You really can make money with paid online
surveys. There are thousands of new surveys being made every week and many
millions of dollars are being paid out to compensate survey participants every
year. It is possible to participate in legitimate paid online surveys and make
money.
But there is so much sales hype and
misinformation out there that it's hard to know what to believe. It is
difficult to get a handle on what is reality and what is just BS.
To see what I mean by misinformation, follow the
links at the bottom and click on "Scam Alert!" on the navigation
menu. There are a couple of good examples there.
1. Good information on paid online surveys is
hard to get because of the way people get paid. There are five ways that
someone can make money with paid surveys:
** The large companies that commission the
surveys use the info to make money by being able to make better decisions about
new products and services and how to best spend their advertising and promotion
budgets.
** The survey makers charge the large companies a
fee and make money by getting the survey done within budget with something left
over for them. (To many of them survey participants are just an expense to be
reduced.)
** The cheapskate survey makers who don't pay
their survey participants or don't pay them well always have to replace the
many that drop out. They pay recruiting fees to recruiters, for example, those
that offer "free lists" of survey makers. The recruiters make money
by recruiting (the recruits hardly ever do!)
** There are paid survey membership sites that
maintain lists of survey makers for their members and make money by charging
membership fees. New members pay a small one-time membership fee in order to
get a copy of their list.
** Finally, the survey participants (like you and
me) get paid fees for participating in surveys and filling out the
questionnaires.
In the larger picture then, there are four
different parties struggling for part of the original opinion survey budget:
the survey maker, the recruiters, the membership sites and us survey
participants. Each of these talks from his own particular perspective and
interests, making it confusing, and hard to get good information on paid online
surveys if you don't know the players.
2. Some (about 20%) of the survey makers play it
straight and offer legitimate paid online surveys, paying participants a fair
amount, on time and in cash or equivalent. Those are the ones we definitely want
to find and deal with!
Another 40% of survey makers pay, more or less.
They chisel off as much as they can for themselves but recognize that they have
to pay participants or lose them. Most of these are O.K. to deal with. You
don't make as much and sometimes you have to wait a while to get paid, but, in
the end, it's probably worth it.
The last 40% of survey makers includes the
no-pay/low-pay operators and the sales companies who call themselves survey
makers so they can get your contact info and try to sell you everything under
the sun. Mostly these don't pay us at all and are just time-wasters from our
point of view.
3. The paid survey membership sites try to
develop lists of the better 60% of survey makers, to keep their members happy
so they can earn their membership fees.
4. The recruiters work with the lower 40% (and
some of the less-attractive middle tier) of survey makers to recruit people
like us. They get paid on a per head basis or with a percentage of the survey
fees. A $10 survey becomes a $6 survey to us and the recruiter gets $4.
Being recruited is a situation we generally want
to avoid. One way or another all recruiting fees come out of what should really
be paid to us survey participants. The survey maker who gets new participants
that way is paying recruiters instead of paying us!
5. The good survey makers don't pay recruiting
fees; they don't have to. They don't look for us; we have to look for them.
6. The best way we can find them is through the
paid survey membership sites. Oh,we CAN do it ourselves, but it takes a long
time during which we could have been making money with a good list. Generally
it is well worth the membership fee to get a good list up front and start
making money now.
So that is the information on paid online surveys
that you need to know.
Now, pick a good paid survey membership site with
a strong money-back guarantee and a low refund rate under that guarantee. Low
refund rates mean that their existing clients are making money with their
lists. High refund rates mean that their existing clients are NOT making money
and demand their membership fee back!
Choose a membership site with a strong guarantee
and a low (3-6%) refund rate. Sign up with them, get a copy of their list and
then sign up with all of the survey makers on that list. You will have
positioned yourself to be amongst the happy clients of a good site with a good
list. And, you can't lose; you have a guarantee.
Free Paid Online Survey - What Is It and How Do You Make Money With It?
In regards to a free paid online survey, the
first question that comes to mind is, "How can something be 'free' and
'paid' at the same time?" O.K., the answer to that is simple. 'Free' means
free to take. It does not cost anything to take legitimate free paid online
surveys.
If anyone tries to get you to pay to take an
online survey, run (don't walk) away. You will have been talking to some kind
of scam artist, not a legitimate survey maker.
