Avoiding an Unanswerable Pre-Survey Profile Question

One of the best things you can do if you want to receive more and better-targeted surveys is to answer all the profile surveys at your survey site or sites of choice and to keep them up to date. These surveys usually don't pay you anything, but they will (hopefully) allow you to participate in more paying surveys in the future. Nonetheless, I've always suspected that survey sites have a tough time getting their panelists to answer profile surveys -- it's a somewhat tedious process for the survey-taker. To get more people answering profile questions, some survey sites get a little creative; for instance, Global Test Market has started asking survey respondents to answer a few profile questions before being redirected to a paying survey. This isn't a bad idea: it's easier to fill out profiles a little bit at a time, and this is a way to reach people who rarely login to their survey site accounts and thus may be only dimly aware of the existence of profile surveys.

Unfortunately, GTM's execution of this concept leaves something to be desired. The site has repeatedly presented me with a profile question I cannot answer because of the limited answer options made available. It concerns my Internet service provider -- my actual provider is simply not one of the choices. Call it one of the perks of living in a small town: Time Warner abandoned our market a while back so a much smaller company is the only cable Internet/TV provider around. What makes this particular question so terrible is that "Other" or "None of the Above" simply aren't options, and I can't skip the question and just proceed to the survey either. Terrible question design!

This has been a problem for some time, and what I did originally was simply close the survey whenever I saw that dreaded profile question pop up. Probably lost a few dollars that way. Still, I'd rather miss out on surveys than pick the wrong answer just to get it out of the way...we're not getting paid to make things up, and market research only works if respondents are truthful. However, I've discovered a much better way of dealing with the Profile Question From Hell: simply refresh the survey or re-click the survey invitation link from your email. Either action will lead you the real survey. We shouldn't have to engage in Profile Question Avoidance Maneuvers, of course, but this at least provides a solution until Global Test Market fixes that particular question.

Beware of High Minimum Payouts

As an online earner, you probably want your payouts as quickly as possible. The "ideal" site, then, is one that has no minimum payout and pays instantly...good luck finding it. On the other hand, site owners have a difficult time keeping enough cash on hand to pay everyone immediately, plus the process of making payments (which includes checking for cheaters) can be time consuming. Thus, there are definitely legitimate reasons why a site may have a high minimum payout. However, a high minimum payout can also be a cover for a scam or a waste of time.

If I followed a strict "no high minimum payout" rule, I would be a poorer man today: Google AdSense, Inbox Dollars, and Global Test Market all make you earn a lot of money before you can request your payout. So a blanket rule isn't what you need. Instead, you need to consider each site in context. For a site with a high minimum to be worthwhile, you need to be able to earn enough to reach payout in a reasonable time frame. Global Test Market, for instance, is a survey site which can pay several dollars per survey. It's not that hard to reach payout under those circumstances (though the site may be a waste of time for people in countries that rarely get surveys). In contrast, there is a site called E-Mail Pays U which I joined very early on in my online earning adventures. Its minimum payout is a whopping $75 for your first payment. You make money there by reading emails at 2 cents an email plus three cents in daily clicks if you remember to visit the site each day. The problem is you don't get paid emails daily and sometimes not even weekly. While there are occasional offers to complete and you receive $10 to start out with, let it suffice to say that earning $75 there requires a multi-year commitment. I'm happy to recommend Global Test Market, especially to Americans, because I know it's quite possible to reach that $50 payout a couple times a year. I don't normally recommend E-Mal Pays U to anyone, though, because I can't imagine too many people would want to click for 4+ years before getting paid.

Scams are even worse than wastes of time. Readbud is one that has recently fooled lots of people -- they were able to make who knows how much money by showing articles with ads to thousands of "article readers." The high minimum payout of $50 meant that people read and read and read just to try to reach the minimum...the site was able to squeeze their scammed users for as much as they were worth! Readbud was particularly clever in the way it made it harder to earn the closer people got to payout. That made it so fewer people were running around calling it a scam as they couldn't say for sure that site didn't pay...they just hadn't reached payout yet. To avoid scams like these, research is pretty much your only hope. In addition to reading what other people are saying about the site, you should also try to figure out how the site supposedly MAKES money -- it has to get paid before it pays you. Readbud's "business model" never really made sense to me and I felt from day one they were promising to pay more than they could reasonably be expected to make. If a site doesn't pass the "smell test," there's a good chance that something really is iffy about it.

A Few Survey Sites People From Around the World Can Join

For me, taking surveys has been a good way to make money online, but the conventional wisdom is that only people from a handful of countries can really make money with surveys. It's certainly true that many survey sites only accept members from the one or two countries that make up their base of operations. For that reason, it makes sense to search for survey sites based in your own country. However, there are also a few international survey sites that welcome any and all to join. Just because they let you join doesn't mean they'll actually have surveys for you to take, of course, but there is sometimes another way you can make money with them: by referring other users!

The first site I want to mention is SurveySavvy. They welcome members from all over the world, but what really sets them apart is their excellent referral program. Not only do you earn money every time one of your referrals completes a survey, but you also earn whenever one of your referrals' referrals completes a survey also! All isn't quite sunshine and light, however. For one thing, SurveySavvy doesn't send out a whole lot of surveys to its members regardless of what country they hail from -- unlike some sites, you probably won't have daily opportunities to earn and neither will your referrals. Another thing of particular interest to international survey takers is that SurveySavvy pays exclusively by check. You can request a US dollar denominated check as soon as you earn a $1, but bank fees could eat up all the earnings of international users unless they wait a while before requesting payout. It's a very trustworthy site, however, and definitely one of my favorite survey sites of all time.

The next site I want to mention is Global Test Market. They currently welcome members from 43 countries. GTM has a high minimum payout -- $50 -- and also pays by check. I've heard anecdotally that one's ability to earn on GTM very much depends on what country you are from, but at least they let people from many countries get their feet in the door. As an American, I've generally found it to be a good site and I've been paid several times.

YourDailySurveys is a bit different from the other two sites I've mentioned. It is a "daily surveys" site that works with other survey companies instead of conducting its own market research directly. It's very easy to use: you simply login, go into the surveys section, and try your luck with the surveys that are available to you on the day. Depending on what country you are from, you may be able to complete as many as five surveys each day at $0.50 each. Americans can take up to five surveys per day while Canadians and Britons can take up to three. Residents of Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Italy have two daily surveys available to them. However, YDS lets people from other countries join with the understanding that they can refer other users to the site even if they can't take surveys themselves. There are definitely sites that pay more per daily survey than YDS, but it is unusual for having a low payout ($3 by PayPal for non-upgraded members) and because it pays a generous percentage for surveys your referrals complete (25%). The site has had some extended (and forewarned) downtime recently, but seems to be functioning again now.

There are at least a couple of other ways people from around the world can make money with surveys, of course. Many GPT/offers sites also have daily surveys so some of what I said about YourDailySurveys is true for them too. Perhaps a bigger opportunity is to join a CPA network and get paid for every signup you deliver to various survey sites. This method is only open to you if you have a web site/blog or do CPC marketing, but it will give you the opportunity to work with some of the best survey sites around, including some that don't have referral systems.