- Ways to Send
- Survey Settings
- Buying Responses
- Tracking & Anonymity
- Email Invitations & Contacts
- Monitoring Responses
- Problems Taking Surveys
- Ways to Send Your Survey
After you've designed and previewed your survey, create a collector to send it out. You can send a survey via URL, email, buy responses, and more. Survey responses are then recorded in the Analyze Responses section of your account.
- Creating a Web Link for Your Survey
The Web Link collector is the fastest and most versatile way to share your survey link and collect responses. It will generate a short URL and QR Code that you can post wherever you'd like.
- Customizing Survey Links
You can change the domain of your survey link or create a Custom URL Ending to make your link more relevant to your survey and respondents.
- Sending Surveys via Email Invitation
Send your survey in an email invitation and track who responded. Follow the steps to compose your message, choose your collector options, send or schedule your message, send reminder and thank you messages, and track responses.
- Share Your Survey on Social Media
The Social Media collector lets you post a link to your survey on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. You can also copy the survey link to share the survey wherever you want.
- Mobile SDK
Our Mobile SDK lets an app developer add or trigger SurveyMonkey surveys into their iOS or Android apps.
- Kiosk Mode
You can use kiosk mode on the SurveyMonkey Anywhere app to turn your device into a survey-taking station, as long as you have an internet connection.
- Sending a Survey via Text Message
Text people a link to take your survey. Survey takers can open the link to take the survey in their mobile browser.
- Offline Mode
Use offline mode and the SurveyMonkey Anywhere app to collect responses without an internet connection, then upload them back to SurveyMonkey once you have internet access.
- Embedding Your Survey on a Website
Use a Website collector to embed a survey on your website or pop-up a survey invitation. To add one, you only need a basic understanding of HTML and access to your website’s source code. We’ll give you an embed code you can copy and paste.
- Embedding Questions in Email Invitations
If you're using a supported question type as the first question in your survey and it meets the design requirements, you can embed a question in an email so people can respond with just one click.
- Manually Entering Survey Responses
Manual Data Entry allows you to input responses you collected offline or to add responses on behalf of someone without an internet connection. There is no way to upload survey responses in bulk.
- QR Code
Download and share a QR code so people can scan the code with their smartphone and take your survey.
- Sharing Surveys in Facebook Messenger
You can create a survey for people to take in Messenger. People chat with the SurveyMonkey bot to answer the survey questions, and the results are recorded in your SurveyMonkey account.
- Managing Survey Collector Options
Collector options are settings that affect who can access your survey, how many times respondents can take the survey, and what respondents see when they're done. Require a password, close the survey at a specific date or response count, or keep a survey anonymous.
- Opening & Closing Surveys
Collectors control if your survey is open or closed. If you have multiple collectors, you need to close each one separately. You can customize the message shown on the survey closed page. If your collector is not fully set up, its status is not configured.
- Customizing Survey Links
You can change the domain of your survey link or create a Custom URL Ending to make your link more relevant to your survey and respondents.
- Allowing Multiple Responses
Enable multiple responses if you want people to take your survey more than once from the same browser. This collector option is helpful if you expect survey takers to take your survey on a shared device, like in a computer lab or on a public kiosk.
- Editing Survey Responses
You can allow people who take your survey to edit their responses either while completing the survey or after they submit it. Survey creators can edit survey responses for a respondent from the Individual Responses tab.
- Can I time surveys?
There isn't a way to set a time limit for taking a survey, but you can set a cutoff date.
- Limiting Responses to a Survey
You can turn on Response Limits in your collector options to automatically close a collector once a certain number of respondents have taken the survey through that collector. This was previously called the Maximum Response Count.
- Showing Respondents Instant Results
Instant Results allows you to show your respondents a real-time summary of survey results when they complete your survey. You can turn on Instant Results from your collector options. Instant Results does not show a respondent their individual survey response.
- Adding a Custom Thank You
You can add a Custom Thank You at the end of your survey. If you're using more than one collector to distribute your survey, you need to set up a Custom Thank You for each collector.
- Thumbnail Image & Text
The Thumbnail Image & Text collector option lets you edit the link metadata that shows when you paste your survey link in social media, messaging apps, or texts. Metadata includes your survey title, description, and image.
- Recurring Surveys
The Recurrence collector option automatically creates new Web Links at a frequency you choose, and emails you when they're ready to share.
- Restricting Survey Access by Password or IP Address
You can restrict access to your survey by password or IP address from the collector options.
- Setting a Cutoff Date & Time
You can automatically close your survey at a certain date and time from your collector options.
- Can respondents print their responses?
You can edit the survey completion option to redirect respondents to a certificate you created outside of SurveyMonkey.
- Disqualifying Respondents
You can add a qualifying question to your survey to disqualify respondents who choose a particular answer option using Question Skip Logic. This allows you to disqualify respondents who don't meet your targeting criteria or consent to your terms. You can show respondents a custom disqualification message.
