Capturing email address with an anonymous survey link | XM Community
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Hi,



We are looking to distribute a large number of survey invites using our internal tool (mass distribution). Before Qualtrics we were using another survey tool that was capable of capturing the email address of the respondent using modified anonymous link. I know how to set a static value to the anonymous link, however, have no idea if we can achieve our goal the same way using Qualtrics.

We cannot generate links due to a really large number of targeted respondents and we are not allowed to distribute the survey using Qualtrics mailer either.
1.) You can append email like below, but for this you have to generate links.

`anonumouslink?email=emailid`



2.) You can ask email question within survey
Sorry, I don't really get the first option TBH It is Friday after all 😃 ). Are the steps as follows:

1. I upload all respondents to a mailing list

2. Generate links for them all

3. Send out the link from my tool in the following format: anonymouslink?email=emailid, where I only replace the anonymous link part with the one from my survey?

Do I update the survey flow somehow?
> @MsIreen said:

> Sorry, I don't really get the first option TBH It is Friday after all 😃 ). Are the steps as follows:

> 1. I upload all respondents to a mailing list

> 2. Generate links for them all

> 3. Send out the link from my tool in the following format: anonymouslink?email=emailid, where I only replace the anonymous link part with the one from my survey?

> Do I update the survey flow somehow?



Yes, you got it. Add email as an embedded data variable populated from panel or url in your survey flow.
@MsIreen - If that seems like a daunting task, you can just create the mailing list, add an authenticator block to the top of the survey with all the other blocks nested inside, then request that respondents enter their email address to take the survey.



This will then reference the mailing list and pull in any embedded data that you added in the mailing list (like Email address), assuming you add the appropriate fields to an embedded data block in the survey flow.
Secondly, you can make the authentication optional using branching logic... at which time you can still get responses, but you won't know the email address if they don't authenticate.
> @MsIreen said:

> Sorry, I don't really get the first option TBH It is Friday after all 😃 ). Are the steps as follows:

> 1. I upload all respondents to a mailing list

> 2. Generate links for them all

> 3. Send out the link from my tool in the following format: anonymouslink?email=emailid, where I only replace the anonymous link part with the one from my survey?

> Do I update the survey flow somehow?



Hello @MsIreen ,



Follow this link for the implementation.
@TomG somehow it doesn't work.. I might be doing something wrong still...
> @MsIreen said:

> @TomG somehow it doesn't work.. I might be doing something wrong still...

Let's use a simplified example. I have a survey that accepts email as a url parameter then just displays it.



The anonymous survey link is:

https://marketinview.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0cCtbDaaVaSUz2d



The survey flow is:

!



So, the survey link with an email is:

https://marketinview.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0cCtbDaaVaSUz2d?email=test@test.com



The result when you click on the link above:

!



Feel free to try changing the value of email in the link above.
@TomG, Thank you, but the problem is that I don't need a particular value, e.g. email=test@test.com.

I need it to capture the email address from the contact list in my tool. I have several thousands emails to be sent out, I i cannot possibly generate/modify so many links. Our old tool could do this.
@MsIreen,



As I see it you have two options:

1. Give your tool the Qualtrics Anonymous link and have it generate links like the one with an email parameter as shown above.

2. Export the contacts from your tool into a csv and upload them into a Qualtrics Contact list and use Qualtrics to do the distribution.

TomG is there any api for adding email type question to survey and api for fetch email type question?


https://www.qualtrics.com/community/discussion/comment/29070#Comment_29070I'm not sure I understand the question or what you are trying to do. To ask for an email use a text entry question with content validation set to email address.


Curious if MsIreen found a solution? I'm in the same boat now where I'm looking to send Qualtrics survey links to existing customers, and want to be able to track them either by their existing customer ID and/or email address. Ultimately we want the Qualtrics link to be sent via another internal tool. Is there a way to add a custom variable to the end of a Qualtrics link to be able to track it back to existing customers?


https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/54685#Comment_54685You can create Personal Links and download them into a CSV. Then upload that CSV into your other tool.


TomG thank you for the quick response! Would it be possible to share more detailed steps as to how to create personal links?


Actually I guess a follow-up question is also - does it have to be personal links? (I.e. would it then be a separate link for each customer?) What I'm looking for is to be able to send one link to all but still be able to capture their email address and/or customer ID.


Yes, personal links would be a separate link for each person.
If you want to send an anonymous link, then you can use an Authenticator at the beginning of the survey flow. You can add email address to the link as a url parameter (e.g., ?em=test@test.com). Setup the Authenticator to authenticate on email address and pre-prefill with embedded data em.


Would that allow me to capture existing email address from my contact list?


The priority would actually be to capture customer ID's from the contact list. Email addresses are secondary.


If customer IDs are stored in the External Data Reference field of your contact list, then you could use customer id instead of email.
Whichever you use, the link must contain a match to the contact list to Authenticate and get into the survey. Once you authenticate, all contact list fields (e.g., name, email, etc.) will be populated and can be captured.


Thank you TomG! Apologies for all the questions as I'm new at this but is there a resource I can access to learn how to appropriately set-up an authenticator?


https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/54779#Comment_54779See:
https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/survey-flow/advanced-elements/authenticator/


Thank you! So what I'm gathering is with an Authenticator, the survey taker would have to enter a specified password or email address (or some specific piece of info I provide to them) in order for this to work. Unfortunately, this creates extra work/an extra step for them and may cause them to drop off and not complete the survey. The way my other survey tool currently works, we can add in a custom variable to the end of an anonymous link (i.e. ID=[ID_value]&Email=[Email_value]), and when we send the survey link to a list of 1000+ customers through our customer database tool. Then, the customers only have to answer the questions within the survey and not provide any additional information. Is there a way to match this process with Qualtrics?


https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/54790#Comment_54790You can pre-fill a value from a url parameter and if it matches the unique field from the contact list (external data reference or email) the respondent will never see the Authenticator.


Thank you! I'm trying to test this out but when I follow steps to add an authenticator to my survey it's grayed out and unavailable to choose. Why would this be?


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