The History of Survey Platforms & Technology
The History of Survey Platforms & Technology
In the time since the first survey was conducted, surveys have evolved to become one of the most common methods of researching groups of people. Survey platforms have further revolutionized the way we collect and analyze data, making it easier for researchers to identify trends and draw conclusions more quickly and accurately.
Interestingly, the need to conduct surveys and manage the resulting data was one of the driving factors in the development of early computing technology. While survey platforms are a relatively recent concept, the development of computing technology to support survey data has been around much longer.
This article presents the history of survey platforms to show just how online survey tools have morphed into the market-research powerhouses of the digital age.
Well-Known Early Surveys
Surveys have not always been a standard component of research, in fact, they have been in use for less than 200 years. The earliest known survey was conducted in 1834, by the Statistical Society of London. It was a simple, door-to-door survey that sought to understand the occupations of people living in Manchester, England.
The American Community Survey (aka, the US Census), conducted every 10 years, is likely the most well-known American public survey. This massive undertaking seeks to obtain demographic data about every household in the United States via a survey. The manner in which it has been conducted has changed dramatically since its conception in 1790.
During the very first census, the count was performed via a physical visit to every household in the United States, but this gave way to phone, mail, and eventually online data collection.
Nielsen ratings are another example of prominent public surveys. Conducted every year since 1947, this survey collects information about how Americans of various demographics consume media. Media outlets, businesses and marketers rely upon these surveys to make decisions about how to evolve their products, choose the proper media advertising channel and run effective marketing campaigns.
You may wonder how these massive amounts of data were collected and analyzed before the existence of computers. Interestingly, it was the need to collect and organize exactly this type of data that led to the development of computing power.
The Punched Card Tabulator
The development of the punched card tabulator marked the first major breakthrough in the way we collect survey data. In the late 1800s, the United States experienced unprecedented population growth, due to the large number of immigrants migrating to the country. When it came time to conduct the 1890 census, government officials noted that it would take over 8 years to count the resulting data from the census.
An enterprising young engineer of the time, Herman Hollerith proposed a solution. He designed a system whereby a paper card with a series of punched holes would represent each individual’s census information. While the collection of this data was manual, the processing of the information could now be automated.
Thanks to Hollerith’s creation, the census count took just two years and saved the US government $5 million. Hollerith turned his machine into a business, which he named the Tabulating Machine Company.
His machine soon became commonplace in the back offices of a wide variety of industries throughout the world, including railroads, oil companies, drug manufacturers, utility companies, and large department stores.
His machine was later sold to the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company (C-T-R), which evolved into IBM in the 1920s. His design transformed data processing in nearly every industry in the world and paved the way for the development of the computing giant, IBM.
Punched Card Statistical Analysis & the Rise of IBM
The creation and subsequent development of IBM into a computing super-giant had its very roots in survey data collection.
In 1928, IBM introduced an evolution of Hollerith’s punched card tabulator and named it the “IBM Computer Card,” which was commonly referred to as the IBM card. Remarkably, this seemingly simple invention was one of IBM’s most important technological advances and was responsible for the rise of IBM as the data processing giant in the early 1900s.
Today, with the proliferation of data and computing systems, it seems hard to believe that IBM’s cards held nearly all of the world’s data for almost half a century. Not only did the cards advance data processing, but they created a steady profit stream that allowed IBM to develop into the company it is today.
The IBM card allowed customers to store a large amount of data, thanks to its 80-column format and character codes. The challenge then was to develop a system that could make sense of the huge amounts of data that were stored on these cards. The device used to process this information was known as a tabulator.
During World War II, IBM developed the earliest type of supercomputers in order to process data that was stored on these cards. While these computers looked and acted nothing like computers today, the concepts used to convert and process data stored on physical cards into a digital format set the foundation for the later development of modern computers.
Computer-Assisted Survey Information Collection (CASIC)
From the 1950s, the use of computers to assist in the collection and analysis of survey data became more frequent. The use of computers in any aspect of survey creation, distribution, or analysis, is referred to as computer-assisted survey information collection (CASIC).
