Webupon

Providing incentives for people to share opinions about a business’s products or services began in the 1950s as advertisers began to assemble focus groups.  Today, ads to take surveys online and get paid are all over the internet, and many surveys, research panels and focus groups are looking for members.  Taking surveys isn’t a full time job, and it won’t bring in hundreds of dollars a month, but you can make a small amount of supplemental income off of it.

To start, look for legitimate market research companies.  A lot of online advertisements link to pages advertising products or pages that install spyware or viruses on a computer.  Worse, some advertisements claim that you can earn a living from taking surveys, or that you need to pay for special training.  Legitimate market research companies will tell you to expect to make no more than $10 a month from a single site, and no legitimate company will charge money.  If you’re looking for good companies, try Greenfield Online, Carol Adams (at mysurvey.com), NPDOR, and HarrisPoll.

Companies will allow anyone to sign up and fill out a demographic survey, but it is the answers on that demographic survey that determine how many and what type of surveys, panels, and product tests you will qualify for.  Generally, these companies are hired by clients who want to market their products to young people with a good amount of disposal income.  Being between the ages of 18 and 45 with an annual income over $45,000 is usually the group that qualifies to take the most surveys.  Being male can help a lot, too.  Men typically are less likely to sign up for surveys, making their product tests and info panels more lucrative as these companies try to sign people up.  Other specialized groups that research companies look for include Hispanics, people with multiple children between the ages of 6 and 12, and very high income earners (that is, people who make over $100,000 a year).

Legitimate companies have been in business for several years, and have spent a lot of time and money on quality control.  In other words, they want to make sure that people aren’t lying about their demographic information or just checking boxes randomly on the page.  Although these companies are usually pretty quiet about their quality control methods, it is not uncommon to be asked the same questions (phrased differently, of course) while taking a survey.  Also expect to have to resubmit your demographic information every time you take a survey.  While you are still new, make sure you read every question carefully, and expect the surveys to take the estimated time given at the beginning of the survey.  After a month or two, you’ll begin to recognize the pattern of questions, and answering surveys can take a much shorter amount of time; usually about a half to a quarter of the estimated completion time.  People who give inconsistent answers are usually not invited to take additional surveys.  People who do give consistent answers, however, are asked to take part in product tests and more lucrative opinion panels.  

Most survey companies will pay their survey takers with points that can then be redeemed for prizes, cash, or sweepstakes entries.  When signing up with a company, be sure you understand their rewards policy.  My Survey usually gives about 10 points for their short surveys (in which they determine if you can qualify for a longer survey), about 300 points for a longer survey (which takes about 10-20 minutes), and up to 5,000 points for a research panel (these usually consist of a set of surveys taken over the course of a few months or a year).  Every 1,000 points can be redeemed for a $10 check, meaning that a person who fits the right demographic can get a $10 check about once a month.  NPDOR, on the other hand, only allows their points to be redeemed for contest entries.  Without a guaranteed payout, there’s not a lot of incentive to take up your time with longer surveys.  Look out for legitimate companies that set the threshold for redemption too high.  One company promises survey-takers $1 per survey, but only allows their users to request a check once their account has hit $100 or more.  It can take over a year of work before you get any kind of reward, not to mention that there is no guarantee that the site will simply stop putting out invitations after a certain threshold.  When you’re first starting out, make sure you only work for sites that have low payment thresholds.

Product tests are usually offered to members after they have shown they can give consistent answers.  Usually, these types of surveys are the most expensive for a company to conduct, so a research wants to make sure that they will good answers out of everyone they invite in.  Expect to test a lot of beauty products (tissues, shampoo, toothpaste, conditioner, etc.), as these kinds of products are very dependent on the opinions of the customer.  Food tests will show up occasionally, but can be pretty rare nowadays due to the liability that companies face with food allergies and not wanting to release the ingredient list of a new product before putting it on store shelves. 

During my ten years as a survey taker I have tested shampoo, conditioner, dog food, perfume, tissues, potato chips, and many other products I don’t even remember.  I typically make about $25 a month in cash, plus about $15 a month in “trial” products.  I spend about 20 minutes a day answering surveys, usually while watching television or sitting on hold with my cable company.  It is possible for someone to make similar money, but be careful.