Grapevine Surveys has been delivering post-purchase surveys on Shopify order status pages since 2017, predominantly collecting attribution insights for merchants by asking customers how they first heard about their store.
Our standalone survey pages, as the name suggests, can be used independently of a an order being placed, thereby opening up opportunities to collect a broader spectrum of feedback.
Quick Links
- Overview
- Delivering surveys via Shopify app proxy pages
- Collecting anonymous or identifiable survey responses
- Response already submitted?
- How to publish a standalone survey page
- How to customise the styling of the standalone survey page
- Distributing your standalone survey pages
- FAQs
- Need any help?
Overview
Embracing the increasing importance of zero-party data within retail marketing, standalone survey pages were introduced to help merchants to collect customer sentiment, preferences and feedback about products and services at any point throughout the customer sales cycle.
This powerful feature enables you to publish surveys' within your store, each one hosted on a unique URL. If you're already gathering customer attribution insight via a post-purchase survey, then standalone surveys can be used to further build on your understanding of those customers as they pass through each customer experience touchpoint.
Standalone survey pages can be used at each stage of the ecommerce customer journey, from purchase intent - "who are you shopping for today?" - to brand sentiment - "how would you describe our brand in 3 to 5 words" - through to customer satisfaction - "how likely are you to recommend us on a scale from 0 to 10?".
Sending the right survey question at the right time, through the right channel, can meaningfully affect the way respondents engage with them. So whether you decide to include a standalone survey link within each of your default Shopify notifications or broadcast a survey link via a tweet, you now have the ability to distribute your surveys as you see fit.
We've also built in some very useful features that allow you to add parameters to the survey links so that each response can be associated with a particular order, customer or email address. Ideal for distribution via a marketing automation or email sending platform.
Standalone surveys mark a major milestone for Grapevine Surveys! Now, you have the power to distribute surveys with unmatched flexibility to start unraveling the mysteries of your customers' desires and preferences. It's time to paint a clearer picture of who your customers really are and what they truly want."
Let's take a closer look at how standalone survey pages work and how to set them up. Let's start with how standalone survey pages are delivered.
Delivering surveys via Shopify app proxy pages
Shopify app proxy pages are a powerful feature that we use to generate unique pages that look and feel like they are part of your store. These proxy pages act as a bridge between the app and your store, providing a seamless integration between the two.
The unique standalone survey links will use your store's primary domain name, whether you use a custom domain name or use the .myshopify.com domain hosted by Shopify.
The standalone survey page will also use your themes default layout template, which includes your styles, fonts and settings to ensure that your surveys are fully on brand.
An example standalone survey page link may look something like the following (not a real link!):
https://mystorenameorbrand.myshopify.com/tools/survey/6bf4e86646491
If you have a custom domain as your primary domain, then the standalone survey link will automatically use it. e.g.
https://mystorenameorbrand.com/tools/survey/6bf4e86646491
Collecting anonymous or identifiable survey responses
Standalone survey pages can be used to collect either anonymous or identifiable survey responses. An identifiable survey response is one that can be associated to either an existing customer or, a potential customer that has provided their name and email address with their survey response.
You can choose the option that suits the type of survey data that you're looking to collect on a per survey basis.
Let's take a look at the various options for anonymous and identifiable survey responses.
Anonymous survey responses
When editing a survey that has been published as a standalone page, an additional option is available within the survey settings:
If the Enable name and email fields on standalone page setting is left unchecked, the standalone survey page will only contain the Survey Title, Survey Text and the Survey Question:
This is how to set-up your standalone survey to collect anonymous survey responses.
Identifiable survey responses
By selecting the Enable name and email fields on standalone page option within the survey settings, the following personal detail fields will appear once a respondent selects an answer, or in the case of an Open Text survey, starts typing:
- First name
- Last name
- Email address
Here is how those fields will appear on a Fixed Response standalone survey page:
Here is how those fields will appear on an NPS standalone survey page:
Here is how those fields will appear on an Open Text standalone survey page:
Only the email address field is required for the survey response to be submitted.
If the email address submitted is associated to a customer already in your Shopify store, that response will be linked to their Shopify customer record. If you have enabled the Customer tagging feature within the survey, then we will apply those tags to the associated Shopify customer record.
Please Note:
We do not create Shopify customer records from survey responses.
Pre-populating the standalone survey link with identifiable URL parameters
The standalone survey page also supports a number of variables that when incorporated into the URL can be used to identify the respondent. This will prevent the personal detail fields appearing if the Enable name and email fields on standalone page option has been enabled.
