4 Common Methods Used to Ask for Email Feedback

How many emails do you throw away unopened? Or perhaps an even better question, how often do you scroll through an entire email without actually feeling engaged? This is oh-so-common in the world of email, and certainly presents a challenge for all email marketers out there. Thankfully, we’re here to tell you that there’s a solution for your struggles called email feedback. But we’ll get to that in a minute…

As an email marketer your main goal is to ensure that your target audience is actually reading your email messages and taking something away from them, right? Well then… logically speaking, that means that you will need to know what your audience wants to read in the first place. This is a very challenging feat for many email marketers, especially considering the fact that most of your email recipients will decide if they want to open your email in just a matter of seconds. That leaves with you a very short window in which your email content must be convincing and worthy of their time and attention. Think about it. How nice would it be if you could read the minds of your audience members and know whether the content you’re sending them meets their needs?

Unfortunately, we can’t teach you how to read minds, but we can help you understand your audience better. With user feedback software you can give customers a voice and the space to express their opinion.



In this blog we will explain the 4 most common methods to ask for email feedback. After all, there is more to email feedback than the well-known thumbs up or down at the bottom of your newsletter.

Common methods to ask for email feedback

So how can you ask for email feedback? Here are the four most common methods:

• Email signature feedback
• Email feedback survey
• Email campaign feedback
• Email Survey Invite (via landing page)

Not familiar with all of these? No worries, we’ll dive into these four methods individually so that you can clearly see the differences and advantages. Note: the one certainly does not rule out the other. Many organisations use a combination of these surveys. And by experimenting with the different methods, you will discover which types of email feedback suit your company and your target group and which provide you with the highest “response rates”.

Let’s start with a somewhat unfamiliar way of asking for email feedback.

Email signature feedback

As you might’ve guessed, in order to collect email signature feedback, you’ll need to have a preset email signature in place. Typically this signature will include your contact details and job title, and sometimes it’ll even show which days you’re available along with any important links you want to add.

Now we’re going to take it one step further and include feedback in your signature. Now bear with me, as this is a relatively new phenomenon grabbing hold of the market. Email signature feedback (as it is called), or email signature surveys is a form of email feedback that is slightly different from email campaign feedback or ‘normal’ email feedback, which we’ll get to in the next sections.

Email signature feedback is a very quick and easy way to collect feedback. Typically this type of feedback survey asks one simple question and uses a simple rating, such as, smileys or even a numerical value. Why so easy? It simply asks the reader to select a rating depending on the question and bam – they’re done!

By placing such an e-mail snippet in your email signature, you’re essentially always including a short feedback form in all of your emails. It may not always be relevant, but often it really pays off.

Advantages of email signature feedback:

• You get a constant stream of feedback
• You can easily determine the sentiment around a certain theme
• Because the answers are short, you can quickly draw conclusions from them

Disadvantages of email signature feedback:

• Your form is always included, even if it is not always relevant
• You cannot see who gave the answer

Example questions of feedback via your email signature:

• How would you rate our services? (To determine whether you’ve met the expectations of your customers.)
• What do you think of the brand X? (For inquiring about brand strength and brand preference.)
• Do you know product X? (To see if a particular campaign is successful.)
• What do you think of our “tone of voice”? (To determine if you have the correct style of writing.)

By adding these questions to your email signature, you will reap the greatest benefits of email feedback, which are ease and speed.

Now let’s take a look at standard email feedback surveys.

Email feedback surveys

Now that you know how to incorporate feedback into your email signature, let’s take a look at email feedback surveys. These are those ‘normal’ survey emails that you send from your own inbox. Because these are personal and targeted messages, they provide a lot of qualitative data.

Example of email feedback

For example, Mopinion uses these types of email surveys as a follow up after giving a demo of our software. As soon as one of our feedback specialists has given a demo, we send a follow-up email asking how the user experienced the demo and what they think of the software itself.

This works with a click-through, whereby the person can leave additional information. Because we target and ask specific questions using this feedback, we can gain good insight into the quality of our demos, the wants/needs of our prospects and of course, gain some key learnings into the quality of the demo presentation conducted by our feedback specialist.

Try email campaign feedback today

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Email campaign feedback

This form of email feedback is slightly different. With email campaign feedback, an email snippet is added to an automated email. In the email itself this form appears as an embedded feedback survey.

Examples of automated emails might include welcome emails, order confirmations, related product emails, support notifications, newsletters and more.

Note: As you might notice, many of these examples are taken from the retail industry. Want more specific advice regarding collecting this type of feedback in retail? Then be sure to check out our article Best Practices for Collecting Email Feedback in Retail.

These types of feedback surveys are particularly useful in that campaign emails are typically sent out automatically and in bulk, meaning that the user can gather a lot of feedback from a lot of readers in a short period of time.

The challenge here is identifying whether these emails are actually ‘hitting the mark’ with your customers. For example, how was your newsletter content received by your audience? Were there textual factors that might have influenced your conversion rates? Was the content relevant for the reader?


Example of email campaign feedback in the Mopinion newsletter

By collecting email campaign feedback you can learn a lot about why your readers are or are not reading your emails. Curious to learn about newsletter feedback specifically? Be sure to check out our post How to Use Feedback Surveys in Your Email Newsletters.

Want to see how other leading brands gather email feedback? Check out these inspiring examples of feedback survey emails.

Email survey invite via landing page

As a final method, we will look at email survey invites that are collected via a link to a landing page. This email feedback collection method is used when the user is looking to gather more in-depth feedback, but does not want to compromise the quality of the email with a lengthy survey at the end.

This type of feedback form is similar to the email campaign feedback method in that a survey is embedded into the email. However, the difference is when the reader submits his/her feedback (depending on their answers), they are redirected to a separate landing page with additional survey questions.

For example, when an NPS score is submitted that is lower than 7 (if that’s the rule the user chooses to implement), then the reader will be redirected to a landing page with additional questions which will help the user gain more clarity regarding the low NPS score.

User case: Decathlon

One of Mopinion’s customers, Decathlon (a global sporting goods store) collects feedback in this way.

So how do they do it?
To find out what customers think of their various brands, Decathlon uses extensive surveys, aimed purely at a specific target group, i.e. runners. Following their purchase, the customer receives an email with a link to the landing page that includes additional questions.

After someone has left a specific score in the email, the above landing page will appear. As you can see, Decathlon also clearly indicates how much time it will take to fill in the survey.


Source: Decathlon

Depending on how the questions are answered (this is called question routing), a new set of questions will appear. In this way, the user gets truly valuable, in-depth and relevant feedback.

The result? After their customers have filled in this survey, they are provided with detailed feedback about what their customers think about the product, service or brand and more importantly, what can be improved.

Note: always remember that if you change or improve something, you should inform your customers. By letting them know that something has been done with their feedback, you’ll create a more loyal and trusting customer base.

Start asking for email feedback today!

As this article has clearly demonstrated, collecting feedback via email is certainly a valuable and rewarding method if you truly want to listen to your customers. Whichever method you choose, we guarantee you’ll be well on your way to improved email campaigns and a better understanding of your customer base and how they interact with your brand.