Gift Cards in Survey Research: Friend or Foe?
You’ve probably heard it too – “survey overload,” “survey fatigue,” “being surveyed to death,” or some other expression to describe the current feeling that there is a survey for everything these days. You feel it, your partners feel it, and our kids, families, and communities feel it too. And yet, the benefits of conducting survey research are numerous. A variety of available platforms make creating, distributing, and analyzing surveys easier and more efficient than ever; surveys have the ability to solicit confidential and anonymous responses, and surveys remain an advantageous tool to reach large and diverse samples of the population.
For these and other reasons, surveys continue to be a tool to gather data and information in many settings. Information seekers continue to look for ways that not only improve the experience of those completing a survey but also increase the likelihood that someone will take and complete a survey. Commonly, incentives, like gift cards, are used for this purpose.
The decision on when, where, how, etc., to use a survey will vary greatly, and so will the use and type of incentive. Just as a survey is not right for every data gathering situation, an incentive is not right for every data gathering situation either, and if you’re in the partnership space like me, it’s a thoughtful conversation and decision to use both a survey and an incentive. So, my question is, when it comes to your incentive, was it worth it?
There are four cases that I’d love to share some context on when we used both a survey and an incentive. But not just any incentive, specifically gift cards. Generally, gift cards as an incentive might be selected because they offer respondents a choice, and gift cards are able to be distributed easily when a survey is completed. But if you’ve ever used an incentive for survey research, and specifically, gift cards, you know that there can be some downsides, too. Some gift cards might come with additional fees when purchasing or using, some gift cards have an expiration date, physical gift cards might be lost or stolen, electronic gift cards might be hacked or scammed, the use could impact quality of and number of responses, and distribution could compromise confidentiality or anonymity. So, my question again is, when it comes to your gift card incentive, was it worth it? Here are some cases when we used surveys and a gift card incentive:
To be clear, I am not saying that surveys or gift cards are always friends or always foes and should always or never be used. But in certain situations, the survey by gift card interaction ended up being more friendly or more of an enemy, and I’m interested in reflecting on the lessons that can be learned and hearing from you on what’s worked and what hasn’t when you’ve used surveys and gift cards. For me, three things stand out.
Lesson #1: Not all advertisements are created equal. Clearly, posting a survey link on any social media platform with a message about gift cards invites online scammers to flood your survey with fake responses to get as many gift cards as possible. But even when you send a direct email to your constituents, there is still the potential for trouble (e.g., phishing, email hacking). I’m not sure what the best solution is right now for electronically disseminating a survey with a gift card incentive (we seem to do better with a drawing without compromising the reach and quality of results). Still, I do know that there is a heightened need to limit where, when, and how you use social media to link to surveys and mention gift cards.
Lesson #2: Gift cards do not equate to a meaningful response rate. Many decisions get made when we have a question to be answered, from who is involved with exploring that question to determining that a survey is the best method for gathering more information, writing survey items, collecting responses, and sharing results with constituents. Each of those decisions can have a potential impact, some bigger and some smaller, on the number of responses that we get when we use a survey. Gift cards should be taken into consideration within the larger context to determine if their use has a good chance of contributing to a (more) meaningful response rate.
Lesson #3: Gift cards as an inventive versus a thank-you are two different things. When we use a gift card to recruit an individual to take a survey instead of a gift card to thank someone for completing a survey, that experience looks and feels different from the respondent’s or participant’s perspective. When we use gift cards, we should be clear about our intentions and expectations as a gift card incentive could contribute to additional respondents while a gift card thank you most likely will not.
I hope this has been helpful to reflect on your work and provide some considerations for when you determine that a survey would be the best tool to answer your most pressing question. I’d also love to hear about your experiences.
