Not everyone signing up to a paid survey website will receive the same amount of offers. Even though my wife and I are both subscribed to the same survey website, she gets more offers than I do, and often for higher rewards.
This is because of demographic targeting. The companies taking surveys almost never want the opinion of just anyone, they want the opinion of certain people. For example, if there is a survey about high-end pregnancy products, they may only want the opinions from married women aged 18-40 whose household income exceeds $60,000 per year. Or if they are selling mens’ deodorant, they may only want the opinion of single men aged 18 to 26 who are currently enrolled in college. With almost every survey, the demographics are at least this targeted.
This has lead to people asking me what the optimum demographics are for receiving the most survey offers. While I cannot advocate lying on your demographic questionaires, here are some things that I have noticed lead to more survey opportunities.
Being a woman – If you are a woman, you will receive more survey opportunities than men will (everything else being equal.) The surveys are often about consumer products, and the thinking is that women do more shopping than men do. How did they ever get that idea?
Making more money – There are surveys targeted at every economic bracket, so no matter how much money you make per year, there will be surveys targeted to you. However, companies often want to target their ads toward people with more disposable income, so having a higher income will lead to more survey opportunities.
Being a decision maker – Obviously, any company marketing a product wants to target the decision makers. So, with surveys, they want to get the opinions of decision makers. If you have no say in purchasing decisions (like if your spouse makes all the decisions), you will be disqualified for most survey opportunities.
Being a business leader – This goes hand-in-hand with being a decision maker. A business leader is responsible for decisions on a corporate level, and will be targeted on surveys about business products. As there are relatively few business leaders taking surveys, the payment on surveys targeting business leaders is often high.
Owning stuff (not renting) – People selling home decor and renovation items want to target people who own their homes, and not those who rent. Those selling cars and car parts target people who own their cars, and not those who lease.
Being a traveler – there are so many products related to the travel industry that I take surveys about. I qualify for most of these surveys because I travel so much. Surveys about airlines, hotels, and rental cars are numerous.
Being in the market for stuff – There are often qualifying surveys that ask you if you might be in the market to buy something, such as a new car, in the next year, next six months, or next 3 months. If you are in the market to buy soon, you are more likely to be targeted.
There are certainly a lot more demographics that affect how many surveys you get, but I don’t have enough information to know if one group gets more surveys than the other. These are just the areas I have seen a significant difference in the amount of survey offers received.
While you will be tempted to stretch the truth a little bit on demographic questionaires (like saying you are the prime decision maker on vacations, when your wife definitely has a big piece of that decision) I don’t recommend blatanty lying on them. Here is my reasoning on why you should tell the truth on your survey questionnaires.
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