex, visits, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria written the way a participant would recognize them.
Site locations, recruitment radius, languages, and whether participation is in person, hybrid, or remote.
Enrollment start and deadline, the funding milestone behind it, and what compensation the IRB has approved you to state.
Channels used so far, current inquiries per month, the biggest reason people screen out, and what has and hasn't worked.
Total recruitment budget, monthly ad budget, funding source, and whether campaigns can run in the institution's own ad account.
Screener platform and URL, who follows up and how fast, and a privacy check that screening questions never leave your form.
Qualified inquiries per week, cost per qualified inquiry, and enrolled per month, with target and actual columns through week eight.
You can build the plan right here, without downloading anything. Each section below is one part of the template, with what to write and what most teams get wrong. The PDF just gives you fillable fields to keep it in one place.
Write the study title, the principal investigator, each recruiting site, the IRB number and approval status, and the study type (interventional, observational, behavioral). Everything else in the plan refers back to this block, and the IRB status tells you how soon ads can run.
Common gap: leaving IRB status vague. Note whether recruitment materials are approved, submitted, or not yet written, because that sets your earliest launch date.
Record the enrollment target and current enrollment, then the age range, sex, number and length of visits, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Rewrite the criteria the way a participant would describe themselves, not the way the protocol does. That plain-language version becomes the eligibility line in your ads.
Common gap: listing every criterion. Pick the one or two that let a person recognize themselves; the screener handles the rest.
List site addresses, how far participants will realistically travel (the recruitment radius), the languages you can screen and consent in, and whether visits are in person, hybrid, or remote. The radius decides the size of the audience, and the audience decides the cost of every inquiry.
Common gap: assuming people will travel 50 miles for a study with weekly visits. Visit burden should shrink the radius.
Write the enrollment start date, the deadline, and the milestone behind the deadline (a grant period, a sponsor checkpoint, a data lock). Then record exactly what compensation the IRB has approved you to state publicly, word for word.
Common gap: a deadline with no reason attached. Knowing what is driving it tells you how hard to push spend when you fall behind.
List every channel used so far (flyers, the patient database, referrals, registries such as ResearchMatch, social posts), inquiries per month from each, and the most common reason people screen out. This shows what to keep, what to drop, and where the leak in the funnel is.
Common gap: skipping the screen-out reason. If most people fail on one criterion, stating it in the ad saves more money than any targeting change.
Write the total recruitment budget, the monthly ad budget, the funding source, and whether ads can run in the institution's own ad account or need a vendor's. Separating ad spend from service fees makes approvals easier with grants and budget offices.
Common gap: picking a budget before knowing the inquiries required. Use the recruitment rate calculator to size it from your goal first.
Record the screener platform and link (REDCap, Qualtrics, FormAssembly, or a phone line), who follows up with inquiries, and how fast. Confirm that screening answers stay inside your own form and never pass through an ad platform or vendor.
Common gap: no named owner for follow-up. Inquiries go cold within days; a plan that does not say who calls back, and by when, loses them.
Set weekly targets for qualified inquiries, cost per qualified inquiry, and participants enrolled per month, then fill in actuals each week through at least week eight. Comparing target against actual every week is how you notice a problem in week two instead of month four.
Common gap: tracking clicks or impressions. They tell you the ads are running, not that the study is filling.
You don't have to download anything to get value here. If you only answer three things, answer these.
The recruitment radius sets the size of the audience, which sets the cost of every inquiry. A 25-mile radius around one site is a small audience; knowing that number first prevents a budget built for the wrong one.
If most inquiries fail on one criterion, the ad can state it up front and the screener can ask it first. That single field often does more for cost per qualified inquiry than any targeting change.
Inquiries decay by the hour. A plan that produces thirty qualified inquiries a week is wasted if nobody calls back until Thursday. Naming the person and the window is half of enrollment.
At minimum: the study basics and IRB status, who you are recruiting and the criteria in plain language, the recruitment area, the enrollment timeline, the channels you will use, the budget, how inquiries will be screened and followed up, and the numbers you will track each week. The free template covers all eight in two pages.
Before recruitment starts, ideally while the protocol and recruitment materials are going through IRB review, so ad creative and screening can be approved at the same time. If a study is already behind, write one the day enrollment starts slipping. It shows where the gap is and how big it is.
Most IRB applications ask how participants will be recruited, and the IRB reviews the recruitment materials themselves, such as ads, flyers, and screening scripts, before they are used. A written plan makes that section of the application faster to complete. Check your own IRB's submission requirements.
Work backward from the enrollment goal. Divide participants still needed by the share of inquiries that typically enroll to get the inquiries required, then spread that over the weeks left. The free recruitment rate calculator does this math for you.
These are the questions asked on every first call. Answering them yourself, in your own time, means that if we do work together the plan comes back faster and sharper. And if you never send it back, you still have a better plan than most studies start with. Fill it in, then send it to ryan@trialfill.com or start a study below, and you'll have a recruitment plan within one business day.
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