Create and publish surveys

In Acumbamail, you can now create and share your own surveys. In this article, we explain how to create a survey, how to share it via a URL, email, or landing page, and view the results in real-time.

In this article:

• Access to the functionality
  • Features according to plan
  • How to increase my survey credits
• Create a survey
  • Step 1: Settings & Design
    • General settings (texts)
    • Style settings
    • Hidden fields
      • Create hidden fields
      • Introduce hidden fields in the survey
      • Assign value to hidden fields
      • Customize survey with hidden fields
      • Group responses with hidden fields
    • Preview styles
  • Step 2: Edit questions
    • Types of questions
    • Configure mandatory questions
    • Edit question text
    • Order questions
    • Duplicate or delete questions
    • Full survey preview
  • Step 3: Publish and share
    • Survey status
    • Share survey URL
    • Include survey in landing page
    • Include survey in newsletter
      • Associate subscriber's email with the survey
    • Configure custom domain
• Survey list
  • Edit survey
    • Edit an already published survey
  • Duplicate survey
  • Delete survey
  • Open survey results
• Survey results
  • Trend graphs
  • Graphs by question
  • Hidden field values
  • Export results
  • Real-time results

Access to the functionality

You can access Surveys from the main left menu as a new entry, as long as your user has the free rate assigned or any rate linked to an email sending subscription. These are the characteristics that define access to the survey functionality:

• How many surveys? You can create as many surveys as you want.
• Survey credits. You will have more or fewer survey credits depending on your plan. Each credit equals a saved response. If you exhaust your monthly survey credits, the URL associated with your survey will not load the survey form, but a message indicating that the survey is temporarily disabled. Survey credits are renewed at the same time as your email credits. If you need to save a larger number of responses per month, you will need to upgrade your plan.
• Acumbamail logo. Given the URL of your survey, depending on your plan, the Acumbamail logo will or will not be included in the footer of the survey. If you don't want it to appear, you will need to upgrade your plan.
• Survey URL. For all plans, a specific URL will be generated to load your survey under the domain displaysurvey.com. If you have a Pro or Enterprise plan and own your own domain, you can verify it and generate a specific URL to load the survey under your own domain. It works the same way as when you generate the URL when creating a landing page.

Features according to plan

The following table describes exactly what each user will find according to the rate or plan they have assigned:

How to increase my survey credits

To increase the limit of 20 responses per month present in the free and basic rates, there are two options:

• Upgrade your rate to a Pro or Enterprise plan. This way you will be able to save 10000 responses or unlimited responses each month, respectively.
• If you have a basic plan and are not interested in upgrading to a Pro plan, you can activate the survey module upgrade as an extra. This extra is only accessible if you have a basic plan. For more information about how extras work, you can consult this article.

When you access the Surveys section, a pop-up will appear once per session allowing you to subscribe to the Pro plan or activate the survey extra. It will also appear if you have exhausted your monthly survey credits.

A button to view your extras will also appear in the Home section, within Surveys, as long as you have an active basic rate.

Create a survey

In the Surveys section, click on the New survey button.

Enter a name to identify it and click on the Create button.

Step 1: Settings & Design

In this first step, you must configure the general design aspects of the survey, which are described below.

General settings (texts)

• Survey name: Identifying name of the survey (assigned when creating the survey). This is not visible to the end user.

• Title: Survey title. It is displayed on the welcome page and is only visible on the first page of the survey.
• Description: Brief description of the survey. This field can be used to introduce a subtitle or a relevant detail of the survey, etc. Like the title, it is displayed on the welcome page and is only visible on the first page of the survey.

• Thank you message: Message to be displayed at the end of the survey, once completed.

• Image: Image that will be displayed on the welcome and thank you pages. This field can be used to display a logo or an image related to the survey.

To select a new image, click on the "Change image" button. Keep in mind the following:

• You can zoom in on the image, use the buttons located in the upper right corner.
• Supported formats: gif, jpeg, pjpeg, and png.
• Maximum allowed size: 2MB. 

Style settings

These fields are all mandatory. If not set, the default values shown will be taken:

• Font type: Font type that will be applied to the entire survey. 
• Buttons and interactions: Background color of the buttons to advance, go back, start, and finish the survey. It is also applied in some questions (for example, the stars in rating-type questions).
• Title - Font size: Size applied to the survey title text.
• Title - Color: Color in which the survey title text will be displayed.
• Description - Font size: Size applied to the survey description text.
• Description - Color: Color in which the survey description text will be displayed.
• Thank you message - Font size: Size applied to the final thank you message text.
• Thank you message - Color: Color in which the thank you message will be displayed.
• Question - Font size: Size applied to the survey question text.
• Question - Font color: Color in which the question text will be displayed.

