How to Determine the Right Survey Incentives

1.  Length – How long will the survey take to complete? A general rule is, the longer the survey the higher the incentive. Since you are expecting the respondents to spend more time on a longer survey, you should be compensating them accordingly for that additional time. Thus, you should offer more for a 20-minute survey than a 10-minute survey.
   
   
2.  Question Types – Are your questions simple or complex? Simple surveys consist of mostly close-ended question types (single select, multi-select, or sliding scales), with very few grid/ matrix questions containing long lists of attributes. Complex surveys include things such as a concept test, conjoint/trade-off exercise, or pricing questions that require more concen- trated thinking before answering a battery of questions. Complex surveys can lead to survey fatigue and higher drop-off rates.
   
   
3.  Topic/Subject – How interesting is the topic or subject of your survey? If the topic or subject is of high interest to your respondents, then you do not have to offer as much for incentive as they may be more motivated to take the survey without a high incentive. Surveys of high interest could be focused on ideas for a new product launch, opinions on current issues, or anything particularly timely and relevant to your respondents.
   
   
4.  Framing and Objectives – How are you positioning the survey to respondents? Explain how it will be used and/or how it will benefit them. Consider also offering to share some of the results (especially for B2B research) to participants once the survey is closed as an added incentive. Respondents appreciate knowing that their feedback is going to be used to make a change or an improvement. If respondents are interested in the results of the survey, you can use them for the incentive or as an “added bonus”.

Factor 2: The Audience

Who will be receiving the survey?

1.  Demographics – What does your respondent base look like? What are their demographics (age, gender, income, etc.)? Are you conducting business to consumer (B2C) or business to
   business (B2B) research? Consumers and students tend to need less of an incentive than business professionals. Additionally, there is typically a larger pool of respondents to pull from when conducting research among consumers, so you can offer less incentive and and still achieve the desired sample size needed for your survey. If conducting B2B research, consider the respondent’s title/position before deciding on the incentive amount. For example, physicians and C-level executives who are often busy and have less idle time will expect to be compensated accordingly for their time. It is not unheard of to offer $100+ per complete for physicians and C-level executives for a 15-20 minute survey.
   
   
2.  Relationship – Are they current customers? Non-customers? Lapsed customers? Have they taken surveys for you before? Past respondents and current customers are more likely to take a survey and may need less of an incentive vs. non-customers and lapsed customers. You want to add extra enticement for non-customers and lapsed customers to provide their feedback as they can be less apt to because they may think “what’s in it for me”? The more attractive the incentive, the more likely these respondents will be to take your survey.

 

Factor 3: The Respondent List

What is the quality of your respondent list?

1.  List Quality – First, take a look at your email list to see how many are quality, valid email  Before you have a final email list, you need to weed out any duplicate emails or invalid emails to get a true count of the total number of emails. The easiest way to do this is to export your list to Excel and search or scan for email addresses that do not have the proper format (i.e. @domain.com) and remove them. Also, search for any duplicate emails and remove them from your list as well. For a more comprehensive cleaning, you can also run the list through an email verification tool.
2.  List Size – How many potential respondents do you have on your list? The higher the number the better off you will be as you have a higher potential respondent pool to pull If you have a list of 10,000 quality email addresses, then you may be able to get away with offering less of an incentive for each complete as opposed to having a list of only 1,000 emails. When you have a bigger respondent pool to pull from, you have a better chance of receiving more responses so you can start off offering a lower incentive. If your respondent pool size is limited, then you should offer a higher incentive just so that you can reach a valid sample size.
   

1.  Survey History – What does your past response rate or completion rate look like? Have you sent surveys to similar lists before? If so, how many survey respondents did you get from your total valid email list? Having a general idea of what past response rates have been, either based on previous survey research or other information you may have from the respondents (i.e. click-through rates for marketing emails), may help you determine what your response rates will be for future surveys. Once you have an idea of your response rate, you can decide how much to offer based on how many you believe will respond to the survey.

 

Factor 4: The Sample Size

How many completed surveys are you looking for?

The number of completed surveys you need in relation to your list size can play a huge role in the type and value of your incentive. Unless you have previous data indicating you will receive a high response rate, it is a good idea to plan for a response rate in the single digits. If you need more than 5% of your list to complete your survey you should consider a higher incentive value and/or testing a few values before mailing to the full list.

To achieve the same number of completes, example 1’s response rate would need to be 5 times higher than example 2’s. This suggests a higher incentive value may be needed for example 1 than example 2 based on the number of completes needed in relation to their list sizes.

Factor 5: The Budget and Timeline

How much can you spend on incentives and when do you need results by

1.  Budget – If you are working with a limited budget, you will need to set a realistic incentive based on the estimated number of responses (or response rate) you believe you will receive. It is preferable to start with a lower incentive and then raise it if necessary, depending on your budget. Remember to set a limit to the number of total responses to your survey, especially if you have a limited budget. You do not want to go over budget by getting more  responses than you thought you would. For example, if you only have a $1,000 budget for incentives and plan to offer $20 per complete, your incentive budget will only get you 50 completes. If you are aiming for 500 completes, you either need to lower your incentive to $2 per complete, offer a sweepstake raffle, or offer a non-monetary option (more on those in the section below).
   
