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One of the easiest ways to make money online is by taking surveys, and that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this Survey Savvy review.
Most people have the perception that survey sites don’t pay that much.
In many cases, they’re right.
Others are mad about doing surveys for cash.
These are the kind of people who love to offer up their unsolicited opinion to anyone within earshot.
If you’re in this second group, you really should check out SurveySavvy.
This company has been around since 1999, and it’s one of the most reputable market research organizations on the planet.
At their website, you’ll find opportunities to make money by offering your viewpoints on many different subjects.
But surveys aren’t the only way you can make money.
There are also fun contests and competitions, installing market research software on your computer to make money passively, a robust referral program, and a few other things too.
Table of Contents
How Much Can You Make?
SurveySavvy says that they cannot possibly guarantee how many surveys a member will be allowed to do.
So if you’re counting on making a minimum amount of money at this website, you better adjust your monetary expectations.
How much you can earn depends on a whole host of factors.
One of these factors is how closely your demographic information matches what’s needed for the surveys they have available.
The more closely this data corresponds to what’s needed, the more surveys you’ll be able to complete, and the more money you’ll make.
Most surveys pay between $0.50 and $2.50, and polls in this pay range will take about thirty minutes to complete.
Low Payout Thresholds
At some survey sites, you must have a minimum of $25.00, $50.00, or more in your account before they’ll let you cash out.
Not so with SurveySavvy.
You can ask for a payout by using the “Request Payment” tool in the member account area with as little as a dollar.
This is a threshold that’ll be insanely easy to reach, too, because most of their surveys pay between $1.00 and $2.00.
If you’re lucky, you might even be able to snag a survey that pays $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, or even more.
Longer Than Normal Payout Times
Once you’ve completed the survey and all the information you filled in checks out, they’ll credit your account with the amount of cash they promised to pay you.
For some inexplicable reason, they don’t use electronic means to pay you.
Instead, they send your money in the form of an old-fashioned check via snail mail.
Now, some people might think that this is a hopelessly archaic way to send out payment in this high-tech, digital era.
But I kind of like it because I think it’s delightfully retro.
However, what’s not delightful is that getting paid by check means longer processing times.
This means it could take up to 12 weeks for your check to find its way to your mailbox.
Most sites pay much more quickly, and some sites even pay instantly.
So, for some people, taking longer to get paid is inexcusable in this high-tech age.
Age Restrictions
You must be 13 years old to use the service.
If you’re a resident of the EU, the minimum age is 16.
Creating Your Account
Once you finished creating an account, you’ll get an activation email.
Click on this, and you’ll immediately become a part of the SurveySavvy community.
Then, you should start regularly logging in to the site to see what surveys are currently available.
Another way they’ll alert you to survey opportunities is by sending you email invitations for ones for which they think you’re suited.
They’ll let you know in the invitation how much it pays and how long it will take to complete.
Portraits
Before you can start participating in surveys, you’ll have to fill out what’s known as a “portrait.”
Now, this doesn’t mean they’re sending a painter over who’ll dab some paint on a canvas resulting in a stunning artistic likeness of you.
It’s not that kind of portrait.
This portrait is a brief profile of yourself that contains all the personal details that show a client company who you are at your core.
To put this portrait together, they’ll ask you a series of questions identifying all the demographic characteristics that differentiate you from other people in the world.
The company uses this precisely detailed profile to find surveys you’ll be perfect for.
Keep in mind that every survey is going to have a precise demographic requirement.
If you don’t fit into that demographic, you won’t be able to take the survey.
The more complete you can make your portrait, the more valuable you’ll be to the company, and the more surveys they’ll give you.
If SurveySavvy thinks you’re right for a survey, they’ll invite you to participate via email.
There will be a short, in-depth screening process to see in you meet all the demographic needs of that survey.
Being Screened Out of a Survey
At SurveySavvy, many a participant started filling out a survey.
And, after several minutes of diligent work, were told that they no longer qualified for it.
How could this happen?
That’s because Luth Research created SurveySavvy as a method for efficiently accumulating the granular research data their client companies need to fine-tune their business operations.
To make sure this information is of the highest possible quality, the company has put into place stringent filtering processes.
This way, only the participants that exactly meet the demographic criteria can complete a survey.
This is also why you might not be invited to do as many surveys as you’d hoped.
In fact, one of the biggest complaints I hear about SurveySavvy and other survey panel websites is it’s so hard to qualify for surveys.
When companies create a survey, they always have a very specific demographic in mind.
So, unless you satisfy all the requirements, you won’t be able to do that survey.
Most of the time, they’ll be able to ascertain if you fit the demographic prerequisites after 5 to 10 questions.
However, sometimes they won’t be able to tell until you’re halfway through with all the questions.
But once SurveySavvy decides you fit the precise demographic needed for their survey, you’ll be allowed to complete it.
But if not, they’ll compensate you by entering you into a prize sweepstakes.
For example, they recently had a giveaway where 50 winners won ten bucks each.
Ways to Make Money Other Than Surveys
Although surveys are the site’s bread and butter, there are other ways to drum up a little cas.
Each of them requires minimal effort on your part.
The Referral Program
This site has one of the most robust referral programs I’ve seen, and some people make more money with referrals than they do by taking surveys.
This is possible because you not only make money from direct referrals, but also from indirect referrals.
This means that not only do you make money every time somebody you told about the site takes a survey.
You also make money when someone your referral referred completes a survey.
If you want to take advantage of this innovative program, I suggest you embed a referral link on each of your social media channels.
Also, send invitations to join the site to all your contacts.