CASIC made it easier and faster to compile, store, and analyze data, which increased both the popularity and reliability of surveys. Computers helped lower the cost of survey research, reduced errors during data entry, and improved data quality by eliminating interviewer bias.
Before the existence of the Internet, computers were utilized in various ways to support survey research.
Applications of the CASIC
Here are some of the many ways that computers were used to collect survey data:
- During phone or in-person interviews, the interviewer reads from a computerized questionnaire and enters the respondent’s answers.
- An individual sits at a portable computer to read and answer survey questions.
- Surveys are distributed to respondents via a floppy or optical disk, which is returned by mail.
- Touch-tone data entry (TDE) allows the respondents to answer questions by phone by pressing numeric keys.
- Respondents answer questions by phone, which are then recorded and automatically transcribed into text.
In each of these modes of collecting survey data, the information is digitized, making it easier to store, analyze, and update the data with subsequent survey iterations.
The Development of Online Survey Platforms
While surveys have been in existence for nearly 200 years, the relatively recent development of online survey platforms marked the most dramatic evolution in how surveys are conducted and analyzed. The ability to oversee the entire lifecycle of a survey from a computer represented a fundamental change in the world of market research.
Before the advent of online survey platforms, the process of creating a survey, distributing it, and then analyzing survey data was a cumbersome and time-consuming process, even with CASIC technology. With the development of online surveys, survey research has become a critical tool for a wider range of research fields, such as marketing, social studies, and official statistics.
Online survey research offers distinct advantages in comparison to pre-Internet CASIC methods. These include:
- More cost-effective
- Easier to design and develop
- Faster data collection and processing
- Option to include advanced skip logic
- Ability to provide inline support to respondents as needed
- Ability to respond to the survey on any device
Online Surveys for Businesses, Banks Government Entities & More
Today it is hard to fathom how surveys were conducted before online methods were available. It required a staggering amount of manpower and determination to collect data from populations and then make sense of that data.
Thanks to online survey platforms, surveys are widely used to collect information about any number of topics. Whether they contain one question or hundreds, surveys have become commonplace in our study of the world around us.
Surveys can be deployed in a matter of minutes, giving businesses an easy way to understand their customers in order to improve their products, services, and interactions.
Frequently asked questions
How did the punched card tabulator advance the process of survey data collection?
The punched card tabulator made it possible to automate the process of counting survey results. This greatly reduced the amount of time and manpower required to compile survey data.
Who developed the punched card tabulator?
Herman Hollerith developed the punched card tabulator, which was later sold to the Computer-Tabulating-Recording company.
What was the IBM Computer Card?
Also known as the IBM card, the IBM Computer Card was a standardized card format that was used to store data via character codes in an 80-column format.
What is Computer-Assisted Survey Information Collection (CASIC)?
Computer-Assisted Survey Information Collection (CASIC) refers to any use of computers to help in the collection and/or analysis of survey data.
What is an online survey platform?
An online survey platform is a tool that allows surveys to be created, distributed, and analyzed from a centralized, remotely-accessed, digital platform.
What to Expect from an Online Survey Tool: The Pros, Cons, Applications & More
What to Expect from an Online Survey Tool: The Pros, Cons, Applications & More
The online survey tool is the foremost tool for gaining customer intelligence for various business and research purposes.
As the digital landscape expands and competition stiffens, businesses are vying for online consumers more than ever. As a matter of fact, there are between 12 million – 24 million ecommerce websites worldwide and these figures continue to rise daily.
Tapping into the minds of customers is thus a necessity for businesses across verticals. As such, one of the most effective methods to conduct primary research on a target market is via an online survey tool.
This method systematically gathers data from respondents by inciting them to take part in various websites and mobile apps.
The internet in general is a sufficient tool for conducting secondary research. An online survey tool couples the internet as a means of distributing the survey, along with the traditional questionnaire.
This article explores what researchers and businesses alike can expect from the online survey tool.
Defining the Online Survey Tool
This tool merges the digital space with surveys, as it is a kind of software that allows researchers to form a questionnaire, set rules on respondent qualifications and deploy the full survey across partnering websites and apps.
