As the utilization of the internet as a marketing research tool is constantly rising, users get more and more accustomed to fill out questionnaires online. The often cited novelty of the medium to which high respond rates were attributed a decade ago has definitely worn out. Therefore other response enhancing measures need to be established, especially when list based samples are contacted for the first time. The positive effect of pre-notifications on response rates has been confirmed for mail surveys (e.g., Edwards et al. 2002; Faria/Dickinson/Filipic 1990) as well as in at least one web survey (Cook/Heath/Thompson 2000). Also increasing respondent engagement by a respondent friendly questionnaire design is expected to diminish abortion (Baker 2008).

A study about the attitude of IT managers in Austrian companies experimentally investigated the effect of pre-notification (e-mail pre-notification one week before invitation vs. no pre-notification) and two different questionnaire layouts (basic vs. elaborated). To test the “Anita-effect” (Greif/Batinic 2007) in the male dominated sample (95% male) the sender’s gender was varied. The full-factorial design (2x2x2) led to eight experimental groups. A total of 38% of the 1,563 IT managers clicked on the link in the e-mail invitation and 29% finished the questionnaire (abortion rate: 22%). The highest response rate was achieved in the group with pre-notification, the female sender and the elaborated layout (38%), the lowest in the group without pre-notification, the male sender and the basic layout. Significantly more IT managers with a pre-notification clicked on the link in the e-mail invitation (40% vs. 36%) and started filling out the questionnaire after the introduction page (95% vs. 92%). The total response rate with pre-notification was higher than without (32% vs. 27%). The invitation from a female sender led to more clicks on the link in the e-mail (40% vs. 35%) and to a higher total response rate (32% vs. 27%). The layout of the questionnaire had a significant influence on the abortion (elaborated: 14%; basic: 20%) and the total response rate (33% vs. 26%). Additionally the elaborated layout was evaluated to be visually more attractive.