Sending Email Invitations

Standard ways of conducting online surveys

Two emails or untracked invitations sent to the entire list of respondents are almost always sufficient, as follows:

• In the first email, you invite all potential respondents in the form "I invite you to complete the survey ...".
• The second email should follow 2-3 days after the first, but no more than a week. In it, you should again address the entire list of potential respondents (both those who have already completed the questionnaire and those who have not yet done so) with the same salutation to the effect: "A few days ago you were invited to complete the survey .... We sincerely thank all those who have responded. For those of you who have not yet responded to the survey, we once again invite you to do so ..."

The two messages are sent to the entire list of potential respondents in the usual way of sending emails, where you send an email invitation with the URL of the survey in your client (Gmail, Yahoo, MS Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.). It is true, however, that there are restrictions that need to be taken into account, as in some places there is a limit on the number of emails sent per day (e.g. Gmail has a limit of 500 addresses for individuals in 2023 when sending via the web application). This can be solved by spreading the sending of your invitations across several days, or by sending from several different email accounts.

Special cases:

When you want to send a large number of invitations (three, four, etc.) or when you have a list containing thousands of people, you most likely need a system to send invitations.
When using the 1KA e-mail system for sending invitations, which is available for users of the 3KA package for individuals and for users of the business packages for groups, the following should be taken into account:

• Using 1KA to send invitations is usually not necessary, especially if there are only a few hundred addresses, as it is quicker and easier to send email invitations from your own email account (Gmail, Yahoo, MS Outlook, Thunderbird ...).
• The system allows tracking the status of the respondent or non-respondent and related reminders to the remaining non-respondents.
• It is worth considering whether we really need a third or fourth e-mail reminder. It has been shown that a third and fourth reminder only minimally increases the participation rate, while complicating and prolonging the data collection phase.
• It should be noted that the use of e-mail addresses for the purposes of the survey is not allowed without the addressee's permission. You may therefore only send survey invitations to addressees who have given their prior consent or whose email addresses have been collected in a related administrative process of an organisation where you have the authority and permission to send email invitations, as it is undeniably clear from the context of the survey that this is a specific internal evaluation of users. It is therefore the user's responsibility to ensure that they do not abuse respondents' privacy by using the 1KA system, e.g. for the purposes of spam invitations or for any other purpose, as also defined in the terms of use and the anti-spam policy.
• If you do not need to track the status of the respondents, we advise you to send the same (non-individualized) survey URL in the invitation, which should also be mentioned in the invitation, e.g. "We guarantee you complete privacy of your answers, so the survey URLs are not individualized...". This helps to increase the response rate, as many respondents are increasingly annoyed by the fact that they receive an individualized URL, knowing that this in principle gives insight into the individual response.

The right to use the 1KA email system and the Terms of Use

The user may obtain the right to use the 1KA invitation system by purchasing a 3KA package for individuals or by purchasing a business package for groups, whereby the 1KA invitation system may only be used with the user's own SMTP server settings. In doing so, the user agrees that in accordance with the terms of use and the anti-spam policy, invitations will only be sent to known recipients who have either previously explicitly agreed to participate in the study, or to recipients where it is clear that this is an evaluation of a group for which the user has administrative responsibilities and data (members of an association, course attendees, subscribers, personal network, etc.)

Some of the functionalities described are only available for users of the 3KA package for individuals, and for users of the business packages for groups.