What is a good response rate for a post-purchase survey?
Published by Zigpoll. Updated
A good response rate for a post-purchase survey depends on how you collect it: expect low single digits for mass email blasts, mid-teens for short targeted emails or thank-you-page microsurveys, and 25-50% for in-flow channels like in-app/checkout prompts or SMS. (trurating.com)
Aim at a channel-specific benchmark rather than one universal number; for many ecommerce programs a practical target is 10-20% overall, achieved by mixing channels and keeping surveys tiny. (surveymonkey.com)
What is a good response rate for a post-purchase survey?
A “good” rate is whatever exceeds the typical rate for the specific channel you use. Different studies show huge variation: mass ecommerce emails averaged about 3.24% in Retently’s 2025 dataset, while targeted/opt-in email programs and microsurveys report mid-teens to ~49% depending on method and audience. (feedsense.co)
Reason: benchmarks differ by sample and method (mass blasts vs. targeted, embedded vs. linked, in-flow vs. after the fact). Choose the benchmark that matches how you deliver the survey and the relationship you have with the buyer. (trurating.com)
What factors affect post-purchase survey response rates?
Timing, channel, question length and customer relationship drive most of the variance. Triggering a 1-3 question microsurvey immediately at checkout or on the thank-you page will outperform a long linked survey sent days later. (testfeed.ai)
Other big drivers: deliverability (email landing in spam), whether the recipient recognises the sender, incentives, and how many other requests the customer has recently received. The Zigpoll Attribution Index also shows that many orders lack analytics attribution (51.8% had no tracked source in their dataset of 3.3M answers), which matters if you rely on analytics rather than asking customers directly. (Zigpoll data are from stores using Zigpoll.) (zigpoll.com)
How can I improve my post-purchase survey response rate?
Shorten the survey to 1-3 questions and collect it in-flow where attention is highest (checkout, thank-you page, in-app). Use clear sender names, good timing (immediately after the completed experience or right after delivery for product satisfaction), and A/B test subject lines and triggers. (testfeed.ai)
If email is necessary, segment to engaged buyers only and consider a single-question microsurvey in the email body rather than a long external form. Use SMS or in-flow prompts for higher conversion when appropriate, but weigh cost and privacy. Finally, fix deliverability issues first, a survey that never reaches inboxes cannot convert. (trurating.com)
When Zigpoll is relevant: Zigpoll is a post-purchase, on-site, email and SMS survey tool for Shopify merchants and advertises high response rates for in-flow collection; use vendor claims and their Attribution Index to judge fit for attribution and checkout prompts. (zigpoll.com)
What are typical response rate benchmarks by channel or industry?
(Channels compared, one row per option)
| Email (mass ecommerce) | 3.24% (Retently, 2025, large dataset of 25M invitations). (trurating.com) | | Email (targeted/opt-in) | ~15-49% depending on audience and platform (Survicate/SurveyMonkey platform samples, opt-in lists and embedded surveys perform much better). (testfeed.ai) | | In-app / checkout (in-flow) | ~27-32% (Refiner / Retently in-app benchmarks). (trurating.com) | | SMS | 18-50% reported ranges (SurveyMonkey/industry summaries show SMS well above email; some sources cite 40-50% for transactional SMS). (surveymonkey.com) | | Web popup / widget | ~3-8% (popup/intercept lower; widgets passive and lower converting). (surveymonkey.com) | | Point-of-sale / terminal | Very high (TruRating reports ~80%+ for single-question terminal prompts). (trurating.com) |
Benchmarks by industry vary because buying frequency and customer relationships differ. Zigpoll’s Attribution Index (stores using Zigpoll) reports per-vertical tracking gaps (example: Home & garden stores lost 73.4% of word-of-mouth tracking in that dataset), which influences how useful an attribution question or post-purchase ask will be for that vertical. (zigpoll.com)
What would change the answer: If you have an owned high-engagement channel (active app users or SMS consents), you should expect and target the higher in-flow rates; if you must use mass transactional email or a cold list, realistic targets are in the single digits and the tactics shift to deliverability and list hygiene. The trade-off is reach versus conversion: email reaches many but converts poorly; in-flow and POS prompts convert well but reach fewer customers or cost more. (trurating.com)