This powerful feature allows you to construct dynamic URLs using merge fields from within your email sending or marketing automation platform.
Distributing the standalone survey page URL with identifiable URL parameters ensures that respondents only need to answer the survey question.
The following parameters are available for inclusion into the standalone survey page URL:
- customer_id
- order_id
- first_name
- last_name
Here's an example of how a standalone survey url would appear with identifiable URL parameters:
https://mystore.com/tools/survey/6cbf4819fcb64?first_name=David&last_name=Crane&email=davecrane@someurl.com
Let's take a quick look at the use of these parameters.
customer_id
When a Shopify customer_id is present in the URL, no other personal details fields will appear, even if the Enable name and email fields on standalone page option has been enabled.
Similarly, if a customer is logged in to their account on your store and visits a standalone survey page, the personal details fields will be hidden as the page will already know the respondents Shopify customer_id.
order_id
If a Shopify order_id is present in the URL, no other personal details fields will appear, even if the Enable name and email fields on standalone page option has been enabled. The response submitted will be linked to a Shopify order and in turn, it will also be linked to the Shopify customer record associated with the order.
Whether or not you have enabled the Only capture one response per customer option on your survey (read more about limit surveys to one response per customer), if we have already logged a response to the survey associated with that order_id, then the Response already submitted message will appear on the standalone survey page.
If every single parameter were present in the standalone survey page, we would always use the order_id as the main identifiable attribute.
first_name
If the Enable name and email fields on standalone page option has been enabled and the first_name parameter has a value within the standalone survey page URL, we will populate the first name field within the personal details section of the survey.
When the response is submitted, if the email address is associated to an existing Shopify customer record that has a different first name, then we will store the response using the first_name value submitted with the survey response.
last_name
The same as above applies when the last_name parameter has a value within the standalone survey page URL.
If the Enable name and email fields on standalone page option has been enabled and the email parameter has a value within the standalone survey page URL, we will populate the email field within the personal details section of the survey.
If you have enabled the Only capture one response per customer option on your survey (read more about limit surveys to one response per customer), and we have already logged a response to the survey from the same email address, then the Response already submitted message will appear on the standalone survey page.
Response already submitted?
If you have enabled the Only capture one response per customer option on your survey and a respondent tries to answer a survey question again, they will be presented with the following message:
This message is customisable within the main app settings area. Take a look at our app settings article for more information.
How to publish a standalone survey page
Creating a standalone survey page is no different to setting up a regular Grapevine survey. There are a few more options available, e.g. making the responses anonymous or identifiable, as mentioned above, but the process of creating the survey is exactly the same.
Publishing a survey as a standalone survey is simple. Please take a look at our publishing a standalone survey page article to find out how.
How to customise the styling of the standalone survey page
Each standalone survey page can have its own unique styling. Within each surveys settings is a custom CSS area where you can add your own CSS styles to override the default styling.
We have an article on how customise your standalone survey page here.
Distributing your standalone survey pages
The method you choose to distribute standalone surveys will depend on which stage of the customer journey your survey is intended to gather feedback on and the tools that you use to communicate with your customers.
You may wish to send out standalone surveys links via your email sending platform, such as Klaviyo. Standalone survey links accept url parameters that can associate survey responses to a customer id, an order id or an email address - Linking your Standalone Survey page URL within a Klaviyo email
Shopify email notifications
Shopify's email notifications are widely used to notify customers at crucial customer touchpoints, like an abandoned checkout, confirmation of shipping, an order refund or the approval of a return request.
Whilst Shopify's automated notifications provide a good framework for customer touchpoints, they can be quite basic and not that easy to customize. Many of our merchants have, therefore, utilized the OrderlyEmails app to fully brand their email notifications and drop in post-purchase discounts, recommended products and upsells at the same time.
Take a look at why merchants choose to use OrderlyEmails and how it can be used to distribute your standalone survey pages - Adding a standalone survey link to an OrderlyEmails template.
Invoices
If you're using Sufio: Professional Invoices to create and send invoices, credit notes or quotes, then these too are key customer touchpoints where you can ask customers a question about areas of your business that you're looking to either improve or validate.
Take a look at how Sufio: Professional Invoices can be used to distribute your standalone survey pages - Adding a standalone survey link to your Sufio templates
FAQs
How many standalone survey pages can I publish?
What types of survey can I use for the standalone survey pages?
Can I combine standalone survey pages to create a multi-question survey?
Can I change the URL of the standalone survey page?
Can I redirect the standalone survey page once it has been submitted?
Need any help?
Please do get in touch if you have any questions about the standalone survey pages or any other Grapevine Surveys features.