You’ve registered with an online survey panel, but it’s been a month and you haven’t received any survey invitations. What’s going on?
1. Make sure your contact information is correct
You cannot expect to receive any online survey invitations if the e-mail address you provide is incorrect.
2. Complete additional ‘profiles’
The more information about yourself you provide to a research company, the more likely it is they will contact you with online surveys. If profiles are options to be completed, consider doing so.
3. Be Patient!
Remember that if there are no surveys available for your demographic, you will not be contacted. A marketing research company first needs to be hired by a company needing research services before you, the panelist will be contacted. Stay patient, and eventually you will be invited to participated in a survey.
You’ve registered with an online survey panel, participated in surveys, but all of a sudden the survey invitations stop coming. What happened?
1. Incorrect contact information
Check to make sure that the e-mail address you provided is still current and that you’re checking your e-mail regularly. Make sure the information is up to date.
2. Check your SPAM filter
Some e-mail providers will automatically route suspicious-looking e-mail to junk-mail folders. Your survey invitations may be sitting here. If this is the case, add the survey panel’s e-mail address to your “safe senders” list and survey invitations will be accessible directly from your inbox.
3. No studies are available
If there are no matching studies for your demographic, you will not be sent any survey invitations. Again, exercise patience!
4. You’ve been “blacklisted” as a panelist
- Survey panelists who provide poor quality responses, inconsistent answers, and complete surveys especially quickly, may be “blacklisted”.
- Blacklisting means that a survey panel will flag panelist’s accounts, discontinuing inviting panelists to participate in studies. Panels do this to ensure the integrity of the surveys they conduct and so that safeguards are in place against notorious “professional survey takers”.
- The best way to avoid being blacklisted is to take your time when answering online surveys and provide honest answers when doing so. These simple measures should be enough to prevent most survey participants from being incorrectly labelled as an unsuitable survey panelist.
What should you do if you’ve been unfairly or mistakenly blacklisted?
Contact the research company directly and inquire about being blacklisted. Remember though that online survey companies have the right to ban panelists who they feel have abused their rights as a member of their survey panel.
Ready to start taking surveys?
If most of your questions about taking online surveys are answered, you might be ready to start finding legitimate survey sites to join.