How To Survey Your Audience In WordPress (And Add Every Answer To Your Email List)

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Most of what we sell starts as a hunch. “I think they need help with traffic.” “I think they would pay for this.” Half the time the hunch is wrong, and you only find out after you have built the thing.

Your audience will tell you exactly what they want to buy. You just have to ask them the right way: short, one question at a time, at the right moment, with a reason to answer. And then you have to do something with what they told you, which is where most surveys fall down. The answers sit in a spreadsheet and nobody ever hears back.

This guide shows you how I survey my own list with ResultsAiX Surveys, a WordPress plugin. It covers how to write the survey, how to get people to finish it, how every answer lands in your email list with the right tags, and how to turn the results into your next offer.

Step 1: Write the survey from one sentence

Click New Survey and describe what you want to learn in the Draft it with AI box. Say who you are asking and what decision you are trying to make. Pick how many questions you want (5, 7, 10 or 12) and click Generate Survey. Or press Talk and just say it: dictation runs in your own browser and costs nothing.

A good brief looks like this:

I run an online business teaching people to build an email list. I want to find out what is holding my subscribers back right now, whether they already have a list, and what kind of help they would actually use this month.

The AI writes the questions and their answer options, the opt-in and thank-you copy, and suggests a colour and card style. It keeps questions short, specific and neutral, and puts easy taps first and open text last, which is what keeps people answering. Nothing is saved or published until you click Save, so treat the draft as a first pass and edit anything.

No AI key? You can build the same survey by hand with Add question. The AI only writes the draft and the analysis at the end; everything else works without it.

Step 2: Choose the right question types

There are seven question types. Choosing the right one is the difference between answers you can count and answers you cannot use.

• Multiple choice (pick one): the workhorse. Two to six short options. A tap moves the survey on by itself, so these are the fastest to answer.
• Checkboxes (pick several): for “select all that apply”, such as which kinds of help someone would use.
• Star rating (1 to 5): satisfaction or confidence in one tap. You get the average and the full spread.
• Score 0 to 10: the classic “how likely are you to recommend us” question.
• Yes / No: two side-by-side buttons. Perfect for splitting people into paths.
• Short answer: one line of text, such as a single feature or a one-word reason.
• Long answer: the box for answers that actually explain things. Put it last.

Use choices and ratings to get numbers you can chart, and one written question to find out why the numbers look the way they do. A good survey has both.

Step 3: Show different questions to different people

Under any question except the first, tick Only show this question if, pick an earlier question and the answers that should lead here. Everybody else skips straight past it.

In the example above, question 2 asks “Do you have an email list already?”. People who answer Yes are asked how big it is. People who answer No are asked what is stopping them. One survey, two paths, and nobody is asked a question that does not apply to them. The question count and the progress bar follow each person’s own path.

If people tend to drop out partway, switch on Save answers as they go. Every answer is kept the moment it is given, so someone who answers two questions and leaves still shows up as “answered 2 of 7”, and you can tag people who started but did not finish.

Step 4: What your visitors see

Visitors get one question at a time, with a progress bar and a “Question 1 of 5” counter. Taps move them on automatically, Back is always there after the first question, and the whole thing works properly on a phone. A short stepper like this finishes far more often than a long form that scrolls.

Use Preview before anything goes live. It opens the survey exactly as visitors will see it, unsaved changes included, and nothing is recorded.

Step 5: Turn answers into subscribers with the opt-in step

The email step comes after the last question, which is the best moment you will get: they have just put effort in and want to know they were heard. Set it to Off (fully anonymous), Optional (the safest default for honest answers) or Required (the most subscribers, with some drop-off at the last step).

The heading is where most people lose sign-ups. “Enter your email” is a chore. “Where should I send the training that fits your answers?” is a reason. Ask for the first name too, and every follow-up email can be personal.

Step 6: Send each answer to the right list, tag and page

This is where a survey becomes a quiz funnel. Under Route answers, each rule reads like a sentence: if question 1 is “Building my email list”, add them to the List Builders list, tag them wants-list and send them to the free list-building page.

Every part after the answer is optional, so a rule can add to a list, add tags, redirect, or any mix. Several rules can match one person, and they join every list they earned. The first matching redirect wins, and the survey’s own thank-you page is the fallback. Rules work with choices, checkboxes, yes/no, ratings and scores.

The result: someone who struggles with traffic gets traffic help, someone who does not know what to sell gets your offer checklist, and the person who ticked “one-to-one help” is tagged as a hot lead for you to email personally.

