Online surveys are an invaluable tool in any marketer’s arsenal. However, because of this, the internet has become saturated with cheap surveys that offer little value to both user and brand alike. This has led to a problem of decreasing response rates, as users no longer see the survey as something special to them. As a website user, my time is limited and unless I have high levels of interest in the brand or I’m going to be suitably compensated I will generally ignore the survey.

So here are some tips on how to make sure that you get the appropriate response rate:

1) Up your sample rate of who gets the survey. But remember, intrusive surveys will impact the performance of your website, so if you are going to show it to everyone, find a way of making it noticeable without obstructing the content that users arrive to see

2) Incentivise your users to complete the survey. Making my favourite brand site better by giving my opinions will make me fill in data. Making some random website I’ve just visited better won’t, but a free iPad draw may do.

3) Run your survey during a time of high traffic. The person who doesn’t want to run the survey whilst all those people are looking at the site is wrong. Run it at a time of highest traffic will allow you to get the required responses quickly and then you can turn it off. If you run it at a time of low traffic you may end up running it for so long that the responses from the people at the beginning are living in a different world to those at the end.

Remember that online survey data is just another data set for your armoury when you do optimisation. Don’t run it once and forget about it. Make it part of your continuous improvement process.

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