Want to begin your own survey research but don’t know where to start? Or maybe you already have some experience in this field but worry that using a survey panel you will spend more than you planned? Using the Guide to Survey Research available on our website as inspiration, we wrote this article – dedicated to clearing up any doubts you may have.

Where to Start

We advise all new Answeo users to start their adventure with our platform with a series of small steps. What do we mean by that? When starting up your first research project on Answeo, charge your account with a small amount of credits and set a low response limit to test out your survey (e.g. limit the survey to 20 responses). A test run will enable you to catch any errors in your survey before you share it with a wider group or respondents and invest in carrying it out in full. To decrease the chances of any issues appearing in the first place you can also read one of our previous articles, in which we explain how to avoid survey issues and how best to react if a respondent reports an issue with our survey.

After taking that first step, resolve any issues that may appear and tweak the survey to your liking. Time to test the final version out on a wider respondent group – recharge your account with credits for an additional 50 people and change the respondent limit in your survey settings accordingly. Once you’ve determined that your survey works correctly and runs smoothly on a smaller respondent group, you can recharge your account with enough credits to carry out your research in full. Taking this approach will allow you to calmly work out the finer details of your research and carry it out without needless stress.

Qualifying Questions vs. Respondent Pool

If you need to precisely determine the profile of your respondents and setting desired demographic traits alone won’t cut it, you can always make use of qualifying (screen-out) questions. These questions will allow you to find respondents matching the needs of your survey. However, before you begin creating qualifying questions you must keep in mind two things. First of all, when adding questions you have to ensure that they are constructed in such a way, that potential respondents will be unable to guess which answers will qualify or disqualify them from taking part in your survey – only then can the questions help find your audience. Well-constructed questions will are a sure way to obtain high quality responses for your survey – so take your time. The second thing to keep in mind is that the number of respondents matching your survey criteria, which is displayed when adding a new survey, show you the maximum number of Answeo respondents matching the demographic criteria you chose. This means that the actual number of people willing to take part in your survey may be much smaller – worth keeping in mind before adding screen-out questions, which may further decrease the number of available respondents. In order to better determine our survey panel’s capabilities, pay attention to the ratio of respondents who completed your survey to respondents who didn’t qualify to take part in it (the number of screen-outs) when testing out your survey.

Things to Keep in Mind:

• Answeo operates like a free market. This means that if the number of responses is drastically smaller than the number of matching respondents, the pay rate you offer may be too low. If that’s the case you can encourage potential respondents by increasing the pay rate for completing your survey. However, it is best if you determine the optimal pay rate for your survey at the very beginning.
• Don’t add the same survey link more than once. If you do this, the same person will be able to complete your survey multiple times. The one exception from this rule is a situation where you determine a different audience (which doesn’t overlap with any of the others) every time you add the same survey or link.
• Make use of affiliate links. This will allow you to expand the reach of your survey to include people who aren’t Answeo users yet. You can place it wherever you want – on social media, on your own website, blog or fanpage. The people you invite will be able to respond to your survey as soon as they set up an Answeo account.

If you want to always stay up to date and learn about new articles, blog posts, and Answeo functionalities as soon as soon as they arrive, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

See you at Answeo!