Step 7: Add survey answers to your email list

Connect your email service once on the Integrations & AI tab and every survey can send its opt-ins straight there, into the list you pick, with real tags added to whatever tags a contact already has.

Built in: AWeber, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Kit, GetResponse, Brevo, Systeme.io, HighLevel, SendFox, LeadsLeap, any service with a sign-up form, and ResultsAiX Mailer on the same site with no key at all. Use Send a test contact to watch one real contact arrive with its list and tags.

Nothing gets lost on the way. Every opt-in is saved on your own site first. If your email service is busy, the contact is tried again after 1 minute, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours and 12 hours, and anything it refuses is shown to you in the service’s own words.

Step 8: Publish your survey five ways

1. The shortcode on any page or post, for example [results_survey id="3"].
2. Its own page, created with one click at the address you choose, clean and theme-free like a funnel page.
3. An email link that carries each subscriber’s email and first name, so they skip the name and email step and their answers land on their own subscriber record.
4. An embed on any other website or funnel builder, with every response flowing back to your site.
5. An exit intent popup, shown once per visitor, on desktop only, and closed with one click or the Escape key.

A setup that works well: a two-question popup running across your site for passive feedback, plus a longer survey on its own page that you link to from your emails.

Step 9: Read the results and let AI explain them

Start with the funnel along the top. Times shown against started answering tells you whether people walk past the survey. Started against completed tells you whether it is too long or too nosy. Then every question has its own chart, and the Hourly chart stacks responses by time of day, which tells you when your audience is actually awake.

Click Analyze with AI and you get a short summary, the overall mood, the key findings with the numbers behind them, and recommended next steps. The AI works only from your real answers and never invents numbers. Treat 200 responses as a signal and 5 as an anecdote. You can also export every response to CSV or print a clean PDF report.

Three surveys you can copy today

1. “What is holding you back?” for any email list

• Q1 (multiple choice): What is the biggest thing holding your online business back right now? Getting traffic / Building my email list / Knowing what to sell / Turning subscribers into buyers / Finding the time.
• Q2 (yes / no): Do you have an email list already?
• Q3 (star rating): How confident are you writing emails that sell?
• Q4 (checkboxes): Which of these would you use this month?
• Q5 (long answer): If I could fix one thing for you this month, what would it be?
• Route: tag each Q1 answer and send it to the matching free training. Tag 1 or 2 stars on Q3 as needs-email-help.

2. “Why did you stop?” for course creators

• Q1 (multiple choice): How far did you get? Module 1 / Halfway / Nearly finished / I finished it.
• Q2 (multiple choice): What stopped you? Not enough time / I got stuck / It was not what I expected / Something else came up.
• Q3 (star rating): How useful was what you did watch?
• Q4 (long answer): What would have kept you going?
• Switch on Save answers as they go, so a half-finished answer still counts. Route “I got stuck” to your help lesson and tag them for a check-in email.

3. “What should I build next?” for product creators

• Q1 (checkboxes): Which of these would you use? List three to five ideas you are weighing up.
• Q2 (multiple choice): Which one would you buy first?
• Q3 (multiple choice): What would you expect to pay? Give three honest ranges.
• Q4 (score 0 to 10): How likely are you to recommend what I already sell?
• Q5 (long answer): What is the one thing you wish someone would build for you?
• Route the Q2 answers to a list per idea, so the people who asked for it hear first when it is ready.

8 rules for surveys people actually finish

1. Keep it short. Five to eight questions finish far more often than fifteen. Ask only what you will act on.
2. Open with an easy tap. A choice or a rating first builds momentum. A blank text box first kills it.
3. Save open text for last. By then people are invested and the answers are longer and better.
4. One thing per question. “Was it fast and useful?” is two questions, and the answer tells you neither.
5. Do not lead. “How much did you love it?” only collects the answer you already wanted.
6. Required is a cost. Every required question is a place someone can quit.
7. Earn the email. Give people a reason, not a chore.
8. Close the loop. Tell people what you changed because of their answers. It is the best way to double the replies to your next survey.

And ask a question you are willing to be wrong about. A survey that only confirms what you already believe was an expensive way to feel good.

What it costs

ResultsAiX Surveys is $47 a year for 3 sites, with unlimited surveys and unlimited responses, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. It is also included in the ResultsAiX Bundle with every other ResultsAiX plugin.

The AI features use your own Claude or OpenAI key, paid to the provider at cost with nothing added. They are small, occasional calls: one when you draft a survey and one each time you analyse the results, typically fractions of a cent to a couple of cents on the recommended model.

Questions people ask