- Sending Confirmation Emails
When someone completes a survey sent by an Email Invitation, automatically send them a confirmation email that lets them know you received the survey and includes a link to see their answers.
- Survey End Page
The Survey End Page collector option lets you choose what survey takers see after they complete your survey. Use the default SurveyMonkey end page, redirect to another website, close the window, or loop the survey back to the beginning to collect more responses.
- Buying Responses with SurveyMonkey Audience
Buy an Audience project if you need people to take your survey. You can target the types of people you want to hear from based on specific attributes, like country, gender, age-range, income, employment status, and more.
- SurveyMonkey Audience Design Guidelines
Follow these survey requirements and best practices to run a successful SurveyMonkey Audience project!
- How to Reach a Target Audience
When you buy responses you can choose from hundreds of targeting options or add screening questions to reach your target audience. If you use disqualification logic, you'll need to estimate a qualification rate so we know how many people to send your survey to.
- Audience Credits
Audience Credits let you pay for your SurveyMonkey Audience responses in advance. You pay one invoice upfront, then use credits to pay for individual projects. You can also use credits to pay for concept testing.
- Concept Testing
Expert Solutions help you quickly customize a concept test, collect quality response data from your target market, and receive presentation-ready reports.
- Calculating the Number of Respondents You Need
To calculate the number of respondents you need (known as your sample size), use our sample size calculator or refer to our suggested sample sizes.
- Audience Custom Balancing
Custom balancing lets you customize the gender or age group you're targeting when buying Audience responses.
- Response Rate
Your response rate is the percentage of people who respond to your survey. In general, long or complicated surveys have a low response rate. Read our tips to ensure you're doing all you can to get the best response rate possible.
- SurveyMonkey Audience Policies
Get links to SurveyMonkey Audience privacy, confidentiality, and legal information, learn what to do if your survey contains potentially offensive content, and review the Acceptable Uses Policy to ensure that the content of your survey meets our requirements.
- SurveyMonkey Contribute
SurveyMonkey Contribute lets you earn rewards for completing surveys and donate to charity. To edit your SurveyMonkey Contribute account settings, sign in and click My Account from the upper-right corner of your dashboard.
- SurveyMonkey Audience for Academics
Professors, grad students, and undergrads use SurveyMonkey Audience to get the research respondents they need in a fraction of the time it used to take them. Read this article for information we've found to be helpful for those interested in running an academic research project with us.
- Tracking Respondents
There are different ways to track respondents. Before you send your survey, decide if you want to track who’s taken your survey or if you want to keep responses anonymous.
- Making Responses Anonymous
To collect anonymous responses, edit the collector options to disable IP address tracking and email address tracking before sending out your survey. You need to edit each of the collectors you have for the survey separately to make sure all your survey results are anonymous.
- Tracking Email Invitations
If you send your survey via email invitation, you can track how many people opened your invitation, clicked through to the survey, or responded to your survey.
- IP Tracking
Most collectors store the IP addresses of respondents in survey results by default. You can choose to restrict or allow IP addresses from being recorded in survey results in your collector options.
- Custom Variables
Custom Variables is a logic feature that allows you to track data about respondents by passing one or more values through a survey link and into your survey results.
- Using Custom Data to Store Contact Info
Custom Data lets you store extra info in Contacts about the people you invite to take your survey, and include it with your survey results. You can also use custom data to personalize messages when using Email Invitation.
- Sending Surveys via Email Invitation
Send your survey in an email invitation and track who responded. Follow the steps to compose your message, choose your collector options, send or schedule your message, send reminder and thank you messages, and track responses.
- Composing Email Invitations
When you create an Email Invitation collector to send your survey, you have a few options for how to set up the email. You can embed the first survey question in your email, choose from different message formats, or select a previously used message.
- Adding Contacts to Email Invitations
You can keep a list of contacts in SurveyMonkey and send them Email Invitations to take your surveys. Upload a spreadsheet of contacts, or import from Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, LinkedIn, Microsoft 365, or Outlook.com.
- Organizing Your Contacts
Use groups to send survey invitations to specific contacts using the Email Invitation Collector. Click the down arrow to the right of a group to copy, rename, or delete the group.
- Tracking Email Invitations
If you send your survey via email invitation, you can track how many people opened your invitation, clicked through to the survey, or responded to your survey.
- Troubleshooting Issues with an Email Invitation
Learn why people didn't get your email invitation, how long it takes to send a message, what the status of a message means, and what to do if you can't send a message.
- Avoiding Spam Filters
We monitor outgoing messages from Email Collectors for spam and abuse. Make sure to read our Acceptable Uses Policy so you understand what is and is not permitted, and follow these guidelines.
- Suspended Mailing Privileges
Occasionally, a message you try to send may be flagged for review and marked as Pending Approval. Additionally, if you exceed bounce rates or abuse rates, we may suspend your mailing privileges. To send a survey right away, create a Web Link Collector.