After the 'free' part, (free describes your cost
to take the survey) comes the "paid" part. Paid is what you get when
you submit the completed survey questionnaire. You get paid to take surveys
which do not cost you anything to take. Thus 'free paid online survey'. Clear?
The online part means that you sit down at your
computer, go online and take the survey online. You don't have to go anywhere,
just connect to the Internet to take the free paid online survey.
So how do you make money with a free paid online
survey? The short answer is that you find good surveys to take (good ones being
those that actually pay, in cash or equivalent), and then you take a lot of
them. Like, take a $10 and a $25 survey every day (will take you less than half
an hour) and you will make over $1,000 a month.
Now it should be pointed out that, while the idea
is simple enough in concept, and the opportunity is real (survey makers really
do pay out millions of dollars every month to pay free paid online survey
participants), there are still some important tricks to the trade. Mostly these
are about 'sandtraps' to be avoided.
First point: Out of all the surveys available out
there only 1 in 5 will be a legitimate paid online survey, the kind you really
want to take. 2 will be O.K. to marginal; won't pay as much but will still be
worthwhile. And 2 will be disguised sales pitches or charity work (no pay).
These last 2 are to be avoided.
Second point: Surveys are offered to people based
on their demographics. Surveys are aimed at specific population groups defined
by gender, age, location, income groups, education groups and special
interests. For example, a survey may be aimed at affluent women over 40 who
live east of the Mississippi in the U.S.
So you won't qualify for all surveys. This means
that to get a large number of surveys to take, you will need to sign up with a
large number of survey makers. There are plenty, 800+ in the U.S., 3,000+ worldwide. To make any
real money you will need to sign up with 200 or so good ones.
Third point: It's not easy to get a list of good
survey makers. The "time wasters" groups makes by far the most noise
and spend the most on recruiting 'fresh meat' - to replace those that just
quit! The survey makers you want don't recruit; you have to find them...
There are NO 'free lists'. Lists are paid for
either by the user or by the survey makers who must recruit because of high
turnover. If you don't pay for your list of survey makers, you can bet that the
survey makers on the list you get are paying the distributor of that list to
recruit YOU!
Fourth point: The best way to get a good list is
to join a paid survey membership site. These sites maintain lists of good
survey makers for their memberships. For a small membership fee you get a copy
of their list. You generally get this fee back with what you make from your
first 2-3 surveys.
Fifth (and final) point: Here's your 'free paid
online survey' success formula.
A. Only deal with paid survey membership sites
with STRONG money-back guarantees.
B. From within this group with strong guarantees,
pick one with a low refund rate. The refund rate reflects the opinions of
present members. Low refund rates mean happy clients. High refund rated mean
unhappy clients, standing in line to get their money back! You want to be with
the happy clients.
C. Set up a separate e-mail address for your paid
survey business. Expect some trash in any list you get. Use the spam filters
and ability to blacklist addresses to control it. Treat it like your
Grandmother treated beans straight from the thresher. Sort out the sticks and
rocks, throw them away. Keep the beans.
D. Once you pick your site and get your copy of
their list, sign up with ALL of the preferred survey makers on that list. Use
your paid survey business e-mail address in all of your applications.
For more details and info on how to take a free
paid online survey and make money, follow the links below:
An 'Online Survey Earn Money' Plan for Easy Extra Cash Income!
The old consumer opinion survey, which used to be
taken by going door-to-door or by setting up survey takers in front of
supermarkets or shopping malls, has changed. It has "morphed" into
today's free paid online survey, and uses the speed and low cost of the
Internet to measure consumer preferences.
The large volume of surveys creates an 'online
survey earns money' home business opportunity.
Surveys are a large business on the Internet
today, with thousands of surveys being taken every week. To get people to
respond and fill out the survey questionnaires, many surveys are taken on a
paid basis, paying people to respond. Almost all surveys today claim to be paid
surveys, but about 40% of them are not really paid.
Participants sign up with various survey makers,
giving their contact info and demographic data (age, gender, zip code, etc.).
They need the demographic info because each survey is aimed at a specific sub-group
within the population. A survey on cosmetics, for example, might target women
18-50 who live in the midwest.