The survey portion of the tool often incorporates two major components: the screener and the questionnaire. The screener portion allows researchers to set conditions on who to permit to move on to the questionnaire.
It collects demographic information, as market research and virtually all others aim to study particular demographics. It also has a section for screening questions, the answers of which determine whether the respondents are qualified to take part in the survey or not.
Researchers can input any question they wish to receive a particular response. Therefore, this portion allows researchers to take a granular approach to who takes the survey. The questions can delve further into demographics, or ask about psychographic or behavioral matters.
There are several things to look for in an online survey tool. There are also various business applications of this sort of tool. In this way, brands should consider it as more than merely a vehicle for collecting question-based data.
Instead, it can provide valuable feedback on critical business matters, such as for improving marketing efforts, advertising, branding and others.
Other Key Functions in a Survey Platform
An online survey tool doesn’t simply create and distribute surveys, not if it’s a potent one, that is. A valuable survey platform offers other functions.
For example, with so many survey software available, researchers often take a dual or even multi-pronged approach for their survey research. As such, a strong survey tool will allow integrations between survey tools. This can mean acting as the third-party survey distributor of a survey created in another platform.
Another function involves creating multiple paths in a single survey, so that respondents are only channeled to questions best suited towards their answers. This involves using advanced skip logic, which routes respondents to the appropriate question based on the answer they provided.
For example, if a question asks whether a respondent is familiar with a certain brand, they would need to be moved to a follow-up question about the brand — if they responded with “yes,” but not if they responded with “no.” The latter would require another question that better suits it logically, such as a one about awareness of a different brand.
A strong online survey will also allow researchers to create multiple audiences within one survey. This entails that each audience type can have completely different demographics and quotas for each demographic. The purpose of using multiple audiences per survey is to gain insight across as wide a target population as possible in one interface.
Some survey campaigns will require researchers to do just that.
How Data Is Stored & Presented
Dovetailing off additional functions, an online survey tool stores data and a robust tool can extract the data into multiple formats. The platform itself serves as a database for all the surveys conducted, along with their collected information.
Some platforms enable researchers to extract survey data into various file types. For example, researchers can export their data as cross-tabs (cross-tabulation). This data presentation format allows users to aggregate data and analyze the relationships between variables. The variables are displayed in a matrix, i.e., in rows and columns in a matrix for researchers to quickly find data in corresponding cells.
There are other formats that online survey tools support can export. These include PDFs, Excel sheets and SPSS. The latter is the statistical analysis and machine learning tool from IBM.
While these help create a more diverse survey research campaign, it is key to note that not all online survey tools include these kinds of data exports. Some may have fewer options, while others none at all.
Aside from different formats of exported files, the data displayed per each survey can also be viewed in different ways. These include tables, pie charts and column charts. These options grant researchers the ability to choose the visualizations they’re most comfortable with, or those that are best for a particular purpose. For example, presentations may require different displays than a research document.
A practical survey platform will offer several layouts to view and store data.
The Pros
Online survey tools offer a variety of advantages for market research and research for other sectors, such as medicine, psychology, other sciences and more. Here is a list of all the benefits you can obtain from an online survey tool.
- Ease of data collection: The online survey tool you use does all the heavy lifting for you in many ways, including collecting participants from your target market. That means no more worrying about how you’re going to get survey respondents to take your survey.
- Access to a wide pool of consumers: This kind of tool (the proper variety) deploys your surveys to a massive network of internet and mobile app users. Since millions of users frequent the web every day, you can rest assured that members of your target market will be exposed to your survey.
- Saving time and workload: Face-to-face interviews, focus groups, phone calls and the outdated mail-in surveys take too much effort to execute. Besides being more labor-intensive, these methods will also consume a great deal of time that you could be spending on other market research efforts, such as secondary methods, along with other business matters. Online surveys free up much of the time you would otherwise spend on the above methods.
