Top 8 Survey Incentives to Increase Response Rates

Have you ever lamented over low response rates on that seemingly ‘perfect’ survey? Chances are most people have. 

Because believe it or not, sometimes even impeccable surveys miss the mark when it comes to engaging the respondents. Not because there’s something wrong with how they are made, but more so owing to the fact that most people tend to need that extra nudge to take a survey and complete it. They are spending their valuable time, and as we all know, time is money. 

So naturally, a question arises: what is the best way to increase your survey response rates? Look no further; survey prizes are the way to go. 

Survey incentive encourages participants to complete a survey by giving them an article of value in some form. It is a quid pro quo approach that says, “We value your time and opinion. So here’s our token of appreciation for your effort.” It is a literal embodiment of the English idiom “a penny for your thoughts”.

If you are looking for some inspiration, let’s get started right away. Here’s what we’ll cover in this blog post.

1. Survey incentive ideas that increase response rates
2. How to incentivize a survey
3. How to incentivize an anonymous survey
4. Need for incentivizing a survey
5. Pros and Cons of survey incentives
6. Factors to keep in mind

8 Survey Incentive Ideas that gets you responses

Survey incentives are a great way to collect more responses and significantly increase the target respondents to your survey. Researchers generally classify them into monetary and non-monetary incentives.

#1. Monetary Survey Incentives

These are cash incentives and are a very effective form of survey incentive. Even one incentive of $5 can increase response rates by 30%. You don’t need to spend a small fortune or break your budget. Small monetary rewards are also super practical.

How to Implement?

• Direct Cash Transfers: Services like PayPal, Venmo, or direct bank transfers

• Digital Gift Cards: Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, or target-specific retailers

• Pre-paid Debit Cards: Versatile option that functions essentially as cash

How Much Should You Offer?

Your optimal incentive amount depends on three key factors:

1. Survey Length: As a general rule, offer $1-2 for short surveys (5 minutes), $5-10 for medium surveys (10-15 minutes), and $15+ for longer surveys (20+ minutes)

2. Audience Demographics: Professional audiences (executives, physicians, specialized experts) typically require higher incentives ($25-100+) compared to general consumers ($5-25)

3. Budget Constraints: Calculate your maximum incentive by dividing your total budget by your minimum required responses (adding 10-15% for administrative costs)

Pro Tip: For B2B surveys targeting senior professionals, consider whether the incentive amount might appear trivial relative to their hourly rate. In some cases, donations to charity in their name may be more appropriate than small monetary incentives.

Non-Monetary Survey Incentives

These include any survey incentive other than a cash incentive. It is not monetary yet offers valuable rewards to the respondent.

#2. Sweepstakes and Prize Drawings

Sweepstakes give out a set number of prizes to a few people instead of all the participants. In a way, sweepstakes are cost-effective since you invest your budget in a single award. First, all the survey participants enter through a contest. Then, with a lucky draw, you can select a winner. Sweepstakes and lotteries are, however, slightly tricky to carry out. You will need the help of a legal team for the fine print.

Implementation Best Practices

• Prize Selection: Choose prizes with broad appeal or offer multiple prize options

• Odds Transparency: Clearly communicate the approximate odds of winning

• Winner Notification: Publicly announce winners (with permission) to build credibility

• Legal Compliance: Work with legal counsel to ensure your sweepstakes follows all applicable regulations

Pro Tip: Consider offering one grand prize and several smaller prizes to increase the perceived chance of winning something. This “tiered prize” approach often yields higher participation than single-prize sweepstakes.

#3. Sample Products and Free Trials

Nothing entices people as much as the word ‘free’. So why not offer free branded goodies like pens, mugs, or even a baseball bat? Perhaps you could provide early access to new features of your product or a beta version of your app.

Strategic Implementation

• For Physical Products: Send branded merchandise, product samples, or small gift items

• For Digital Services: Provide premium access, extended free trials, or exclusive features

• For Content Providers: Offer early access to new content, premium downloads, or exclusive webinars

Samples and free trials are a great way to encourage current customers to use your products and to introduce your products to new customers. Here’s how we do it at SurveySparrow.

Create a free account to try out all of our paid features. No credit card required. 

#4. Charitable Donations

This is a type of indirect incentive, but for a more significant cause. You can give participants the option to donate to a charity. When it is on their behalf, it can generate goodwill for your brand with their names as donors.

