At the start of last year, I signed up with a lot of survey sites in a bid to make some extra cash or get some vouchers to help out with presents etc. I opted out of the vast majority of them due to it taking a long time to reach redemption thresholds or being screened out of surveys after fifteen minutes of answering questions. This is one of the few that I've kept up with (along with Valued Opinions, Crowdology and OnePoll).
Signing Up
Like most of the survey sites, it is pretty simple and straight forward to join up. You will need to fill in details about yourself, and Ipsos will also ask for details relating to other members of your household, even if they don't actually want to take part in filling in the surveys.
Number of Surveys
As a general rule of thumb, I am emailed survey invitations around once a week. It used to be two or more times a week but this has dwindled lately and sometimes it will be more like once a fortnight. The survey invitations will not always be for you - sometimes they will be addressed to other members of the household if they fit the demographic. If they choose to respond, the points are credited to your account. If you don't qualify for a particular survey, your account will be accredited with 10 points as standard so you can still build up points without actually completing surveys. My invitation emails tend not to state the number of points on offer per survey and that information is only given once I've completed the intial demographic questions that tell me whether I've qualified or not. Some surveys don't offer points but give entries into prize draws instead.
Redemptions
Ipsos offers a lot of voucher redemptions instead of cash or Paypal payments. You can redeem for most High Street vouchers but I usually go for Boots to fund my toiletries obsession or Amazon to fund my growing wishlist of books. A £5 voucher usually 'costs' around 750 points, while a £10 voucher 'costs' around 1380 points. I've been a member of Ipsos for around a year and three months now as it was one of the last survey sites that I joined, and I have redeemed for a number of vouchers, mostly of the £5 variety but with the odd £10 one thrown in. Paper vouchers usually come in around 3 weeks to a month. E-vouchers turn up after around a week.
Is It Worth It?
For the odd voucher every now and then, Ipsos is one of the better survey sites in my opinion. I don't get that many surveys from them, but I like the fact that you receive something even if you don't qualify for the surveys, although it will take a very long time to redeem even a £5 voucher if you barely qualify for any surveys. On the whole, I get more vouchers from Valued Opinions (in the last three month time frame, I've requested two £10 Boots or Amazon (one of each) vouchers from Valued Opinions and am around 60% of the way towards another. In comparison, I've only been able to request one £5 Amazon voucher from Ipsos in the last few months and am continually being screened out of surveys and hardly picking up any points. However, most survey sites don't offer points for not qualifying for surveys. I tend to qualify for around 75 per cent of Ipsos surveys that I'm invited to but as I said, this isn't a huge number.
Loyalty Points
One big plus point in Ipsos' favour is the introduction of loyalty points to top up your account. The idea is that you complete every survey you're invited to and receive extra points when you hit certain milestones, for example 10 surveys completed or 25. I've recently received 125 loyalty points into my account, which was a lovely bonus, especially as I'd not been qualifying for that many in recent weeks.