- Insights into personal and sensitive topics: This does not include things like names, addresses and other identifying information. Rather, an online survey tool emboldens brands to ask more personal questions, the kinds that deal with politics, social issues and matters that are private to respondents. These kinds of questions would be discomfiting for respondents to answer face-to-face and even on the phone. But with online surveys, they are granted the confidentiality to give honest answers, including in-depth answers on sensitive matters (via open-ended questions).
- Easy set-up: An online survey tool makes it easy to create a survey and design it precisely to a researcher’s needs. This makes it easy to come up with question types, as this tool offers a variety of them, such as matrix questions, rating scale questions, Likert scale questions, single selection multiple-choice, multiple selection multiple-choice, open-ended questions and more. Additionally, this tool makes it easy to add media files for picture choice questions, or a picture-based question. It should make adding things like skip logic free from friction.
- Projected time to complete the survey: A well-built online survey platform will eliminate the guesswork that comes with having your target audience complete a survey. It grants researchers an estimated completion time, so that you will know the approximate time it takes for all your preset survey quotas to be completed by the intended respondent base.
- No cost-based geographic restrictions: This means you can send your survey across the world uninhibited. If your target market has internet access, then they can take part in your survey. Most survey tools don’t charge extra for deployment to specific geographic areas. A strong survey tool also gives you the option of setting up your survey in various languages.
The Cons
As with other market research tools, survey platforms aren’t free of flaws. As such, business owners, marketers and researchers should understand the drawbacks present in this kind of research method. The following lists some of the stumbling blocks of using an online survey tool.
- Ingenuine answers: No survey is foolproof. Sometimes, the respondents may become bored or tired when taking a survey. Thus, they provide answers that are not accurate to their real opinions and phenomena that occur around them. There are flatliners, those who answer with the same choice in a multiple-choice question consecutively across many questions. Then there are the self-explanatory rule-breakers, who break survey participation rules by lying. There are several more survey respondents to look out for.
- Some populations have limited availability: Not all members of your target market have quality internet access. Some market segments, such as those who live in particular geographic areas have restricted internet access. This is evident in rural parts of the USA and poorer regions across the world. This can be especially difficult if you run a nonprofit and would like to learn more about a needy population.
- Responses are not always representative of a population: Surveys provide valuable insights, but this data is not always representative of a targeted population. Sometimes, this will require running multiple surveys, or increasing quotas. Also, since certain consumers change their minds, a survey tool will not catch this unless there are follow-up surveys sent to the exact same users who took an initial survey. You will need to pay attention to the margin of error to avoid unrepresentative opinions.
- Repeated survey requests may annoy respondents: Depending on the publisher site or app that the survey is deployed in, and the survey tool itself, there may be repeated requests to take the survey. This is bound to irritate users, which carries the risk of their ignoring the survey, or at worst, leaving the site.
When to Use an Online Survey Tool in the Market Research Process
Researchers can employ this kind of tool at virtually any point in their research process. When conducting market research, it is best to begin with sources of information already made available, aka, secondary research. This will guide your business on the happenings, trends and innovations within your sector and niche.
Moreover, you can use secondary sources to study your direct and close competitors. This includes looking at statistics websites, along with blogs, news sites, forums and others that report and cater to your industry. It is also apt to study the websites of your competitors to see how their products, service and experiences compare with yours.
After you’ve gathered a suitable amount of secondary data, you can make certain inferences on your particular marketing plans or other business goals. At this point, you’ll find some unanswered matters arising, at which point you can generate specific questions you need from your target market. This is where the survey process begins.
During this point, it would be useful to design surveys for specific campaigns and aligning the surveys with the needs of a specific campaign.
The Verdict on the Online Survey Tool
Survey research requires surveys, as its name implies. An online survey tool is the most powerful source of primary information, because it allows researchers to ask any questions and get answers relatively quickly from their most sought-after target audience.
This tool supplies all the privacy a respondent needs to confidently and truthfully answer much-needed research questions. Researchers can rejoice in having their surveys distributed across a massive network of online publishers where their surveys will iterate until all the quotas are met and the preset survey amount is completed.
Also, since customers spend much of their time online anyway, why not approach them in their natural digital environment? Thus, despite any flaws or slight difficulties the researchers may encounter, our verdict is that an online survey tool is of the essence for a research campaign.
