Relevance & Research Question: Research questions increase in complexity and surveys become more demanding for respondents. In cases where respondents are required to provide burdensome information an extra incentive can help to increase the response rate towards this type of questions. The presented research focuses on incentive type and height and potential impact on response rates for such burdensome information.
Methods & Data: At the beginning of a 20-minute online survey with panel points as incentive after completion, respondents of a commercial panel were asked to provide specific information from their vehicle registration documents (VRD). In a 5x4 design 5,422 people were randomly offered incentives and instructed in various ways to increase the share of respondents providing certain codes from their VRD instead of manually entering information about their car. Incentives were a) panel-points b) raffle with the winner informed at the end of the survey c) raffle with the winner informed four weeks after the survey, d) a choice of the three prior incentives and e) no incentive. If panel points were involved, subgroups were built offering 1 to 4 points.
Results: Respondents who used data from their VRD on average needed 3 minutes longer to complete the survey. Different instructions had no impact on the experiment’s outcome. Compared to the “no incentive”-condition, monetary incentives increased the rate of VRD-used from 37.5 % to 47.3 %. The incentives’ impact was independent of respondents’ gender, age and number of points awarded. Respondents driving “premium brand”-cars reacted least on incentives, indicating a correlation between likeliness to react on incentives and economic situation (within the tested range of incentives).
Added Value: The study is the first study to investigate the impact of incentives offered for specific actions within a survey. It shows that incentives can significantly increase the response rate for burdensome information within a survey and that the incentive’s height does not significantly impact the response rate. The findings also indicate that monetary incentives effectiveness depends on the respondents’ economic situation. A raffle is economically the most efficient incentive but requires further investigation on long term effects on response rates.