Embedding survey questions in emails

You can embed the first survey question into an email. You'll see a dramatic rise in your response rates. When you send your invitations via Checkmarket, you can use one of the "embedded" templates so that the first question is already recreated in the email invitation. This email is also mobile friendly and will work in all email clients.

When you send the invitations via your own email client, you'll need to add some querystring parameters to the survey URL so the answer option a respondent clicks in the email is automatically selected in the survey.

Best practices

Before adding the first survey question to the email, keep the following in mind:

  • Start from one of our embedded templates. We offer several so you can pick the one with the first question resembling your question the most and edit it if necessary.
  • If your first question is the NPS question, follow the steps described in this article.
  • Make sure your first question is on a separate page from the other questions. Respondents will immediately go to the second page after clicking on a response in the email, meaning they won't see the other questions anymore (or they'll get an error if the questions are required).
  • Only use single select question types, such as radio buttons, rating scales, NPS, etc. The survey will open as soon as an option is clicked so more than one response isn't possible.
  • Provide a Back button so respondents can still change their response if they want. Also mention this in a Text / media question on the second page.
  • Repeat the answer provided using Piping. That way, the respondent can still verify their answer and use the back button to change it.
  • If you've added branching or page display logic based on the first question, make sure the score is repeated on each page this branching or logic refers to. Different respondents may see different pages depending on their answer.

Embedding a survey question in an email

Embed a survey question in an email using an embedded survey template. The email is already created for these templates, is mobile friendly, and works on all email clients.

  1. Create a new survey using a template.
  2. Search for "embedded". You'll see all available templates with the first question embedded in the email invitation.
  3. Pick the template with the first question closest to the one you want to use. Click Preview to check this first question.

Now you can edit the survey. Don't forget to leave the first question on a separate page.

When you're ready to write the email invitation, complete the following steps:

  1. Select Distribute > Add / Remove channel.
  2. Select Via Email and Send with CheckMarket's email system.
  3. Click Save.
  4. Select Email invitation.
  5. Edit the email invitation click Save.

Send a preview invitation to yourself or a colleague to test your email and make sure all is working well.

This is an example of the embedded email invitation for our Post Contact template:

Example.

Sending an embedded question with your own email system

When you're using your own email client to send the invitations, first set up the email message you wish to use. Then re-create the question as much as possible in your email.

Add the survey link to the necessary answer options and add the following querystring parameters to this URL:

  • &q1=1 — Will select the very first answer option in your question. For radio buttons that will be the top question, for rating scales the most left answer option.
  • continue adding &q1=x every time replacing the 'x' by another number. The last number should equal the number of answer options in your question, e.g. if your rating scale goes from 0 to 10 the last parameter is '&q1=11'.
  • &as=1 — the response will automatically be submitted and the respondent immediately sees the second page in the survey.

Your links should look something like this:

  • Answer option 1 — generic-survey-url&q1=1&as=1
  • Answer option 2 — generic-survey-url&q1=2&as=1
  • Answer option 3— generic-survey-url&q1=3&as=1

The following is the HTML version:

<a href="generic-survey-url&q1=1&as=1">Answer Option 1</a>
<a href="generic-survey-url&q1=2&as=1">Answer Option 2</a>
<a href="generic-survey-url&q1=3&as=1">Answer Option 3</a>
etc.

You can test your email invitation by temporarily changing the URL to the preview URL of the survey. The querystring parameters remain the same. Then send the invitation to some colleagues so you know what the invitation will look like and whether the parameters are added correctly.

Net Promoter and NPS are registered service marks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.