Frequently asked questions
What is an online survey tool?
An online survey tool is a type of SaaS, defined as a platform that allows surveys to be created, distributed, and analyzed completely within its providing survey platform.
What are some of the extra functions included in a strong online survey platform?
Survey platforms differentiate themselves by offering additional functionality such as distribution on third-party sites or apps, advanced skip logic, the ability to create multiple audiences, and advanced data analysis tools.
What are cross-tabs?
Cross-tabs, or cross-tabulation, is a way of organizing data that allows the user to analyze and understand the relationship between variables.
What export formats should you look for when assessing an online survey tool?
Good online survey tools will offer the ability to export data in a variety of formats including, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, CSV, and SPSS.
What are some benefits of using an online survey tool?
There are many benefits associated with online survey tools including ease of creation, distribution and data collection, access to a wide variety of participants, and lower cost than other methods of survey distribution.
How to Use the New Carry Forward Feature for an Enhanced Survey Experience
How to Use the New Carry Forward Feature for an Enhanced Survey Experience
As the heart of any survey, the questionnaire must be contrived carefully so that you receive the responses most necessary for your survey research. Creating the questions themselves can be difficult, especially if you choose to create question paths.
Pollfish is thus thrilled to present a new feature to make building the questions a much easier task: Carry Forward. This new attribute provides advanced piping capabilities to optimize your questionnaire experience.
The Purpose of the Carry Forward Feature
As a refresher, piping is a functionality that allows users to place, aka, “pipe,” a part of a question or answer into a subsequent question or answer.
In the Pollfish platform, piping works by taking the answer(s) from the sender question and inserting them to the receiver question.
In the first piping iteration, researchers were able to funnel answer choices from one question to another based on respondents’ selections. The following question would carry forward answers from previously piped answers.
The new Carry Forward feature carries (no pun intended) the function of enriching the question-building experience, as it allows you to pipe questions on more question and answer types, along with other capabilities.
This new feature helps researchers design specific questions that are more relevant to the respondent’s behavior, and more useful to their research.
It functions on both selected and unselected answers. It also can be used with:
- Matrix questions
- Ranking questions
- Single selection questions
- Multiple selection questions
Laying Out the Carry Forward Capabilities
Multiple Selection Questions
Along with carrying forward selected answers, this feature allows researchers to carry forward all the answers that the respondent did not select.
In the case of a multiple selection question, for example, the feature can carry forward the unselected answers into the receiver question.
Due to this, when a responder selects all the answers and proceeds, there will be no answer to carry forward, as there are no remaining unselected answers. For this precise reason, the Pollfish platform has developed a validation which exists as a dialogue box.
This pop-up allows the researcher to know that the Carry Forward feature cannot support this case, as it only works if at least one answer is unselected. This is due to the condition that unselected answers cannot be carried forward if all the answers have been selected.
Advanced Logic
This can be used in tandem with advanced logic, allowing you to augment your survey with multiple layers.
Enabling advanced logic (ADL) can trigger questions without forwarded answers. For example, when Carry Forward is enabled but a respondent skipped the sender question, the respondent will then be routed to a question without Carry Forward answers
Pollfish has also added front end validation that disables the researchers from proceeding with the previous structure.
Sender questions with either the “None of the above” or “Other” option must be structured correctly, that is, with multiple selection questions. If these aren’t added to the proper question, there will be pop-up error messages.
Carry Forward Answers that Contain Media
If the Carry Forward answer type is the same or similar to the source (question) type, such as:
- single to single,
- multiple to multiple,
- single to multiple, etc.,
then the platform will carry forward the media files together with the answers.
In other cases, such as different types between sender & receiver questions, there are certain conditions and rules that dictate how Carry Forward will work.
How to maneuver Carry Forward answers which contain media:
- If the Carry Forward answer type is the same or similar (single, multiple) to the source type ? the media will be carried forward.
- If the Carry Forward answer type doesn’t support media then:
- The text will be carried forward if the source answer contains both text and media.