Surveys pay participants anywhere between $5 and
$150, with most between $10 and $25. A $10 survey will take 5-10 minutes to
fill out; a $25 survey might take 15-20 minutes. Take a couple of 'online
survey earn money' surveys for $10 and $25 each every day for a month and you
would make over $1,000 for your participation.
A great deal of money is budgeted by the survey
makers to pay survey participants. There are 800+ survey makers in the U.S.,
over 3,000 worldwide. Just one, Greenfield Online, paid out over $4.2 million
to its survey participants in 2007! Check it out. Click on the link above and
see for yourself!
To make money with paid surveys, here is your
'online survey earn money' plan:
1. Get a good list of legitimate paid survey
panels that offer legitimate paid surveys that actually pay. The best way to
get such a list is to join a paid survey membership site that maintains such
lists for its clients. For a small one-time membership fee you can get a copy
of their list.
[Avoid "free" lists. These are being
paid for by recruiting fees paid by the low-pay/no-pay survey makers you want
to avoid!]
Pick a membership site with a strong money back
guarantee and a low refund rate. A low refund rate means happy clients. (High
refund rates mean unhappy clients demanding their money back. You don't want to
be one of these!)
2. When you pick your membership site and get
access to their list, set up a new separate free e-mail account. Then sign up
with all of the survey makers you can using that new e-mail address. There are
always some sales companies disguised as survey makers that seem to get through
and get on any list.
A good list will have more than 50% good survey
makers. The rest will just need to be culled out. If any survey maker sends you
more sales offers than surveys, put them into your spam box.
To make good money with your 'online survey earns
money' plan you should be signed up with 150 to 200 survey makers. You won't
qualify for all surveys and there is no way to know which survey maker will
have surveys that fit your demographics. The best answer is to sign up with all
of those on the list!
For more information on how to make money with
your 'Online survey earn money' plan, you can follow the links below:
Take Online Surveys For Cash - Get Paid For Survey While Taking A Paid Survey At Home
You CAN take online surveys for cash. You CAN get
paid for survey work. You CAN take a paid survey at home and get paid for it.
That said, it should be pointed out that the paid survey marketplace has been
substantially infiltrated by sales companies that find the "Paid
Survey" flag to be a flag of convenience.
Real survey makers, the ones that offer
legitimate paid online surveys, enjoy generally good reputations. They pay in
cash or equivalent, and respect the privacy of their survey participants. There
is trust between them and those who take their surveys. They usually do not
actively recruit new survey participants.
But in recent months and years a new group of
pseudo-survey makers or outright sales companies have used the name
"Survey Maker" and claimed to offer paid surveys to would-be survey
participants. The real intention of many was not to offer paid surveys at all,
just to sell various products or services to those who signed up.
Apparently it can be a profitable venture. So
much so that the pseudo-survey makers can actively recruit new hopeful survey
takers. They do this through agents that get paid recruitment fees for finding
and recruiting "new meat" to exploit. Some do a pretty good job of
faking it.
So while you CAN still find the real survey
makers and take online surveys for cash, you have to cull your list of survey
makers with a heavy hand. It's not hard to get paid for survey work or take a
paid survey at home. It IS hard to sort through the pretenders and wannabes and
find the real survey makers.
As a rule of thumb, any supposed survey maker
that sends you more sales offers than invitations to take surveys is highly
suspect. To get paid for survey work you will need to stay focused on surveys
and rate all survey makers with which you have signed up by the number of
actual, paying surveys they send you.
You should not have to buy anything in order to
take a paid survey at home. Ethical survey makers ask your opinion. Sales
companies try to influence you to buy their wares. The two activities are
hardly compatible. But some survey makers do try to supplement their income by
selling things.
The best advice is to avoid these. If they don't
offer you online surveys for cash within 6-12 months, you should resign and
take them off your list. If they bombard you with offers, let them know that
you only want to get paid for survey work and not to buy things. If they
persist, cull them out.
Some will keep on sending you sales offers,
cluttering up your inbox. Ask them to quit, and to take your name off of their
lists. If that doesn't work, note their e-mail addresses and
"blacklist" or block them at your e-mail service provider. They won't
help you with your paid survey at home business.
Start with the best list you can get. (Usually
from a paid survey membership site with a good money back guarantee and a low
refund rate.) A good list will have over 50% good survey makers. Even with a
good list you will need to sort and cull out the sales outfits that sneak in!
