Your LimeSurvey version: Version 5.6.7

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Hi everyone,

I just activated a survey and shared it but I am getting a lot of empty responses with "-1" in the "last page". Does anyone know why this is happening and whether there is a way to prevent this problem?

Thank you,
Maria

 

Hi,
you get this "-1" when the respondent gets to the first page after seeing the welcome page, but goes back and terminates the survey.
 

What what do you mean by "a lot"?
Is it an open or closed survey?
You see, people open the survey
"oh, no, that seems to be too boring", and close
"oh, so many questions", and close.
"oh, I'm not interested in this", and close.

In an open survey I'd be rather satisfied with less than 90% dropouts.

whether there is a way to prevent this problem?

You may read this
 
and create a welcome page where you invite the participant, where you explain that his opinion is really important for him, that his opinion leads to an improvements of ...
Do not be too academic.

Joffm

Hi Joffm,

Thank you for your response.

It is an open survey, however, this was happening (getting many "-1") before sharing the survey link. I am using Tiktok and Instagram paid ads, and it already was happening when I tested the link included in the ads (as a preview before publishing the ads). This makes me think that it is not only people entering the survey and going back after seeing the welcome page.

By "a lot" I mean, for example, right now from 100 responses, only 3 are good ones, the rest are "-1". This is 97% dropouts. Not sure if I need to wait for more responses to get a more realistic percentage though.

I will definitely have a look at the attached file and make changes in the welcome page to have a friendlier tone and be less academic.

Thank you,
Maria

By "a lot" I mean, for example, right now from 100 responses, only 3 are good ones, the rest are "-1". This is 97% dropouts. Not sure if I need to wait for more responses to get a more realistic percentage though.

3% good responses sounds pretty normal to me (like completed responses I assume?).

I am using Tiktok and Instagram paid ads,

I am not overly surprised that you are not getting quality traffic from those sources. It also depends on how you "advertise". Many might feel lured into something they are ultimately not interested in.

With open surveys and a not so well defined target group you usually won't get over 10% of finished surveys. Everything between 5-10% is already a good return in my opinion. Anything around 3-4% I would still consider fairly normal and even 1-2% wouldn't surprise me much, depending on how you "recruit", if the topic is relevant to respondents, if the survey is not too boring.

Also, be aware that there are a lot of bots out there, which also might be a possible explanation.

MariaAP wrote:

and it already was happening when I tested the link included in the ads (as a preview before publishing the ads).
 

Can you explain what you mean by "preview". If you NOT shared the survey link, you won't receive that many entries.
Sharing can be everything. If you enter the URL in a form for an advertising planner tools, bots and people might already check the link before you placed an ad.
Browsers preload links in pages etc. There are many ways the link will be shared with a third party without intention.

If you conduct public surveys you will get used to the empty responses.

Hi,

Thank you for your message.

By "preview" I mean that there is an option to check whether the survey link works when creating an ad. So yes, you are right. I think when doing this bots might have checked before I placed the ad.

Thank you for your help!