Google launches self-serve ‘Consumer Surveys’ product for custom market research

Companies always say that they want to do is a survey with consumers. That’s both easier said than done as well as expensive. Google has launched a product today to become the “middle man” in the process, allowing companies to pay for survey results and publishers to get paid for hosting surveys on their site.

As the site explains, it’s an easy solution for companies who want to ask questions about anything, whether it be testing a new product idea, thoughts about an existing product, or general demographic questions:

1. You create online surveys to gain consumer insight
2. People complete questions to access premium content
3. Publishers get paid as their visitors answer
4. You get nicely aggregated and analyzed data

The cost for companies is $.10 per response, and much like AdSense, you can set the number of responses you’d like to get before the survey ends. The company has been teasing this feature for a while now.

This is great for publishers too, because they can use the surveys to lock down premium content and get paid for it. Instead of doing all of the accounting themselves, a site could offer premium videos in return for someone filling out a ten question survey. It’s free for the visitors and the publishers are guaranteed to get paid by Google via the companies who create the survey.

Creating a survey is pretty easy and the cost for responses goes up as you set a more finite audience to get answers from:

It’s a pretty genius idea for a new type of ecosystem and given Google’s success with AdSense, this could work. Check out this demo video about the new product:

Will site visitors rebel against having to take surveys? It sure beats clicking on ads if you ask me.

➤ Google Consumer Surveys