- Carry Forward will not be supported if the source answer contains only media.
How to Add Carry Forward to Your Questionnaire
In order to add the Carry Forward feature, you’ll need to enter the questionnaire portion of the survey first (after completing the audience section). You’ll also need to have your questions and answers in mind.
You can add Carry Forward when you begin the questionnaire, as you’ll need at least two questions to use this feature, the sender and receiver question. You can also implement it to an existing questionnaire.
- Find the Carry Forward option at the left panel of the questionnaire.
- Find a sender and a receiver question you wish to apply the CF feature to. This can be in any order. For example, you can use Question 1 as the sender question and Question 2 as the receiver question.
- Enable this via the receiver question and select “Carry Forward” and then the selected or unselected answers from a previous question (the sender question).
What Carry Forward Supports Vs. What It Does Not Support
There are certain conditions that need to be met in order to apply the Carry Forward function. There are certain circumstances in which your questions will not be able to implement Carry Forward.
What it supports:
- Carry Forward can be used with single/ multiple/ ranking/ matrix questions when they are designed as receiver questions.
- When you carry forward a matrix question, there’s an additional option to narrow the choices based on selected columns, unselected columns, rows for selected columns, rows for unselected columns, and columns for specific rows.
- It is supported by single, multiple, open-ended, numeric, ranking, matrix, slider and OE when they are set up as sender questions.
- The researcher can carry forward all the questions that the respondent didn’t select.
- There is simultaneous support of advanced logic and Carry Forward.
- It supports Order/ Shuffle answers for funneling questions.
What it doesn’t support:
- Carry Forward cannot be used with description questions, Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys and visual ratings surveys.
- It does not support screening questions and therefore cannot be used in them.
- It does not support the option of “Group and Randomize.”
Note: Closing off, you should know that responses that are carried forward will be treated the same as other answer choices on the results page.
We suggest you preview your survey design before submitting the survey itself. Try it out!
What to Look for in Online Survey Tools
What to Look for in Online Survey Tools
Online survey tools are invaluable for market research. In today’s digital world, these are the chief drivers of primary market research, as they allow you to obtain your own results.
Many brands don’t have market researchers on board; thus they don’t have the means to perform self-conducting research. As such, surveys are a vehicle of ease into primary research.
By their very nature, online surveys allow brands to explore the minds of their consumers and prospects.
But choosing the correct online survey tool can be a feat, as there is a slew of survey software available. Navigating the muddy waters of the internet, in which you’ll be constantly inundated with ads, social mentions and other promotional content, can make it difficult to steer you in the right direction.
That’s because all survey platforms will claim to provide the best experience and results for your business. But is any of it true? Don’t learn the hard way; instead, read this article on what to specifically look for in online survey tools for all of your needs.
Macro Applications for Online Survey Tools
Understanding the utility of survey software involves understanding all of the disciplines and campaigns it can be applied to.
Hence, before we delve into the individual capabilities you should seek in a survey platform, you should consider some of their more high-level applications.
Not every survey platform you come across will be able to provide the same value across these areas, so you ought to consider the functionalities of the survey platform you choose. But before that, let’s examine the macro applications your survey tool should aid you in.
- Branding: Branding involves developing a reputation and an image, along with increasing the recognition of your company. A survey should help you in the following for branding:
- Seeing the reception of content, whether it’s visuals or messaging
- Finding the images to use for a campaign (including placement of logos)
- Testing your unique value proposition
- Testing a slogan
- Identifying brand awareness levels
- Marketing: Marketing is an umbrella term that involves all the processes of raising interest in your brand and promoting it, including advertising, distribution methods and sales. A survey should help you in the following for marketing:
- Determining the state of your industry and niche
- Identifying your target market
- Applying market segmentation to your target market
- Seeing if there is a demand for your product or service
- Doing an analysis of your competitors
- Unearthing the attitudes around issues you can later use in your messaging
- Finding the shopping habits of your consumers
- Advertising: Advertising is a form of communication that uses overtly sponsored messages to promote or sell a product or service and is one of the main disciplines within marketing. A survey should help you in the following for advertising:
- Forming the bedrock of an ad campaign based on consumers’ opinions
- Figuring out which topical subjects are too touchy to include in the ads
- Finding ideas for individual ads
- Narrowing the most consumed advertising mediums from your target market
- Testing the efficiency of ads
- Site Traffic/Visitation: Gaining site traffic is a critical campaign in itself. So how would completing a survey — which can be seen as a chore — help on this front?