To edit the color, click on the color icon to open the color selector and select a different one. You can also enter it manually in any of the input fields. It supports the following formats:

• Hexadecimal. E.g.: #000000
• RGB. E.g.: rgb(0,0,0)

Hidden fields

This step is optional. Configure it if you need to pass additional parameters to the survey URL. Hidden fields are key-value pairs that contain information you already know in advance and are usually used for two purposes:

• Customize your survey texts. This is perceived by the respondent.
• Classify or group responses. This is not perceived by the respondent.

Create hidden fields

Add the keys by entering the label that will identify the field and press "Enter". You can enter up to ten hidden fields.

Introduce hidden fields in the survey

Where? (Optional) You can insert hidden fields in the survey title, description, thank you message, and in the question statements.

How? Type the character "*" to display the list of available fields. Then select one. Once inserted, you will see that the syntax is similar to the personalized content tags used in email templates.

Assign value to hidden fields

In the last step of the survey, the "Share" step, you will find the URL to share the survey. Before sharing it, you must modify the generated link, replacing the default assigned value ("xxxxx") with the real value of each hidden field. 

In the section explaining how to share the survey, you can expand the information related to the value of hidden fields, depending on whether the URL is shared, the survey is included in a landing page, or it is included in an email template.

Customize survey with hidden fields

Using hidden fields, you can make different texts appear for the same survey. Some examples:

• Incorporate information about your respondent, if you already know it in advance, such as the name, to validate that information during the survey or make it more personal.

• Incorporate other types of information, to adapt the same survey to different sectors, on different dates, different cities, etc. You can use it at your convenience. In the following example, a hidden field labeled "city" has been added, which has been included in the statement of one of the survey questions. Two URLs have been shared, one with the value "Madrid" and another with "Barcelona".

Group responses with hidden fields

You can apply a kind of tagging to your survey by creating a hidden field whose value will not be visible in the survey itself but will be associated with the received responses. Later, when you review your survey results, you can retrieve it and apply segmentation. This can provide you with valuable information, for example, where the survey worked best if you shared it on different social networks.

Preview styles

On the right side of the screen, you will find a non-editable preview area. There you can see how the survey would look with the styles you are selecting.

Click on each of the menu tabs to see some of the question types with the applied style, the welcome page, or the final thank you page.

Finally, once all the styles are selected, click on the "Save draft" button to save the changes and stay in this step or click on the "Next" button to continue to the next step, saving the changes.

Step 2: Edit questions

In this step, you can add all the questions that make up your survey. To do this, click on the "Add question" button each time you want to add a new one. You will be able to distinguish two sections:

• In the left panel, hereafter Question List, the list of questions that make up the survey is displayed. 
• In the right panel, hereafter Preview, you can edit the text of the selected question.

Types of questions

When creating a new question, you can select one of the following types:

• Short Text: Open-ended question.
• Long Text: Extensive open-ended question.
• Statement: Allows you to include an introductory or explanatory text between questions. Here the respondent does not enter information.
• Single Response: Question with one or more response options where the user can only select one.
• Multiple Response: Question with one or more response options where the user can select more than one.
• Rating: Rating question on a scale from 1 to n, where n is 5, 7, or 10. You can label what value 1 and value n correspond to.

• Email: Open-ended question, where the data type to be entered will be an email. It can be associated with a list. The entered email will be added to the selected list.

• Phone: Open-ended question, where the data type to be entered will be a phone number.
• Date: Open-ended question, where the data type to be entered will be a date.
• Number: Open-ended question, where the data type to be entered will be a number.

Configure mandatory questions

You can indicate which questions in the survey are mandatory (except for "Statement" type questions). That is, when answering the survey, if a question is mandatory, the user will not be able to proceed if they have not provided an answer. Click on the switch to change from No to Yes or vice versa.   

If a question is marked as mandatory, an asterisk (*) will be displayed at the end of its text.

Edit question text

First, you must select the question in the question list by clicking on it. This way, the question will appear in the preview area on the right. You will see that in the preview all texts are editable, so you just have to click on the text you want to change and write the new text.

For question types with predefined response options, in addition to the statement, you can also directly enter the text of each option by clicking on it. You can add new response options (by clicking on the "Add Response" button) or delete them (by clicking on the cross icon).

Order questions

You can indicate the order in which the questions will appear when taking the survey.

To do this, hover over the icon [ = ] of the question you want to display in another position. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the question to the position you want it to be in.

Duplicate or delete questions

You can duplicate a question while keeping its text and type. To do this, click on the icon [ ... ] to the right of the question statement and select the "Duplicate question" option. Similarly, you can delete an existing question by selecting the "Delete question" option.

Full survey preview

While editing the survey questions, you can open a full survey preview in a new tab. To do this, just click on the "Open preview" button.

