I keep getting disqualified, what am I doing wrong?
Most likely absolutely nothing, surveys are essentially market research from other companies who are paying to get an opinion from targeted audiences on certain things, to help them with their branding/marketing so they can more effectively do their jobs. This means each survey is looking for a very specific target audience.
One may be looking for the opinions of middle-aged businessmen in Guatemala to improve their printer sales in the region, the next may be looking for stay at home parents in the US to determine what kind of media is most popular during certain hours.
While the survey providers do their best to match you to surveys, you will not fit the demographic for every survey you get. This is perfectly normal.
How can I improve my chances?
The best thing you can do is be honest.
The survey providers try to match you to surveys based on the answers you have given them previously. They may not have many, or even any surveys at all for you at the moment. Depending on the demographic your answers have placed you in.
If in one survey, you tell them that you’re an Astronaut with a $180,000 p.a. Income, with seven kids and a back injury. They will be somewhat confused in the next survey you do, when you are suddenly an 18 year old working your way through college.
Lying on surveys is a very good way to make sure that you will not get matched to any good ones for you, you will find it very hard to complete surveys that think you are 5 different people.
The survey providers will stop providing them entirely if they catch you lying. It is always best to simply be honest.
Give them real answers, be consistent, and they will have a better chance of matching surveys specifically to you. You will be disqualified from less, and eventually have much higher paying surveys made available to you.
I have been answering them honestly, what else can I do to improve my chances?
Slow down.
If you rush through surveys, and complete them extremely quickly. The survey provider may not believe you’ve paid attention, or given a real opinion. On their end it can look like you have just rushed through and clicked on random answers.
If you have a very good reading comprehension, you may want to actively slow yourself down, as it does not seem to take into account the outliers who can sight-read a page in a book for instance. Not by much, but it can come across as inhuman if you answer questions at speeds that do not appear to fit in the expected times to finish pages.
But not too slow
You can also take too long if you spend 2 hours on a survey that their information tells them should take 30 minutes. You can also be disqualified.
Pay attention.
Sometimes when you’ve been doing surveys for a while, your brain can switch off. This is not optimal for a few reasons. The most common problem with this, is skipping over words. It’s very easy to give a completely nonsensical answer to a question if you’re just skimming over them. This can lead to a disqualification as you can appear to be a person that does not fit the demographic they’re looking for.
The other dangers are questions designed to check that you are paying attention. Have you ever eaten concrete? Probably not, but the survey companies will ask you questions like this to make sure you are not just skipping over the questions and clicking random buttons. This is a common technique used to filter people who are not taking them earnestly, and it’s very important to them that they receive honest, and legitimate answers. They will likely decide to disqualify you if you tell them your favorite meal of the day is drywall.
Turn off any ad blockers
Any plugins in your browser that block external code can affect your surveys in undesirable ways. It can stop them functioning correctly and can lead to you doing an entire survey only to find out you were disqualified at the beginning, just as you’re expecting to get paid.
This is never a desirable outcome after spending all that time completing it.
Try a different browser
Your favorite browser of choice, may not be the best option for completing surveys, what may work perfectly on Chrome for instance, may not function as intended on Opera. You may want to experiment with the browser you’re using to see how you can get the best results.
(Make sure your browser is also up to date, using the latest software available.)
Avoid using public internet connections
The survey providers may think you, and anyone else taking the same surveys, are in fact one person. Trying to take more than your fair share of the available payouts. They can and likely would remove your access to them if you were doing a survey using a college or coffee shop's free public Wi-Fi.
Make sure you have turned off your VPN
The survey companies do not allow the use of VPNs, due to the prevalence of fraud in the field. They can and almost certainly will block any payouts, and potentially your access to their platform entirely if they find you are trying to use a VPN to complete any surveys they provide.
They can also charge back the money for payments already sent if they believe you have been using a VPN.
You can maximize your potential by regularly clearing your browser's cookies and cache.
It’s not exactly common, but sometimes things can linger in your cookies and cache that can actively hurt you when it comes to taking surveys. They can interfere with certain sites or coding from functioning properly, which can also lead to a disqualification. Or worse, prevent disqualification which means you could make it all the way to the end of a survey and not get paid as it could not move you on to a different survey when it intended to.
I barely have any surveys, why is this?
The survey companies are paid to get a certain amount of feedback by the client that wants the information, so each survey you see, can only be answered a certain amount of times. They are not infinite. Occasionally, this can converge and leave very few currently available to people.
You will see the practical effects of this on weekends (and holidays), when there are fewer surveys available, as everyone that was working during the week, now has the extra spare time to complete them to earn some extra spending money. However this can happen at any time, per the availability of the surveys themselves.
Mondays may also not be ideal for you. Many survey companies are based in the US, so depending on your timezone, it may still be the weekend for much of the world, meaning there are still likely less available until the working business day starts in the areas providing the surveys.
You may also not be in the ideal region. Unfortunately the majority of surveys are intended to help companies discern how to make the most money in certain areas of the world. So they will target those areas. Not all surveys are available everywhere. One company may want to find out how to advertise their soft drink in a part of the world such as America where competition is fierce and is not selling as well as expected. Another company may want to find out why people in the Netherlands are not buying eco-friendly refrigerators for their small business’ break room. It varies wildly.
The practical effect of this is, depending on where you are, is that there may not be many surveys available right now. This is a simple supply and demand equation. However, new surveys are always being made available, so it is always worth checking back a little later in the day to see what you have!
It is important to remember that VPN use is prohibited by both us, and the survey providers.