Here are some of the most common practices for survey taking and a few tips to get you started.
What are Online Surveys?
Online Surveys are given by market research companies that are seeking specific groups of people to take surveys. In particular, they are looking for a target audience and want their specific opinion. Most of the survey criteria involve demographic and geographic information. Some examples include ethnicity, age, gender, city/state/country, type of job, and household income. This data collected removes any personally identifiable data and is only used for their research as a whole.
Common and best survey practices:
When completing a survey, it’s recommended to follow these best survey practices to ensure that you are compensated for the survey and are not blocked from future survey opportunities
Do Not Provide False Information:
Survey data is constantly being reviewed for authenticity. By providing false information when completing a survey, the survey provider may reject the survey submission and you will not be compensated after completing the survey. An example would be stating you are both unemployed and making $200,000 per year which is unrealistic. Taking surveys that you qualify for with your truthful information and opinions is the best way to ensure that you are compensated for the survey.
Provide Reasonable Response, Do Not Provide Gibberish Responses:
In some surveys, you are required to fill in open-ended questions. Researchers do review these responses manually to ensure quality. By providing gibberish responses or simple 1-2 words, survey partners may reject your survey submission and you will be not be compensated for the survey. Some examples of common gibberish responses include “Good”, “Nice”, and “anvajmbi”. Please make sure to take your time to submit well-thought-out responses to any questions asked to ensure you continue to have access to surveys.
Taking Your Time with a Survey:
Surveys may take approximately 5 minutes to 20 minutes on average to complete with the occasional deviation. Taking your time to complete a survey is the best way to ensure that you are compensated for surveys. Survey providers do run quality checks on your responses. One of the ways they do this is by checking how quickly you are completing the survey versus the average completion time from other survey takers. As a survey taker, you want to make sure you are spending enough time to read through the questions carefully and answer before moving on.
Be Aware of Attention Check Questions:
Another way survey providers and researchers ensure quality responses is by asking questions to make sure that you are paying attention. An example question would be "In order to make sure you are paying attention, please choose the second answer shown or select the answer choice, dog." Or you may see a grid of answer choices and one of the answers specifically state "Do not choose this answer". If you are paying attention when taking the survey, then you will not miss this. It is important to pay attention to every single question asked and choose the most appropriate & honest response.
Providing Honest Answers:
Survey topics and questions vary from survey to survey. Some surveys are designed to gather your opinions on the packaging of a product or a television show. They may ask questions about the product and follow up with additional questions. If you have answers that lead one way saying you like it but all your follow-up responses are about how you hate the product, the researcher may reject your response for not paying attention.
By following best practices, you will ensure that you receive the most survey inventory from each partner. Survey partners may block you from accessing their survey inventory if you do not follow these best practices.
Survey Qualification tips and additional information:
Survey providers are seeking people in specific demographics and geographic locations for their researcher projects. By filling out your profile questionnaire with as many details as possible, we will be able to match you with the best surveys available.
Some common profile information that you may be asked to fill out include amount of children in your household, if you own or rent a house, and if you have any types of chronic conditions. Other examples may include visits to a particular type of store within a 6 month period of time. Be sure to fill out your profile completely for the most opportunities. Please sure to keep your profile questionnaire updated as well. With new changes in your life such as receiving a promotion at your job, expecting a child, or even moving to a new home. By keeping your profile updated, you will be matched with the best survey opportunities.
Looking for more surveys to complete? Make sure to check back on the weekdays as there tend to be more surveys available. Each survey provider may have varying inventory based on your demographics. Make sure to check out all our survey partners as some partners may have a surge in survey inventory that matches your demographic and geographic profile.
When a new survey is added, you want to complete it as soon as possible. All surveys have quotas that determine how many responses the survey can accept before the survey is closed. By starting the survey early, you ensure that you complete the survey before the survey closes. We recommend that you check for surveys twice a day for the freshest survey inventory.
Disqualifications can occur if you are not the target audience that the researcher is looking for or if they have met their quota. This may occur at the beginning or later in the survey. You can also be disqualified if you are randomly choosing answers or are speeding through the survey. If you do notice a survey that disqualifies you at the very end of a survey, please let our support team know to address this with the survey provider.
Technical issues occur on rare occasions if the survey provider did not properly program the survey properly. We know how frustrating it can be for you. Please report this to our support team as soon as it occurs. We will inform the survey provider to look into and fix the issue as soon as possible and try to attain compensation for you.
If you have any more specific questions, feel free to check out our F.A.Q located here.