- When surveys are tailored correctly towards your target market, site visitors will enjoy taking them
- Surveys with images and interactive elements will create engaging experiences
- Users may feel appreciated for taking your survey if you offer thank you emails, incentives, etc.
- Surveys that deal with topical issues may reel in user interest when visiting your site
Features that Make Market Research Easy
A survey tool needs to be useful for market research. A key part of marketing, this kind of software should have the following:
- Multiple categories for demographics: this will help you reach your target market more precisely and accurately.
- Adding quotas to any of the demographics to reach your desired amount.
- Multiple sub-categories of demographics to reach your segmented personas.
- Various language options to apply to different countries and speakers.
- The addition of at least 3 screening questions.
What to Look for in the Survey’s Environment
The environment of the survey has to be vast and easily made visible to any demographic of respondents. In addition, it should be able to be widely distributed automatically. Here are the features to look for, for the most fitting survey environment.
- Software with a vast network of publishers: preferably popular websites and mobile apps.
- A wide pool of users associated with the publisher channels.
- An easy to detect element (button) to reach the survey.
- The capability of being supported by over a hundred countries for global reach.
- An easy to integrate API or coding.
Individual Survey Capabilities
These specific features are the micro aspects of the applications to look for in your survey platform. They are immensely important, as they largely involve unique capabilities that distinguish one platform from another. Additionally, these capabilities can be put in use for the aforementioned macro applications (advertising, etc). The following lists individual features you should seek out in your survey provider:
- Configuring question types in a number of ways (multiple-selection, single selection, open-ended, ratings, stars, etc.)
- Adding media to your questions (images, GIFs, videos)
- Adding predefined answers to save you time.
- Utilizing advanced skip logic so that participants are only moved to questions that pertain to their previous answer, i.e., are relevant to them.
- An estimated completion time for all quotas to be met/ for the survey to conclude.
- Handling a large pool of survey participants (reaching into the thousands).
Simplifying the Process & What Else to Look For
It is understandable that the above lists seem rather intimidating in terms of finding in an online survey tool. Moreover, you may find a survey software that you feel comfortable using due to the ease of the interface, one that does that necessarily tick off all the capabilities in this article.
This is okay, as the needs of your business will differ from that of others. However, if you want to amass as many as these features and utilities as possible, here’s a few tricks to simplify the process:
- Look for the specific features (not the macro applications) in a survey platform by checking its website and social channels.
- Watch demos if need be.
- If you don’t get all the specifications you’re looking for, contact the survey provider
- Or.... just use Pollfish!
Luckily, the Pollfish online survey tool allows for all the macro applications so that your surveys can help your market research, marketing, branding and all other campaigns as needed.
The platform provides all the features and capabilities listed in this article. But there’s more!
We also offer 24/7 customer support from a dedicated team of product experts, so you never feel like you’re going at it alone.
Frequently asked questions
What is an online survey?
An online survey is a survey that is deployed and taken over the internet. Results are gathered and stored in an online database so the researcher can easily review the data.
What features of online surveys are used to support market research?
Some features of online surveys that are used to support market research are well-defined demographic categories, demographic quotes, sub-categories within demographics, the ability to change languages within the survey, and the option to include screening questions.
What are some of the applications of online surveys?
Online surveys can be used to support various aspects of market research, as well as branding, marketing, advertising, and site traffic research initiatives.
What is skip logic?
Skip logic is a feature of surveys that lets you send respondents to a specific question based on the answer to a previous question.
What question types do online survey platforms offer?
A good survey platform will offer the ability to include multiple-choice, scaled, and open-ended questions. In addition, there should be formatting options to include media, graphics, and emoticons in the survey questions or responses.