Implement effective popup surveys for your website

Popup surveys are better than the embedded ones because you can control exactly when, where, and how they appear on a website.

Such surveys are much more likely to get noticed by the visitors, and you’ll be able to display them when people are most likely to be ready to engage.

In this post, we'll show you exactly how to add one to your website with the help of Getsitecontrol. We’ll also walk you through the ways to attract more respondents to participate in your research.

For those of you who don’t know much about Getsitecontrol, it’s an easy-to-use set of smart widgets for conversion optimization. The tool enables you to quickly create popup survey forms that will help you find out:

• How satisfied your customers are

• How well your marketing strategy performs

• Why your visitors abandon particular pages

• What expectations your prospects have, and much more

The surveys can be customized to appear on select pages after a time delay, upon page scrolling, or right before a visitor exits. And the best part: it requires zero coding knowledge.

How to add popup surveys to your website using Getsitecontrol

Before getting started we suggest creating an account with Getsitecontrol. It’s a quick and straightforward process that involves no coding. If your website is running on WordPress, just install the plugin and it will do all the heavy lifting. If you’re using any other website platform, select the instructions from the Help section.

Step 1. Select popup survey template

Sign into your dashboard and proceed to Create a widget. Then switch to the Template gallery.

The gallery contains over a dozen customizable survey form templates. Click on the templates to activate the preview mode. Once you find the template you like, follow the prompts on the right-hand side to add it to your dashboard.

Step 2. Make copy and design adjustments

Once you’re in the dashboard, the right-side menu will allow you to edit the text of your survey, add or remove fields, change survey position on the webpage, and customize its look.

To edit the text, make a click on the corresponding text field and proceed with your adjustments. To customize the appearance of the form, open the Theme menu at the top. Notice that you can either manually change the colors and the font on the survey popup or select one of the pre-made styles.

Step 3. Decide when and where to display the survey

Once you finish customizing the appearance of the survey form, it’s time to select proper targeting settings — i.e. the conditions for where and when the survey popup should appear.

You can survey all website visitors or a selected segment of your audience, such as first-time visitors, returning buyers, those residing in a particular location or viewing a particular page on your site.

Decide whom you’re going to survey and open the Targeting tab. For instance, in the case of the “How did you hear about us” survey, you may want to display it to first-time visitors who have shown interest in your website content.

Remember to specify the condition for when to stop displaying the survey popup to the same visitor. In the example above, the survey will never be displayed to the same person after they’ve submitted their response.

Once you’ve selected the targeting settings, you should be all set. Click Save & close in the top right corner and activate the survey popup on your website.

Well, that was quick, wasn’t it? Now go ahead and check out your website to see how your survey works. Notice that even after publishing the survey, you’ll be able to go back to the dashboard and customize it at any point.

How to maximize the number of completed surveys on your website

The idea of filling out a survey doesn’t sound too exciting to most people. But there are ways to make it more attractive to your website visitors. Below, we’ve reviewed some recommendations.

1. Make the survey coherent with your website

One can tell if there are alien interface elements on your website. They often look as if they haven’t been given proper attention to and clearly they aren’t too enticing to interact with. Good looks are critical if you want to create a sense of professionalism. Professional-looking website forms appear authentic, trustworthy and therefore produce a positive impression on visitors.

To make sure your popup survey looks professional, match it with the design of your website. Maintain the same tone of voice in the copy and use the Theme controls to adjust the font and colors.

2. Keep it clear and concise

Not every survey that gets started gets completed. So if you want to minimize the number of incomplete responses, try to make it brief and easy to follow.

Ideally, your survey should be under 10 questions and take less than 5 minutes to finish. When possible, choose checkboxes and star rating scales over text fields because they require less effort from the respondents.

Feel free to toggle the controls until you achieve the right look for your survey.

3. Delay your popup survey

It’s unlikely that someone will be happy about having to ‘confront’ a survey upon entering your website. Give your visitors time to look around and engage with your content. It’s best to delay the popup for a minute or so or even bring it up when a visitor leaves the website.

Website exit surveys are particularly useful if you’re trying to figure out why customers are leaving your store without purchasing or why your website has a high bounce rate. To display an exit-intent survey, choose the corresponding settings in the Targeting tab.

4. Choose the right target audience

Let’s say your website supports multiple languages. In this case, you’ll need to adjust targeting settings so that every visitor will see the survey in their language. To do that properly, create multiple popup surveys in different languages and set them up to be displayed to the corresponding audience only.

However, multi-language websites aren’t the only common case for segment-based audience targeting. Suppose your product page has lots of visits but very few sales. You can ask those who spend more than X seconds on that page why they’re hesitant about the purchase.

If you want to display the survey on the selected page only, type its URL in the first field in the Targeting tab.

5. Test your survey thoroughly

It’s always a good idea to proofread the copy carefully or have someone do that for you to ensure high quality. In addition to that, make sure the survey looks good on both desktop and mobile platforms. It’s especially relevant if you’re adding extra questions to the same page of the survey.

Switch to the mobile preview to see your survey on a smaller screen. Notice: you can change or remove the image on the mobile version of the popup only. Plus, if you feel there’s too much content for a single page, consider adding a new page and moving some of your questions there.

Start collecting feedback on your website with survey popups

Popup surveys are an easy way to quickly collect valuable insights from your visitors. Use them to evaluate their level of satisfaction with your products, find out why they leave without converting, and ask what else they’d like to see on your website.

Create your first survey today and start making informed decisions based on real data.