Frequently asked questions

Google Surveys is a market-research tool that gathers data from survey questions. Internet users answer survey questions in order to access high-quality content around the web. In turn, content publishers get paid as their users answer. Google then aggregates and analyzes responses through a simple online interface.

Users are allocated based on the demographic spread of internet-population data in each country.

Learn more about network options.

Demographic information is collected and inferred based on a respondent’s browsing history. The algorithm is the same method Google uses for advertising targeting, and uses signals to determine demographics such as gender and age.

Available segments include gender, age (18-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45+), and region or province. See the example surveys. Additional audience segment information is available in the reporting view. Learn more.

Yes, there are two different ways to target respondents:

• Choose one of the demographic or geographic buckets.
• Ask a preliminary “screening” question, for example, “Are you a small business owner?”, and provide non-binary answers such as “Yes, I own a small business”, “No, but I manage a small business”, “Not yet, but I'm planning to start one”.

Visit the pricing page.

You can expect to see responses almost immediately after our team reviews your survey, with full completion within 7 days. Allow extra time for targeted surveys.

See targeting options.

The Surveys team partnered closely with research scientists and statisticians to develop our methodology. We validate results against outside data, such as government-issued statistics, and results are as accurate or more accurate than other online platforms. Read the whitepaper to learn more or see the analysis done by the Pew Research Center.

We encourage survey creators to follow these guidelines when citing surveys fielded via Google Surveys.

Each survey is distributed across a network of publishers in different content categories to ensure a wide mix of respondents. It is not possible to select certain publisher categories to target.

Sometimes, surveys run slower due to a combination of very targeted screening and/or a limited supply in the target country on the network that you’re using. Generally, the surveys that run on our app publisher network (AdMob) run faster than those run on our news publisher network (Google Opinion Rewards for Publishers), so adjusting your survey so that it’s eligible for that network is a good option for faster surveys.  You can see the criteria for AdMob here or contact us for help troubleshooting a specific survey.

In April of 2021 we expanded our respondent pool by integrating app publishers into our ‘General population’ respondent network.  You can learn more about which surveys get sent to AdMob here.