LapisLee’s SurveySpot Panel Tips (January 2010)

Editor's Note, June 2012: This article was originally published in January 2010. Due to the constant changes in survey panel site ownership and policies, some features mentioned here may no longer be available.

This post is the first of several that will include some very specific pointers on taking surveys from several of my favorite paid survey panels. These tips will hopefully help you to maximize your earnings, while spending the least amount of time possible. The first survey site that I will address is SurveySpot, my number one earner with $485.80 earned and $445.80 received since January 30, 2008.

• Tip #1 – Complete Your Profiles and Keep Them Updated

The first thing everyone should do to increase their odds of receiving and qualifying for surveys is to go to www.surveyspot.com and click on My Profile. Here you will see 14 profiles, including Home Address and General Profile and 12 others that take from one to five minutes to complete. You need to complete these before you take any surveys and review them frequently to make certain that your information is up to date. This is true for every survey site, but is even more important for your best sites, like SurveySpot.

• Tip #2 – Respond to Survey Invitations as Soon as Possible

You never have to go to SurveySpot’s website to take surveys, but you should click on the email invitations as soon as possible. What you should watch for carefully each day are the surveys that are worth between 300 ($3) and 1000 ($10) points. Click on these first every morning!

Editor's Note, June 2012: SurveySpot has surveys also available on their site currently that are NOT available through email, so you do need to log in to their site to take these.

• Tip #3 – Keep Records of the Surveys that You Complete

Even though SurveySpot has a points system now, it is a very simple, practical system where one point equals one penny and 100 points equals $1. Once you have 1000 points ($10) you can redeem your points for cash via PayPal; however, I recommend doing one simple thing before cashing out. Keep a record of every SurveySpot email invitation for points that you have completed in a special Survey folder in your email. After they have been credited on the SurveySpot website under the Rewards History tab copy and paste the survey number from the Rewards History into the Search Mail box and find the matching survey, then delete the email. Check the list of completed survey invitations against SurveySpot’s online Survey History and every other month or so contact SurveySpot with the list of surveys that have not been credited. They will generally credit you for completed surveys and give you the benefit of the doubt if uncertain.

• Tip #4 – Answer All Surveys Consistently and Honestly

Another important tip which is relevant for all survey panels is to make sure that you carefully answer all of your survey invitations consistently and honestly, as most survey panels have questions built into the surveys to catch those whose answers are not consistently honest. Providing quality feedback will help ensure that you receive more survey invitations in the future.

SurveySpot is the very best survey panel for me and has been from the start. If you follow these simple tips, depending on your own specific demographics, I think you will find they will also become one of your top earning survey panels.