Zero Party Data - The Pros and Cons of Using Incentives | Syno

Regardless of industry or scale, governments, companies, and media groups use marketing research surveys, CX questionnaires, and online analytics tools to understand their citizens, current or potential customers, and online readers. While frequency and methodology may very, there are probably very few organizations that have never conducted a survey.

In consumer-focused businesses, the collection of survey data for the improvement of the customer’s experience is of upmost importance, but increased awareness of personal data protection make this collection increasingly difficult. It is important therefore to gain consumer trust, awareness, and consent for such collection. By doing so, consumers can feel they have a stake in the organization, and can contribute to the improvement of society or of goods and services through the giving of their voices in surveys. Therefore, the focus of such surveys should not just be on the organization distributing them, but on the building of trust and communication between parties.

For those who have conducted surveys, a frequent complaint is that despite the importance of the survey, they couldn’t reach the target audience or get the number of responses needed. One popular way to solve this complaint is to offer respondents incentives for answering. These incentives vary, from cash or gift cards, to non-monetary incentives like donations to charities, with the costs, timing, and pros and cons of each type of incentive varying.

In this white paper, we’ll look at how zero-party data, that is data from consumers willingly giving information about themselves, can be collected in a smooth and streamlined fashion through the strategic use of incentives. We hope that this white paper is useful for companies or organizations considering ways to engage customers while at the same time navigating the post-cookie, privacy-focused world.

Table of Contents

• What are survey incentives?
• Systems for streamlining giving incentive
• The results from a multi-country study on incentives
• Summary