A notice will appear on the survey indicating that the survey is in preview mode, and therefore does not function as the real survey would (responses will not be saved even if you complete it).

Step 3: Publish and share

Survey status

In this step, the first thing you will find is an option to change the survey status (active/inactive).

For the survey URL to be accessible, it must be "active". To be active, it must have at least one question. When you go from step 2 to step 3, it will automatically become active. You can also change its status (active/inactive) from the general survey list by clicking on the switch in the Status column.

If you leave it as inactive, when the survey URL is loaded in the browser, it cannot be answered, as a "survey disabled" notice will appear instead. You can use it when you have already shared the survey URL, but you are no longer interested in receiving more responses.

Keep in mind that, even if the survey is active, if you have exhausted your monthly survey credits, the survey URL will behave as if it were inactive.

Share survey URL

In this step, you can check the unique URL generated for your survey. You just have to start sharing this URL, in which the complete survey is loaded, to start receiving responses.

The survey URL is also accessible from the general survey list by clicking on the actions button [...], which will open a dropdown menu where you have to choose the "Share" option. This will copy the survey URL to the clipboard.

Remember that if you have configured hidden fields for the survey, you will need to replace the default value ("xxxxx") of each hidden field with the real value before sharing the survey URL.

Include survey in landing page

All your surveys can be embedded in any of your landing pages. Unlike the URL generated for the survey (where the survey is displayed on a white background without further decoration), this will allow you to customize the page where you display the survey.

To do this, you just have to go to the CONTENT section in the editor and drag the "Survey" element to your landing page design.

Click on "Add survey" and a pop-up will appear showing all your active surveys. Select the survey and you will see the cover or welcome page of the survey.

You should keep in mind that only the cover or welcome page is actually being included in the landing design. When accessing the landing URL, the survey is dynamically reloaded. This means that once the survey is included in a landing, if you later modify the survey, the changes will be automatically reflected (replacing the embedded HTML corresponding to the welcome page with the latest version of the survey). 

If you have configured hidden fields for the survey, you will need to transfer them to the landing page URL. Once you have selected the survey to include in your landing page, check what its URL is for sharing. If it includes hidden fields that you want to use, you just need to add them as they appear to the landing page URL (remembering to assign each of them a real value by replacing "xxxxx"). An example:

https://displaysurvey.com/survey/attempt/84ccc1c8-111d-11ed -87dd-009876bdd123?source=xxxxx&name=xxxxx

⬇️

https://showlanding.com/page/20acc1c8-072d-11ed-87dd-666056bdab73/

⬇️

https://showlanding.com/page/20acc1c8-072d-11ed-87dd-666056bdab73/?source=xxxxx&name=xxxxx

Include survey in newsletter

Surveys that start with a single response, multiple response, or rating question type can be embedded in any of your email templates. To do this, you just have to go to the CONTENT section in the editor and drag the "Survey" element to your email design.Surveys that start with a single response, multiple response, or rating question type can be embedded in any of your email templates.

To do this, you just have to go to the CONTENT section in the editor and drag the "Survey" element to your email design.

Click on "Add survey" and a pop-up will appear showing all your active surveys that meet the above condition. If you hover over the eye icon, you can see a preview of the survey. Select the survey and you will see how the first question of your survey appears in your email design.

How does the survey behave within the email? Only the first question will appear in the email, and when the user clicks on one of the predefined response options, the survey will open in a new tab with the response already selected. This way, the respondent can continue completing the survey comfortably.

If you have configured hidden fields for the survey, in the popup, after choosing the survey, a second step will appear. All existing hidden fields for that survey will be listed, and you can assign a value to each of them (it is optional, you can also leave them empty). Remember that here you can also use personalized field tags, depending on the fields you have included in your recipient list.

When you add a survey to an email, the HTML corresponding to the first question is included. When your subscriber clicks on the question, it will open in a new tab, where they can complete the survey.  Thus, if you make changes to the survey after including it in an email template, these will be automatically reflected in the survey opened in a new tab. But if you make any changes that affect the visible question in the email (text color, text size, or question texts), you will need to delete the survey from the template and re-add it to reflect the changes affecting the visible question in the template itself.

Associate subscriber's email with the survey

When you create a survey that you want to send by email to your subscribers, you have the option to associate the subscriber's email, which you already know. To do this, you have two possibilities:

• If you want your subscriber to have the option to modify the email, all you need to do is add an "email address" type question to your survey. When your subscriber opens the survey from the received email, they will see the question asking for an email address, but it will be automatically filled with the subscriber's email. They can then decide whether to edit the email address or proceed directly to the next question.
• If you want to associate the email address you already know with the survey without it being noticeable to your subscriber, instead of adding an "email address" type question to the survey, you should add the key "email" as a hidden field to the survey in step 1 when creating or editing it. This way, when you export your survey results, you will see that associated with each response is an additional hidden field containing the email address you already know from your subscriber.

