Forty-two percent of survey users say that response rates are their biggest challenge. Low response rates can disrupt your margin of error and compromise the reliability of your survey findings. Your response rate might be the deciding factor between launching a product successfully or missing the mark.
However, you don’t need to accept low response rates or, even worse, unreliable data.
With over 25 million questions answered daily on the SurveyMonkey platform, we truly understand what motivates people to take surveys.
In this article, discover five research-backed strategies to boost your survey responses, based on insights from over 3,000 participants.
What’s the best way to get people to take your survey?
“Picture yourself as your survey’s ideal respondent, then work backwards,” suggests Sam Gutierrez, Senior Research Scientist at SurveyMonkey.
- Can they find or receive your survey?
- Is your survey too lengthy for them?
- Is your survey relevant and interesting to them?
- What benefit do they get from taking part?
- Are there any questions that might be difficult for them to answer?
No need to worry. You don’t have to be a senior research scientist to create a survey with strong response rates.
We spoke with SurveyMonkey Research Scientists Sam Gutierrez, Zoe Padget and Wendy Smith, who together have over 30 years of research experience. We also surveyed 3,063 US adults to identify the best ways to boost survey responses. Use these expert tips to encourage more people to take your survey.
6 strategies to encourage survey participation + practical tips to launch yours today
1. Select the right channel and timing to maximise your survey response rate
Timing is crucial when distributing surveys, as the right moment can have a meaningful effect on both response rates and data quality.
Since every audience is different, the best time to send your survey is highly subjective and influenced by factors such as survey context, time zones and industry-specific norms.
Still, a helpful rule of thumb to encourage people to take your survey is to send it early in the work week, Monday to Wednesday. However, for topical surveys such as a post-event survey, it’s best to send them straight after the relevant interaction while the experience is fresh.
The channel you use to deliver your survey also influences participation. Just like timing, the ideal survey channel depends on your specific audience.
Consider these survey channels to reach your audience wherever they are:
- On-site kiosks are useful for collecting responses at in-person events.
- Emails are widely used for reaching large groups with surveys.
- SMS is helpful for quick, post-transaction surveys.
- Social media is ideal for fun, spontaneous surveys or for reaching targeted groups within forums and online communities.
Related reading: 5 ways to time and send your surveys for better results
2. Keep surveys short and focused
What’s the maximum amount of time you’d be willing to spend completing a feedback survey?
As a survey creator, your optimism might mean you’re willing to spend as long as it takes to answer each question thoroughly. In reality, that would make you an exception.
We posed this exact question to survey participants. Almost half (48%) said they would spend 1–5 minutes. A further 24% were willing to spend 6–10 minutes completing a feedback survey.
“Longer surveys make the experience more demanding for respondents, which can affect their attention spans, answer quality, and even their willingness to finish the survey,” says Gutierrez.
In many situations, short surveys are best.
What counts as “short” is subjective. Different survey question types require different levels of effort from respondents. Open-ended questions take much longer to answer than basic multiple-choice or checkbox questions. A matrix question with 10 rows will take nearly as long as 10 separate multiple-choice questions.
So, when designing a short survey, think carefully about how much time it will take to complete. Will it be a quick 5-minute task, which is preferable for nearly half of survey respondents? Or will your survey, with several open-ended questions, require 21 minutes or more?
3. Make your survey easy to complete
Over half of survey participants (53%) say that sharing their thoughts and opinions is their main motivation for completing feedback surveys.
In general, people are keen to help improve the products and experiences offered by companies and organisations they support. However, surveys need to be clear and straightforward to engage participants and collect accurate, actionable data.
Irrelevant questions and answer choices are the main reason for inaccurate feedback from respondents.
According to Smith, the best approach is to keep it simple.
- Clear instructions help participants understand your objective and show how their feedback contributes to your aims.
- Smooth transitions between topics provide clear separation between questions, helping to avoid confusion.
- Simple questions reduce the mental effort for respondents and help them focus on what you’re aiming to measure.
- Question variety helps keep respondents engaged for longer, as changing question types prompts them to refocus their attention.
It’s also important to think about the online survey experience, especially for participants using mobile devices.
“A majority of respondents in all countries now take surveys on mobile, and if the experience isn’t optimised, clear or functioning properly, it will result in people dropping out,” says Smith.
Remove barriers, such as unclear questions and technical issues, to create engaging surveys.
4. Offer incentives to increase response rates
Twenty-six percent of survey participants say financial incentives are one of the main reasons they complete feedback surveys.
Incentives can be effective for increasing response rates, but use them thoughtfully. Higher response rates don’t always mean better data quality, and incentives can introduce data bias if not used carefully.
“It’s not possible to eliminate this bias,” explains Smith. “However, you can include quality-check questions in your survey to filter out responses that aren’t genuine, aimed at detecting satisficers who might be participating just for the incentive.”
And regarding incentives, the more niche your topic and audience, the bigger your incentive will need to be.
According to our survey experts, here are the top three incentives to encourage people to take your survey:
- Cash or cash-value gift cards are viewed as the most compelling incentive.
- Charitable donations can work well but may cause bias depending on what you’re measuring.
- Sweepstakes can sometimes be effective, depending on the prize, but they may also involve legal complications.
Incentives can be effective, but watch out for survey bias and make sure the reward matches the effort required.
5. Follow up with survey respondents
You’re competing for attention with all sorts of priorities in people’s lives: work, caring responsibilities and social engagements. Sometimes, they simply forget. A well-timed follow-up can reach survey takers just when they’re ready to provide feedback.
But there’s an even greater reason for following up with reminders.
More than half (56%) of respondents believe that companies pay only “a little” attention to their feedback.
Survey takers have several reasons why they may respond this way, but there’s one unmistakable reason: They don’t think companies care about their feedback.
Sending a follow-up email that reinforces how much you value their feedback makes it clear you’re paying attention, and importantly, that you care.
6. Say thank you
Take tip number five a step further: Close the feedback loop and express your thanks.
Seventy-two percent of survey respondents said they don’t hear back from the company after completing a survey. Instead, update your participants on your action plan based on their feedback.
This demonstrates to survey participants that their feedback makes a difference and motivates customers to complete future surveys.
Improve survey response rates with SurveyMonkey
Getting survey responses is a science we’ve mastered. Trust our experts: select the right timing and channel for your audience, create short and engaging surveys that people are eager to answer, offer an incentive to boost interest and always follow up.
It may seem simple, but if you’re not sure where to begin, try our expert-designed survey templates. These templates are fully customisable and can be launched quickly. Discover more about your customers with our market research survey templates, create customer-focused products with product development survey templates and enhance your customer experience using our customer feedback survey templates.
Methodology: This SurveyMonkey study was conducted from 16–23 June 2025 among a sample of 3,063 adults in the United States. Respondents were selected from a non-probability online panel. The modelled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points. Data have been weighted for age, race, gender, education and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, to reflect the overall demographic composition of the United States.