SavvyConnect
SavvyConnect is a software program that analyzes and records all of your online activity.
If you’re okay with this, you can make $5.00 a month for every device you have it installed on.
You get to monetize what was previously an unmonetizable activity, which, of course, is your web surfing.
The company gets some valuable insights into your browsing habits, which they can then sell to their client companies.
SavvyConnect collects data from you and thousands of other users to provide a detailed analysis of Internet surfing habits.
Companies desire this data because they have a burning need to know precisely what makes consumers tick.
This information that SavvyConnect collects is precious to Luth Research.
That’s because, armed with this knowledge, they can create ads that’ll drive potential customers into a buying frenzy.
Because it’s valuable information, they’ve sweetened the pot by promising that every person who installs SavvyConnect on a device will be eligible for bonus surveys.
So, if you don’t mind being a paid research guinea pig, download the software and make a passive income every month.
The company promises that’ll run unobtrusively in the background of whichever device you install in on.
And should you decide you no longer want to be a research guinea pig, the uninstallation process couldn’t be any more straightforward.
Another good thing is the software automatically detects when you’ve slipped into private browsing mode and will stop collecting data when this happens.
So, if you’re looking at websites you don’t want to be analyzed, you can rest assured this won’t happen with SavvyConnect.
Direct Mail Study
You probably get a lot of junk mail.
This is trash such as bank offers, automobile sales, credit card promotions.
It’s the relentless barrage of marketing pitches you get on an almost daily basis, even in the Internet age.
Most of this stuff was probably destined for the nearest garbage can.
However, with SurveySavvy’s Direct Mail Study, you’ll get the chance to transform all of that into cold, hard cash!
They want to get their corporate hands on all those flyers lying around to help in their market research.
If you’re a SurveySavvy member but aren’t taking advantage of this, you’re throwing money away along with the junk mail.
How it Works
Once a month, the company will send you a packet.
Inside the packet will be four postage-paid envelopes and a set of instructions.
Hold on to every bit of junk mail you receive during the study.
At week’s end, put all the mail into an envelope and send it to the company.
But before you do, black out any information that could personally identify you.
You must send back three out of the four envelopes every month to get paid.
Just make sure that you personally received all this mail yourself and didn’t snag it from your next-door neighbor.
You’ll earn $10.00 each month you participate in the program, which is excellent money for just a few minutes of your time.
Check Out the Contests
To liven things up, the site holds exciting contests from time to time.
This allows you to earn cash in a way that’s a little more entertaining that filling out a survey.
These could be creating fun videos or writing a jingle for their site.
If you think you’re creative enough to do something like this, check out which contests they’re currently running.
If you’re the lucky winner, you’ll get a prize of $500 or more!
Privacy Policy
The average Internet user visits dozens of websites every day.
That’s why it’s more important than ever that these sites protect sensitive personal information collected from their users.
From what I’ve seen of the SurveySavvy site, I think they do a particularly good job of this.
One thing I love about the site is that they’re always very transparent about how they use your personal data.
So, they come right out and say that in exchange for the cash they’re going to give you for your information, they’re going to share it with their market research clients.
However, they promise never to sell or share any of the personally identifiable data.
The anonymous information you’re giving them permission to sell or share may include any of the following things:
- Name
- Address
- Telephone number
- Date of birth
- Email address
- Racial or ethnic origin
- Political opinions
- Religious or philosophical belief
- Trade Union Membership
- Details about your health, sex life, or sexual orientation
They also won’t ever sell your email address.
And, they have a stringent anti-spam policy.
This means they’ll never send a single message to your inbox that’s not related to taking surveys or the other ways to make money on the site.
This is wonderful because you need a website with whom you do a lot of business to be strict with their privacy policy, so you don’t get spammed.
You get enough junk email, and you don’t need any more.
How They Use Cookies
Another thing you should be aware of is that, like most other websites in the cybersphere, they use cookies.
Cookies, of course, are small bits of data stored on your device used to identify you.
On SurveySavvy, there’s no opting out of them, because without cookies, collecting market data through surveys would be impossible.
They use both session cookies and persistent cookies to get a firm understanding of how you interact with their services.
Session cookies expire at the end of your current session.
Persistent cookies do not.
These are the type of cookies that sit on your computer and wait patiently for you until the next time you visit the site.
To collect this information, they ask for explicit consent.
You may freely withdraw at any time by visiting the Privacy Preferences section of the website or by emailing privacy@surveysavvy.com.
Conclusion
The Better Business Bureau gives SurveySavvy an A+.
And from what I can see, it’s not a scam—it’s a legitimate site that does everything it claims to.
However, it won’t get rich.
But if the idea of getting paid to offer your opinion on different topics interests you, you’ll want to give it a try.
Your efforts will pay off in a little extra cash you can use to buy Christmas presents or to take your significant other to dinner and a movie.
You might be lucky enough to be selected for the site’s Direct Mail Study. If you are, you’ll be able to swap all that junk mail that’s been piling up for a steady, albeit modest monthly income trickle.
However, it’s not all sweetness and light, and there are a couple of downsides.
One of them is you get paid by the rather quaint method of having an old-fashioned check arrive via snail mail.
And because of slow processing times, the check could take several months to find its way to you.
Also, you might get booted from a survey after spending several minutes answering the survey’s questions.
There’s no more exasperating feeling than to have your time wasted.
In my opinion, these are rather minor problems, and the important thing is that the site does everything it claims to.
If you have anything you’d like to add to this Survey Savvy review, we’d love to hear about it. Just let us know in the comments below.