Configure custom domain

Similar to when you create a landing page, it is possible to customize the survey URL. This option will only be available for users with a Pro or Enterprise plan.

In step 3 when creating the survey, a section will appear where you can customize the URL. To do this, you will need to:

• Enter a domain you own and click the "Verify" button.
• Enter a slug, which will be the specific path within your domain where the survey will be loaded.
• Click the "Save" button in the upper right corner of the screen. 

You should keep in mind that the combination of domain + slug must be unique. That is, there cannot be two surveys associated with the same domain and slug, as it would generate a conflict when loading the URL. And this extends to other sections of Acumbamail where you are using that domain. For example, if you already have a landing page associated with https://mydomain.com/mi-slug, you will not be able to select that same domain with that same slug for the URL of a survey.

If you leave both fields empty and click save, a standard and unique URL will be generated for your survey under the domain displaysurvey.com.

Survey list

From the menu, in the Surveys section, you can access the list of all created surveys. From here, you can perform the actions described below.

Edit survey

To edit an existing survey, you have these options:

• Click on the survey name if it still has 0 questions.
• Click on the number in the "Questions" column (this will take you directly to the question editing step).
• Open the menu [...] under the "Actions" column and choose the "Edit survey" option (this will take you to the first step).

Edit an already published survey

If your survey is active and has already received responses, you should consider what will happen if you edit it:

• When editing styles: If you edit the settings and styles of the first step, these changes will be automatically reflected when loading the survey URL. If you have included it in a landing page or email template, you will need to remove it and re-add it to apply the new styles to the survey cover or the first survey question, respectively.
• When editing questions: If you edit, or more specifically delete questions (or delete options from a single response, multiple response, or rating-type question), what will happen is that it will no longer be visible in the survey results section. These changes will be automatically reflected when loading the survey URL. In the case of a survey that has been added to a landing page, it will not be necessary to re-add it to the landing to detect the changes. In the case of a survey that has been added to an email template, it will not be necessary to re-add it by dragging it to the email template (unless you have changed precisely the first question, which is the one embedded in the email).

Duplicate survey

To make a copy of your survey, open the menu [...] under the "Actions" column and choose the "Duplicate" option. You will see an exact survey appear as the original, maintaining its styles and questions.

Delete survey

To delete a survey, open the menu [...] under the "Actions" column and choose the "Delete survey" option. This action requires confirmation as it cannot be undone. Once deleted, you will not be able to load the final survey or view the collected results.

Open survey results

To view the results of a survey, you have these options:

• Click on the survey name if it already has created questions.
• Click on the number in the "Responses" column.
• Open the menu [...] under the "Actions" column and choose the "View results" option.

Survey results

First, a summary will appear with the following information:

• Attempts: Number of times the survey has been started.
• Responses: Number of times the survey has been completed.
• Response rate: Percentage of completed surveys compared to those that have been started.
• Average time: Average time to complete the entire survey.

At the top right, you can filter the results by selecting a specific time period. By default, all results since the survey was created will appear.

Trend graphs

In this section, the same parameters described in the previous section appear but distributed over time (Attempts, Received responses, Response rate, and Average time each day). 

Additionally, an abandonment funnel is also included, which allows you to check at which question the survey is abandoned for those users who do not complete it.

Graphs by question

In this section, you can view the responses received by question, being able to choose the question of interest in the selector located in the upper right corner.

For single response, multiple response, and rating-type questions, a graph will appear indicating how many times each option has been selected.

In the case of text-type questions (with open-ended responses), the list of received responses will appear in a paginated manner.

Hidden field values

There is a third section where you can list the value received for each hidden field.

Export results

You can export a CSV containing your survey results. It will include information on all attempts and all received responses (one row for each attempt/response). It includes the following information:

• Date the survey was started and completed.
• Email associated with the survey, if it could be identified.
• Country, browser, operating system, and device from which the survey was completed.
• Last visited question (in case it is an incomplete attempt).
• The response given by question.
• The value of hidden fields, if hidden fields have been created for the survey.

To do this, you must click on the "Export CSV" button. Keep in mind that the selected time filter will be applied.

Once the CSV is ready, a second "Download CSV" button will appear, allowing you to start downloading the CSV. If you want to generate a new CSV with a different time filter or with new results, you will need to regenerate the CSV, for which you must click on the "Regenerate CSV" button.

Real-time results

For surveys that have collected fewer than 10,000 responses, the results are displayed in real-time. For surveys with a large turnout and that have collected more than 10,000 responses, counters are used that update every 4 hours. This allows the results view to load much faster.