Effective Implementation Strategies

• Cause Selection: Offer a choice between 2-3 widely recognized charities to accommodate different values

• Transparency: Clearly state the donation amount and provide verification of donations made

• Impact Communication: Share the collective impact of all survey-driven donations

• Tax Benefits: When appropriate, provide documentation for tax-deductible contributions

Pick a charity of your choice and one that is recognizable among your respondents. According to your budget, the price may range – perhaps 20% of the profits could be donated to charity.

Pro Tip: For maximum effectiveness, align charity options with causes relevant to your industry or survey topic. For example, environmental surveys might offer donations to conservation organizations.

#5. Points-Based System

A points-based system is a great way to improve participation in future surveys. Respondents earn points for each survey they take and accumulate enough points for a prize.

You can assign points for each survey based on the length and complexity of each survey. This system works well to build customer loyalty and helps them earn loyalty points. However, on the downside, it makes budgeting more challenging since you are unaware of the number of respondents who complete the survey.

#6. E-books, Whitepapers, and Other Digital Resources

Your business has top-notch content and resources such as whitepapers, webinars, or market reports. In the B2B sector, industry knowledge is always in demand. So if your respondents are professionals from the same industry, giving a sneak peek of your content can generate signups and at the same time offer value.

Apart from digital content, physical rewards are unique and exciting. For example, suppose you are in a position to ship products quickly. Then, a physical gift can create substantial word of mouth, especially on social media.

#7. Discount Coupons

Coupons are similar to gift cards. The difference lies in the fact that coupons offer a discount on popular products. For example, you can offer 20% off with a percentage coupon. Additionally, discount coupons encourage customers to spend more on your products, thereby improving business.

#8. Partnerships

Joint surveys are the way to go in cases where the partner companies have conjoint research. However, when it comes to providing survey incentives, your business could give incentives to the customers of the partnering company and vice-versa. That way, more people get to know your business.

Incentives + frequent feedback = Learning

— Rufus (@RufusPeabody) May 19, 2021

How Do I Incentivize A Survey?

Understanding how other organizations have successfully implemented survey incentives already means you’ve taken the first step. Here are three case studies demonstrating effective incentive strategies:

#1 Consumer Electronics Brand: Tiered Rewards System

Challenge: A major electronics manufacturer needed detailed feedback on user experience but struggled with survey abandonment on their 20-minute product feedback survey.

Solution: They implemented a tiered rewards system:

• $5 for completing the first section (5 minutes)

• Additional $10 for completing the entire survey (20 minutes)

Results: Completion rates increased from 22% to 67%, with 81% of participants who finished the first section continuing to complete the entire survey.

Key Takeaway: Breaking incentives into milestones can significantly reduce abandonment rates for longer surveys.

#2 SaaS Company: Premium Feature Access

Challenge: A software company needed detailed user feedback but had limited budget for cash incentives.

Solution: They offered 3 months of premium feature access (valued at $147) for completing their product development survey.

Results: Not only did they achieve a 51% response rate, but 22% of respondents continued with paid premium subscriptions after the trial period ended.

Key Takeaway: Product-based incentives can both increase response rates and drive additional business objectives simultaneously.

How to Effectively Implement Survey Incentives

Choosing the right incentive is only half the battle—implementation strategy significantly impacts success rates. Here’s how to maximize the effectiveness of your survey incentives:

Understanding Your Audience

Before selecting incentives, thoroughly analyze your target audience’s demographics, preferences, and motivations. What motivates a 25-year-old marketing professional differs drastically from what motivates a 60-year-old healthcare executive.

Consider these audience factors:

• Age and generation

• Professional role and industry

• Income level

• Geographic location

• Previous engagement patterns

Timing: When to Offer Incentives

The timing of your incentive offer significantly impacts its effectiveness:

Pre-Paid Incentives

Providing incentives before survey completion (such as including a $5 gift card with the invitation) demonstrates goodwill and triggers reciprocity. Research shows pre-paid incentives can boost response rates by 30-50% compared to promised incentives but obviously increase costs since you pay regardless of completion.

Promised Incentives

Offering rewards upon completion is more cost-effective but typically yields lower response rates than pre-paid incentives. This approach works best when:

• Your budget is limited

• You have a strong relationship with respondents

• The incentive value is substantial

• You have an established reputation for delivering promised rewards

Hybrid Approaches

Some organizations find success with a combined approach:

• Small pre-paid incentive to initiate participation

• Larger promised incentive upon completion

• Points accumulation for partial completion

How to Incentivize Anonymous Surveys

Maintaining anonymity while delivering incentives presents a unique challenge. Here are effective solutions:

1. Two-Step Process: After completing the anonymous survey, redirect respondents to a separate form where they can provide contact information for receiving the incentive.

