How to Guide to Help You Distinguish Between Online Survey Companies

If you are online, I am sure almost everyone has seen or been inundated with ads or emails dealing with online surveys. Of course every company wants you to sign up with them to find an unknown easily made fortune at the end of the survey pot. If it sounds ridiculous, chances are it is and there are usually catches or conditions, no matter how reliable the company is. Here are a few ways to learn how to pick the good from the bad and reality from a great or horrid job of gilding the lily in order to get you to sign up with any given company.

There is a big difference between a survey and a survey offer, but the companies that want you to try new products can be very misleading in their emails and advertising practices. If they are being misleading you will see ads or get emails that say things along the lines of pick between this product and this similar product, then click here. They make it sound so easy , then you find out there is more to it than meets the eye. Technically they have now given you a survey and can proceed with their offer or offers.

If you read carefully at the bottom of the ad, it often says something in very small print that will give you a clue that this is a survey offer and not a true survey. Try clicking on one once and see what it clicks through to. It is usually some product or service they want you to buy or try for a trial period of time hoping you will then stick with them. They give you cash or other incentives like a chance at a prize, usually a pretty decent one, but figure how many people are signing up for a chance at the one and only prize they use as bait like free gift cards, computers and so forth and you are not likely to win anything. You may have accrued cash from trying many offers but it will probably cost you more than you would have made. The odds are, even if you do sign up for something, you have to pay for or cancel before you get fully charged and if the product is not what you expected, the problems trying to cancel may not be worth the few dollars you receive so don't sign up for something unless you really want it. The so called survey companies stand to make money off of each service you sign up for, so of course they want to entice you into buying or trying a product listed under their survey company. They often make the ad very appealing with pictures of people holding bundles of money or piles of money or of someone living the easy life in order to draw people in.

There are real survey companies too. Your feedback could be important in helping a company find answers or in creating a new product. They are running a service for a company that may need feedback from potential customers or customers already using their product. They may want comparisons to a similar or competitive product or they may be testing a new product or concept for a product and want feedback. There are many reasons for true surveys. What they are basically looking for are answers to very specific questions to further their own needs. Most of these are very dry questionnaires. Some involve viewing video clips or print ads and so forth and how they reward you for your input differs from company to company. Some are very short while others are so detailed and involved it seems like they will never end. If you are doing it for the money, you won't be making much for your time unless you win one of the big cash draws some companies offer as incentives. There are survey companies which pay more for a survey, but most of them are not online. By the time the layers of middlemen take their cuts the actual survey taker receives very little for the time spent. The real ones do pay, but not enough to quit your job for.

One method of paying survey takers in real survey companies is with small cash incentives. Another way is to put you in a drawing for a given prize or cash amount. Some offer items or gift cards at different levels of accrued points. The longer you are there saving points from surveys you are taking through them, the more they earn too. They like to have a loyal supply of people to pick from for surveys so they put incentives in to keep you coming back to take their surveys. Some companies run an account for you and only pay out when you reach a certain total. This can take a long time to reach depending in how many surveys you qualify for and how many you complete. Sometimes you can sit through a slew of questions, only to find out you don't even qualify for the survey because you don't fit the required demographics the particular company is looking for. So these companies may receive many surveys but you may only qualify for a percentage of them, and that cuts your chances of receiving pay even more.

The only people really getting good income from these surveys are the survey companies themselves and the companies hiring them to do the market research for them.

So go ahead and take surveys if you like to, but keep the differences and facts in mind and don't go into this to get rich, because chances are you won't. You may earn some cash or prizes along the way. Be careful of what you are signing up for, the same way you take care when you go to make purchases of merchandise. It is buyer ,or survey taker, beware.