2.  Budget – How quickly do you need the survey results? If you have 3-4 weeks to field, starting with a lower incentive and raising it if your desired response rate is not reached may be a good If you have limited time to field the study, for example, a week or less, then going as high as you can on incentives from the start is your best bet.
   
   How the factors influence incentive values

Survey Incentive Types

Consider the type of incentive to offer for your survey (monetary vs. non-monetary) and try to offer an incentive that has universal appeal among your potential respondents. Research has shown that “cash is king” and that monetary incentives are the most effective ones.

As you might expect, the higher the amount you offer, the higher the response rate. But there’s a point at which increasing the incentive value does not help out response rates very much. While there is no real “rule of thumb” for how much to offer for an incentive, any amount from $1-$10 is typical for a B2C survey. However, if a per complete incentive is not in your budget, considering offering a sweepstakes or raffle drawing to award 1 or more respondents a large incentive.

Below is a list of different types of incentives to offer:

Monetary

• Cash (Via Venmo, Paypal, etc.)
• Visa/MC prepaid gift cards
• Amazon, Target, or other e-commerce gift cards
• Sweepstake/raffle
• Charity donation (offer a choice of different charities to choose from)
• Coupon codes to redeem for merchandise/products
• Points to redeem for merchandise, gift cards etc.
• Sharing the survey results with respondents
• A free gift (pen, book, etc.)
• Other creative ideas/promotions related to your brand or company

Non-Monetary

• Charity donation (offer a choice of different charities to choose from)
• Coupon codes to redeem for merchandise/products
• Points to redeem for merchandise, gift cards etc.
• Sharing the survey results with respondents
• A free gift (pen, book, etc.)
• Other creative ideas/promotions related to your brand or company

 

SURVEY INCENTIVE USE CASES

 

Example Scenarios

After considering all the factors, you should be able to determine the right incentive for your survey and audience. Here are a few examples of survey incentives to offer:

 

EXAMPLE 1

Factor 1: The Survey – A 15-minute customer segmentation survey Factor 2: The Audience – Current customers (online consumers) Factor 3: The Respondent List – 10,000 emails at an estimated 5-10% response rate Factor 4: The Sample Size – Looking for at least 500 completed surveys Factor 5: The Budget and Timeline – You have 2-3 weeks to field the survey and a budget of $5,000 for incentives

Incentive: Offer $5 cash or gift card (you can raise it after the first week if more responses are needed and there is still room in your budget)

 

EXAMPLE 2

Factor 1: The Survey – A 25-minute concept survey Factor 2: The Audience – Registered Oncology Nurses Factor 3: The Respondent List – 5,000 emails. Do not have an estimated response rate Factor 4: The Sample Size – 200 completed surveys Factor 5: The Budget and Timeline – You have 1 week to field the survey and a budget of $10,000 for incentives

Incentive: Due to the survey length, audience, unknown response rate, and timeline offer max budget  will allow. $50 cash or gift card

 

EXAMPLE 3

Factor 1: The Survey – A 7-minute customer experience survey Factor 2: The Audience – New subscribers of a video streaming service Factor 3: The Respondent List – 75,000 emails monthly at a 3% response rate Factor 4: The Sample Size – 2,000+ completed surveys a month Factor 5: The Budget and Timeline – Survey will run for 1 year with a budget of $2,500 per month for incentives

Incentive: Due to the list/sample size and budget, offer a chance to win 1 of 10 monthly $250 cash prizes

 

EXAMPLE 4

Factor 1: The Survey – A 20-minute state of the industry survey Factor 2: The Audience – B2B industry association mailing list Factor 3: The Respondent List – 80,000 emails with a 2% response rate expected   based on previous surveys. Factor 4: The Sample Size – 1,500+ completed surveys Factor 5: The Budget and Timeline – You have 4 weeks to field the survey and no budget for incentives

Incentive: Due to the audience and budget offer to share a report of the findings

 

EXAMPLE 5

Factor 1: The Survey – A 10-minute shopping preferences survey Factor 2: The Audience – Lapsed customers of a home improvement/hardware retailer Factor 3: The Respondent List – 25,000 emails with a 10% response rate expected  based on previous surveys. Factor 4: The Sample Size – 2,000+ completed surveys Factor 5: The Budget and Timeline – You have 2 weeks to field the survey and no budget for incentives

Incentive: Due to previous relationship with audience offer a 20% off coupon. This provides the added benefit of helping to win back customers and drive sales.

 

Don’t be afraid to experiment

As you can see there are many factors surrounding your survey, audience, respondent list, sample size, budget, and timeline that will help you determine the right incentive. After considering all of them, if you are still not sure where to start, you should think about testing different incentives with a small group of respondents before you launch your survey to everyone.

This may give you the needed insight on whether your incentive is effective or not, then you can reevaluate your incentive options before fully launching your survey. Survey incentives are not an exact science so offering different incentive amounts and types to test out will only help you for future surveys.