- Opted Out or Bounced Contacts
Some of your recipients or contacts may be labeled as opted out or bounced in your Email Invitation collector, Text Message collector, or Contacts. People who opt out of taking surveys you send or contact info that bounce messages are labeled as opted out or bounced.
- Using Custom Data to Store Contact Info
Custom Data lets you store extra info in Contacts about the people you invite to take your survey, and include it with your survey results. You can also use custom data to personalize messages when using Email Invitation.
- Sending Reminder and Thank You Emails
After sending an Email Invitation, you can follow up with contacts to remind them to take your survey or thank them for taking it. You can choose to set up automated follow-up emails or one-off follow-up emails.
- Embedding Questions in Email Invitations
If you're using a supported question type as the first question in your survey and it meets the design requirements, you can embed a question in an email so people can respond with just one click.
- Required Data in Email Invitations
All surveys sent via Email Invitation need to include a survey link and opt out link. The opt out link allows contacts to unsubscribe from surveys sent through your account via the Email Invitation Collector. On some plans, you can hide the SurveyMonkey footer.
- Email Invitation and Contact Limits
Be aware of the following sending, importing, contact, and character limits when sending messages through an Email Invitation collector or storing information about survey takers in Contacts.
- Sender Email Address & Verification
Contacts see the sender email address in the From field of your emails. You need to verify a sender email address to send email invitations from your account.
- How to Analyze Survey Results
View your results from the Analyze Results section of a survey. You can see a summary view of your data; browse individual responses; create custom charts; use filters to focus on specific data views and segments; and easily download your results in multiple formats.
- Viewing Your Survey Summary
The Survey Summary page provides an overview of your survey design, collector information, and response data.
- Editing a Live Survey
You can edit a live survey, but editing options are limited if you've collected responses.
- Adding a Quota
Quotas enable you to automatically close a survey once it reaches a certain ratio of qualified responses.
- Daily Summary Notifications
Daily summary notifications are emails that let you know when you get new survey responses. For each survey with the daily summary turned on, you get a one-time email confirmation about your first response, and you'll get one daily email summarizing how many new responses you received.
- HootSuite Integration
View your SurveyMonkey survey results, and send your survey through social media, directly from your HootSuite dashboard.
- Using Zapier with SurveyMonkey
Zapier allows you to integrate SurveyMonkey with hundreds of other apps to automate tasks in your workflow.
- Smart Notifications
Smart notifications let you send email notifications to you or others based on conditions you set. For example, you can set up a smart notification to send you an email each time someone answers a survey question with a specific answer.
- Survey Notifications
Survey notifications let you know when you have new survey responses.
- Instant Notifications
Instant notifications let you quickly see new survey responses by sending you an email each time a response is submitted. You can manage instant notifications in your collector settings and share them with others.
- Editing Survey Responses
You can allow people who take your survey to edit their responses either while completing the survey or after they submit it. Survey creators can edit survey responses for a respondent from the Individual Responses tab.
- Survey Design & Character Limits
A list of survey design and character limits you may encounter while creating or taking a survey.
- Respondents Can't Complete My Survey
Read these tips if your respondents are reporting trouble accessing or completing your survey.
- Finding a Survey
To take a survey online, you need the survey link. Contact the survey creator or the person who asked you to take the survey. To find a survey you created (or a survey that was shared with you), log in and go to the My Surveys page of your account.
- How do I know my responses were recorded?
Your responses are recorded whenever you advance to the next page or click Done to finish your survey.
- Can a respondent fill out the same question or page multiple times?
You can allow respondents to take a survey more than once or copy questions so respondents can fill out as many as they need. If those options don't meet your needs, Wufoo might be right for you.
- Why does the survey time out or not fully load a page?
If a survey design is very long with many questions, answer choices, or images on a single page, this may cause issues with loading time.
- Can a survey be saved and finished later?
The survey creator needs to edit the Collector settings to allow respondents to edit their responses. Then respondents can complete a portion of the survey and return later to finish the rest.
- Why are answers already selected when I try to take a survey?
The survey settings allow responses to be edited. Please contact the survey creator who can disable editing.
- Survey Link Doesn't Work
If you're trying to take a survey but the link doesn't work, read these troubleshooting tips.
- Missing Survey Responses
Responses are recorded in the Analyze Results section of your survey. Read these tips if you think you're missing some responses.
- Respondents Skipped Required Questions
When you analyze your results, you may see that some respondents skipped required questions. The respondent may have exited the survey early, skip logic may have skipped the respondent past the question, or the respondent may have taken the survey before you added the required question.
- Matrix Answers Disappear or Deselect Automatically
When the Forced Ranking option is enabled on a Matrix/Rating Scale question, the previous answer will disappear if a respondent tries to choose the same column choice for a different row.
- Why do some questions have square buttons while others have circles?
The shape of the button determines how many answer choices a respondent is allowed to select.
- Are my survey responses anonymous and secure?
It's up to each survey creator to decide to collect responses anonymously or to capture respondents’ personal information. URLs beginning with https:// are sent via SSL encryption. Read our Privacy Notice and Security Statement for more details.