The effects of cash, electronic, and paper gift certificates as respondent incentives for a web-based survey of technologically sophisticated respondents

An experiment was conducted to determine the effectiveness of three invitation and incentive combinations in a web-based survey. A stratified convenience sample of 434 researchers who were target users of a collaboratory for earthquake engineering was randomly divided into three experimental conditions: (a) a $5 bill sent with the survey instructions via first class mail, (b) a $5 gift certificate code to Amazon.com sent with the survey instructions via first-class mail, or (c) a $5 gift certificate code to Amazon.com sent with the survey instructions via e-mail. Overall response was 43%. Results show that $5 bills led to significantly higher response rates than either gift certificate condition (57% for cash vs. 36% for the two gift certificate conditions, χ ²(1) = 93, p <.01). This suggests that cash is a superior incentive for an online survey, even with technologically sophisticated respondents. This may be due to the perceived limitations, delayed payoff, or reduced visibility of online gift certificates.