A Post-purchase survey asks customers the questions you want to ask them right after they have completed a purchase on your website.

These surveys can be customized according to your needs and are shown to the customer at the end of their purchase journey.

Why is a Post-Purchase Survey important?

Setting up a post-purchase survey is a great way to collect valuable information about your customer. Right when the customer has made a purchase, you have their full attention and they are primed to respond –  using that moment to collect information from customers can help you get valuable insights.

You can find out the value of your different marketing channels, understand your customer persona, or even get feedback on what needs to improve on your website or the buying experience.

What’s more, since these survey forms are customizable you can switch questions if you want to research something different. For example, if you have started advertising on a new marketing channel like Facebook Ads or TikTok and you want to learn how many people decided to make a purchase after they saw your ad on the new channel, you can set up a survey to ask your users where they saw your ads.

Here are some common questions that businesses use to collect information:

Attribution

  • How did you hear about us?
  • What led you to our store today?
  • When did you first hear about us?

The attribution questions can help you understand what marketing channel is bringing you the most value. If you are running ads on several channels, asking customers ‘how did you first hear about us?’ can give an additional layer of data on top of what the platforms show.

Asking customers attribution-related questions in your post-purchase survey can be beneficial in determining how much budget to assign to the channels that are bringing in the most sales. 

Personalization

  • Which of these best describes you?
  • Who is this purchase for?
  • Which of our benefits are most appealing?
  • How will our product make an impact on your lifestyle?

These questions can help you understand what hook to use in your ads and ad copy to appeal to the customer. The answers that you get about the benefits of your brand (or the impact on lifestyle that your brand has brought to your customers) can be used in your ad copy to appeal to the user.

You can also tweak the product page/landing page copy if you get a substantial number of customers saying the same thing about the product.

Research

  • Are you switching from another brand?
  • What is your age?
  • What gender do you identify with?
  • How important is fast shipping?
  • How would you describe the affordability of our products?
  • How does our pricing match up to your expectation?
  • Do you follow us on social media and if so where?
  • What made you purchase today?
  • What is the #1 reason you bought?
  • What made you look for a new soap?
  • What would you buy if you hadn’t bought our product?
  • What was the one thing that made you almost not purchase?
  • What other brands did you consider before purchasing from us?

These research questions can help you develop a customer persona for your target market. You can use that persona to develop ad creatives and ad copy to appeal to your target market.

Research questions like what made you almost not complete the purchase can be immensely useful in figuring out an objection response that you can use to ensure that a customer completes the purchase. This data can also be used in your email flows and retargeting ads for cart abandoners. The ‘reasons for purchase’ answers can be highlighted in the ads and on the product page. 

CRO

  • Was there any part of our store that was difficult to use?
  • Did you encounter any issues in placing your order?
  • What phrase would you Google to find a brand or product like ours?

CRO-related questions can help you determine if there is anything on your website that’s causing friction in the buying process. If the customer is facing any difficulties placing the order, such questions can catch the issue and resolve it.

What to keep in mind when creating a post-purchase survey?

There are a few factors that the brand should consider when creating a survey:

  1. Determine the goal of the survey: What do you hope to achieve with the survey? Have a clear goal in mind then choose relevant questions to ask the customer.
  2. Keep the survey short: As much as a 5-question survey would be a goldmine for your business, seeing a long questionnaire overwhelms the customers and doesn’t lead to survey completion. You can start with one question and test adding questions to see how they affect the completion rate.
  3. Explain why you are asking these questions: Tell your customers that collecting this data will help your business improve your website. Customers are more likely to answer when they know why you are asking these questions.

What apps to use to create post-purchase surveys?

The following apps on Shopify can be used to create post-purchase surveys:

  • Knocommerce.com
  • Zigpoll.com
  • Fairing
  • Grapevine
  • Enquire Post Purchase Survey

Conclusion

Post-Purchase surveys are quick to set up and can give you powerful information that you can use to determine your advertising budget, research your target audience, find out what hooks to use in your ads, and much more.

With any of the apps listed above, you can get started with your first survey and test/modify the questions depending on what your goal is.