How to Reward Survey Participation While Keeping Responses Anonymous?

Should we reward anonymous surveys? Is it possible to reward the participants of an anonymous survey while maintaining anonymity? This can get tricky sometimes while rewarding, 100% anonymity may not be possible.

So, are we compromising anonymity, in order to improve participation? Maintaining the balance between anonymity and reward is challenging.

In this article, we will discuss the challenges and strategies of rewarding participants of an anonymous survey.

What happens when you don’t incentivize?

It is true that maintaining anonymity is challenging while rewarding survey participation. However, it is also important to know the ill effects of not incentivizing survey participation. It can lead to

• Lower participation rates
• Low quality response
• Lack of motivation.

Eventually, your audience will not find your future surveys interesting, which will lead to declined participation.

How can we reward while keeping it anonymous?

Now, we have come to a point where we need to maintain anonymity and also reward them for participating. Here we are suggesting a few interesting ways to strategize your reward system, particularly for anonymous surveys.

2 Survey approach:

The first one will be this ‘2 Survey approach’ where 2 different surveys will be used, first, the main anonymous survey and the second, the reward survey. After the completion of the first survey, it is redirected to the second survey to claim the reward. Both the surveys should be untied without identifying each other. In the second survey, we can get the email address or other contact information to send the reward.

Below is a sample explaining '2 survey approach'. You can find the reward form link on the completion of the first survey. Could you try it now?

Proof of Completion:

In this approach, you can ask the respondents to send a screenshot of the ‘Thank you’ screen to get enrolled in the rewards program. In this way, the respondents can remain anonymous while receiving their rewards.

Raffle approach:

With the raffle approach, the respondent's name or any other PII can be collected to conduct the raffle. Random respondents are selected for awards based on a lot system. A software tool can also be used to select the random respondents in this raffle approach, to avoid bias during selection.

Whom and What to Reward?

When deciding on whom to reward in an anonymous survey, it is important to think about the goal and budget of the survey. In this way, you can either choose to reward everyone or only the chosen few.

Rewarding everyone ensures maximum engagement. In this case, you can reward coupon codes, small gift cards, or product trials to everyone who completes the survey. Or if you want to reward a few selected respondents with a raffle, you can increase the excitement of participation through high-priced rewards like Macbook.

Coupons:

Coupon codes are widely used reward options that can be easily distributed at the end of surveys without breaking the anonymity of your survey. However, using a common coupon code for all participants is not advisable, for the code can be misused when fallen into the wrong hands.

NFT/ Web3 Tokens:

In case you have a Web3 audience taking your survey, you can choose to reward cryptos or NFTs aligning with your Web3 audience expectations. To make this happen, send the crypto or NFT rewards to the respondents' wallet addresses.

Research & Case study

Research: Effect of incentives

According to research done by World Trade Center Health Registry, studies show that offering survey rewards has an effect on completion rates & response rates. In the face of the growing challenge of maintaining a high response rate for the World Trade Center surveys, this study showed the value of offering a monetary incentive as a conversion strategy. Their findings also suggest that an incentive offer could be particularly useful near the end of data collection period when an immediate boost in response rate is needed.

Case Study: Rewarding Anonymous Surveys:

Rewarding anonymous surveys is a rare case in itself because of its challenges. Still, many survey creators are searching for ways to reward anonymous surveys. This is done to get the best of both worlds: the quality (out of anonymous survey) and the quantity (out of reward). Anonymous survey creators want to get an advantage amidst challenges. For example, here in Quora, there is a case of a survey creator who wants to reward respondents for taking an anonymous survey.

Conclusion

Rewarding survey participation while maintaining anonymity is a delicate balance. Letting participants know their privacy is your priority can increase the quality of data collected. Adding a reward to their honesty can elevate it further.

Planning to create an anonymous survey? Don’t miss this checklist to run an anonymous survey before rolling it out. BlockSurvey’s privacy-first approach makes it easy to implement these techniques, ensuring effective surveys while respecting respondents and fostering ongoing engagement and trust.