Online surveys come in many forms, from the more fluffy BuzzFeed-style quizzes that reveal which Disney princess you are, to highly-targeted and significantly more valuable surveys that delve into customer sentiment towards an issue, product or brand. While in the past market research for finance brands has been synonymous with small focus groups requiring considerable manpower to execute, Google Surveys allows financial marketers to easily reach a wider audience to better understand consumer needs, measure brand positioning and even test creative routes. We explore the benefits and drawbacks of Google Surveys and how the platform can be best used by finance brands.
What is Google Surveys?
Google Surveys is a market research platform that surveys internet and mobile users in exchange for access to content. It’s a win/win situation—users gain access to valuable content and brands get consumer insights from their survey responses. With Google Surveys, financial marketers are able to predict customer behaviour and evaluate market trends through access to an online panel of tens of millions of users.
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What are the benefits of using Google Surveys?
Intuitive UX
Google Surveys has a friendly user experience; financial marketers can simply choose the audience, list out questions, and watch the results roll in. As expected with any Google product, the breadth of data that comes in from Google Surveys is impressive. Analysed data is delivered in digestible graphs, demographic segmentation, and cross-tabs so financial marketers don’t need to scratch too hard to draw insights. Leading by example Google’s intuitive UX is a reminder that even the best concept or content in the world won’t hit the mark if it isn’t user-friendly, so make sure your UX isn’t hindering your marketing success.
Lasered targeting
Google Surveys delivers real insights from real people as they browse the internet, offering targeting right down to a user’s postcode. With such laser targeting, Google Surveys can help financial marketers integrate real consumer insights into important business decisions and identify key areas of customer need.
“ Google Surveys delivers real insights from real people as they browse the internet, offering targeting right down to a user’s postcode.”
Monetising content
Financial marketers are constantly battling with how to measure and achieve content ROI, but with Google Surveys content publishers can start earning incremental revenue beyond ads each time visitors complete surveys in exchange for access to content. Content hubs such as Platinum Asset Management’s The Journal would be the perfect destination for Google Surveys and help demonstrate the relationship between credible content and the bottom line.
What are the considerations for using Google Surveys?
Reaching the masses
One major hurdle of using online surveys is they can only reach people who are online. Market research and statistics firm, Statista reports, “Almost 4.57 billion people were active internet users as of July 2020, encompassing 59% of the global population.” What does this mean for finance brands? Results from Google Surveys may not include audiences of different economic or social backgrounds with no or limited access to the web.
No conditional logic
In exchange for being easy and simple to follow, Google Surveys has a tough job to compete with the mega giants of the survey world like Typeform and Qualtrics. With limited conditional logic, Google Surveys responses and follow-up questions can’t link to one another. As a result, financial marketers might find Google Surveys only offers surface-level insights that will need to be drilled down further to deliver business value.
How can finance brands achieve high response rates on Google Surveys?
- Have a clear goal – so you know exactly where your information gap lies. Having a clear goal means you’ll ask the right questions to deliver valuable insights.
- Segment your audience – to make sure you’re targeting the right people to get the most out of Google Surveys.
- Make it straightforward – by using language that’s easy to understand and avoid annoying users with complex language or jargon.
- Keep it concise – and remember users are trying to get to valuable content so even if Google offers up to 10 questions, aim to focus on 3-5 to get the best result.
Above all else, audience needs should be the starting point of any content or distribution strategy. At The Dubs, research is at the core of everything we do. Get in touch.
