What surveys are for

Surveys help you collect direct feedback from visitors while UserTrail records behaviour analytics. Use them when session replay, heatmaps, or friction events show what happened, but you also need to understand why it happened.

Common survey use cases include:

• asking why visitors did not complete checkout
• collecting feedback after a pricing page visit
• asking what information was missing
• measuring satisfaction with an NPS or rating question
• collecting feature requests
• asking visitors what stopped them from signing up

Add questions

Create one or more survey questions. Supported types include welcome message, single select, multiselect, free text, and rating scale.

Use the question type that matches the answer you need:

• Welcome message: introduce the survey or explain why you are asking.
• Single select: let visitors choose one answer from a list.
• Multiselect: let visitors choose more than one reason or preference.
• Free text: collect open-ended feedback.
• Rating scale: measure satisfaction, effort, or likelihood to recommend.

Keep surveys short. A focused two or three question survey usually gets better completion than a long survey with every possible question.

Write clear questions

Good survey questions are specific and easy to answer.

Examples:

• "What stopped you from signing up today?"
• "What information were you looking for on this page?"
• "How easy was it to complete this form?"
• "What nearly stopped you from buying?"

Avoid asking several things at once. Instead of "Was the pricing clear and did you trust the checkout?", split that into separate questions.

Configure logic

Use the Logic tab to choose where visitors go after answering. You can route answers to later questions or the success step.

Logic is useful when different answers need different follow-up questions.

For example:

1. Ask "What stopped you from signing up?"
2. If the visitor selects "Too expensive", ask a pricing follow-up.
3. If the visitor selects "Missing feature", ask which feature they needed.
4. If the visitor selects "Just browsing", send them to the success step.

Before publishing, preview the paths through the survey and confirm every answer leads somewhere intentional.

Set appearance and triggers

Choose the survey color, screen location, initial widget state, trigger behavior, and page targeting before finalizing.

Appearance settings control how the survey feels on the page. Match the color to your site enough that it feels trusted, but keep it visible enough that visitors notice it.

Trigger settings control when the survey appears. Useful trigger patterns include:

• after a visitor spends time on a page
• after scrolling to a key section
• on specific paths such as /pricing or /checkout
• after a visitor shows exit intent
• after a form interaction

Use page targeting to avoid showing the same survey everywhere. A checkout survey should usually only appear on checkout or cart pages. A pricing objection survey should usually appear on pricing or plan pages.

Avoid interrupting visitors

Surveys should not block important user actions. Avoid showing them immediately on page load unless the page exists specifically for feedback.

Better timing options include:

• after the visitor has had time to read the page
• after they scroll past a key section
• after they fail to complete an action
• after they abandon a funnel step

If a survey appears too early, the feedback may reflect interruption rather than the actual page experience.

Review responses

Open the survey report to review:

• response volume
• completion rate
• answer breakdowns
• individual responses
• trends over time
• common complaints and requests

Compare survey responses with sessions and friction data. If many visitors say a form is confusing, review session recordings and form analytics to find the exact field or step causing the issue.

Improve the survey over time

After collecting enough responses, update the survey:

• remove answers nobody selects
• add options that appear repeatedly in free-text responses
• shorten questions that visitors skip
• adjust targeting if responses come from the wrong audience
• pause surveys that are no longer useful

Keep old survey results in mind when changing questions. If you change answer options, future results may not compare directly with earlier results.

Survey checklist

• Clear goal for the survey.
• Short question flow.
• Logic tested for every answer.
• Target pages selected.
• Trigger timing reviewed.
• Appearance matches the site.
• Responses reviewed alongside sessions, heatmaps, and friction.