2. Unique Codes: Provide unique, anonymous redemption codes that respondents can use to claim rewards without revealing their identity.

3. Third-Party Management: Use a trusted third party to manage the incentive distribution, maintaining separation between responses and personal information.

Important Note: Always clearly explain your anonymity protection measures to build trust with respondents.

How to Incentivize a Survey with SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow's BHN rewards integration lets you easily add automated rewards from major brands like Amazon, Visa, and Mastercard into your surveys. Watch the video below to see how:

Start incentivizing my surveys.

Do I Need to Use a Survey Incentive?

Sometimes your survey may not need an incentive at all. For example, suppose you are sending out customer satisfaction surveys to gain feedback on your service/products. You wouldn’t want to attach a survey incentive to it, as it may prompt the respondents to avoid giving negative feedback. Thus you would miss out on valuable feedback to improve your business. It also makes no sense to add survey incentives for NPS surveys since they are effortless to answer.

Survey incentives come in handy for those difficult to reach people — the ones who don’t have the time to respond to surveys like C-Suite professionals or digital marketers. Survey incentives also come in handy for those respondents who don’t answer the first time. Then, when you send the survey a second time, incentives can encourage them.

Pros and Cons of Survey Incentives

There are two sides to a coin. Similarly, survey incentives have both pros and cons.

Pros

• Increase survey response rates: Response rates increase as the number of incentives increases (until a specific limit).
• Increase responses to lengthy surveys: The longer a survey becomes, the more impatient the respondent gets. One way to ensure completion is to show a visible sign of progress like a completion tracker. In addition, an incentive after survey completion will motivate them to complete the survey.
• Re-attempt participation: Some survey takers view the survey and then move on without attempting it for various reasons. A survey incentive will encourage these groups to reconsider and complete the survey.

Cons

If not appropriately leveraged, survey incentives can do more harm than good.

• Skewed representation: Try not to make your rewards too specific. For example, if you are surveying parents of young children and offer targeted rewards like discount coupons for baby food, you will encourage more responses from parents of newborns. This can skew your survey results.
• Poor data quality: Survey incentives tend to attract respondents who are in it only for the prize. These respondents rush through the survey when what you need are thoughtful responses. As a result, it has the potential to hurt your data quality.
• Budget-intensive: If an organization offers survey incentives for all their surveys, it could end up hurting their budget in the long run.

Survey Incentives: Factors to Keep in Mind

Here are some of the factors you need to keep in mind while incentivizing surveys.

• Additional Costs: When it comes to providing incentives, additional costs occur in time and money. These costs include getting and distributing these rewards. Determine the number of prizes you can hand out, and once it reaches the limit, stop the survey. In sweepstakes and lotteries, have a legal team on board to draft terms and conditions. Make sure to mention them clearly in your survey.
• Mode of Delivery: The survey incentive should be easy to redeem for the respondent. In this regard, it is easy and convenient to send gift cards and coupons through email.
• Target Audience: Primary market research is essential to ascertain your target audience. This is important to discover those incentives that are of value to the majority of your target audience. For example, research suggests that monetary incentives are the most effective. On the other hand, gift cards and discount coupons are also easy to distribute quickly.
• Response Quality Checks: Some respondents may try to take your survey more than once to get more incentives. Ensure that your online survey software can detect duplicate responses or has a similar feature that restricts users from retaking them.
• Automated Incentive Management: Avoid going old school by using Excel to manage and track rewards. Online survey platforms like SurveySparrow can integrate with Rybbon, a digital rewards platform. So for each survey you create, there is an option to automate the incentive management process.

Wrapping Up

According to research, the average survey response rate falls around 10-30%. However, some people are hesitant about taking surveys, and survey incentives are that extra nudge they need to complete the survey. By doing this, you acknowledge that people’s time is valuable.

In addition to boosting response rates, studies also conclude that it improves the chances of follow-ups and clarifications.

The possibilities are endless, but you need to be cautious that no survey bias exists in your results. There are many pros and cons associated with this approach, but careful planning and the right kind of rewards for the right audience can ensure that your survey incentive program is successful.