In short:
A survey reminder email follows up with people who have not yet completed your survey. Most studies need one or two reminders, with three to four as a practical maximum before you risk spam complaints. Send the first reminder 48 to 72 hours after the invitation, ideally on a midweek morning. A strong reminder includes a fresh subject line under 60 characters, a personalized greeting, a quick reminder of why the survey matters, a direct link, a completion time estimate, and a deadline. Response gains drop sharply with each wave, so know when to stop.
A survey reminder email is a follow-up message sent to people who received your survey invitation but have not responded yet, nudging them to complete it before the survey closes. Sending one invitation is rarely enough, and a well-timed reminder or two is one of the easiest ways to lift your response rate.
The catch is that more is not always better. Send too many, too fast, with the same tired subject line, and you annoy people and hurt your sender reputation. As an online survey company, we field reminders on nearly every online survey project, so this guide covers how many to send, when to send them, what to say, and when to stop.
A survey reminder email is a short follow-up sent to non-respondents, the people who received your invitation but have not completed the survey. Its only job is to gently prompt them to take it before the window closes.
Reminders matter because most people who intend to take a survey simply forget. Life gets in the way, the invitation slips down the inbox, and without a nudge, those responses are lost. A good reminder recovers a meaningful share of them, which is why email surveys almost always include at least one.
Reminders directly help you hit your goal response rate. If your list is large enough, a single invitation might collect a statistically reliable sample on its own. More often, it does not, and reminders are what carry you across the line or fill in specific demographics that came to light.
A pre-survey email helps too.
Before the invitation even goes out, we often send a short note from the client explaining why the survey matters and introducing Drive Research as the third party running it.
Setting that expectation early makes the invitation and its reminders land better. For more ways to lift participation, see our guide to increasing survey response rates.
Useful resource:
Read more Quick Tips for Online Surveys to learn simple ways to improve survey quality, engagement, and results.
For most surveys, send at least one reminder, then a final reminder if response rates are still low.
That puts the typical total at two or three sends, including the original invitation. Your early responders tend to hold the strongest opinions at either extreme, so reminders also help pull in middle-of-the-road voices, making your results more representative.
The reason not to keep going forever is simple. Each wave returns fewer responses than the one before, a steep case of diminishing returns.
The diminishing returns pattern.
In our experience, if the initial invitation brings in 100% of a typical response wave, the first reminder adds roughly half of that, the second about a quarter, and a third closer to an eighth. The drop-off is steep, which is why most studies stop after one or two reminders.
The practical ceiling is around three to four reminders. Past that, you are spending sender reputation for a tiny handful of responses.
If your list is small or the response is critical, weigh the cost of additional survey waves against switching tactics, such as adding a phone follow-up, which we cover below. And keep an eye on quality, since aggressive reminders can attract low-effort or fraudulent responses.
⚠️ More reminders carry real risk. Every additional reminder raises unsubscribe rates and the odds of being marked as spam, which can hurt deliverability for future sends. List health matters, so factor it into how many you send and watch for the kind of problems covered in our guide to common issues when launching a survey.
Timing is where many reminders go wrong. Send the first reminder 48 to 72 hours after the initial invitation. That window gives genuinely busy people time to respond on their own, while the survey is still fresh in their minds.
Send it too soon, and you pester the people who were going to answer anyway. Wait too long, and the invitation is buried and forgotten, and your momentum is gone.
Day and time matter too.
Midweek mornings, roughly Tuesday through Thursday between 9 and 11 a.m., tend to see the highest open and click rates as people work through their inboxes.
That said, we also see excellent response in the evening from 8 to 10 p.m., when people are relaxing on the couch with a phone or tablet, so a mobile-friendly survey can do well with an evening send.
If you are sending more than one reminder, space them out rather than stacking them back-to-back.
A common rhythm is the invitation, a first reminder 48 to 72 hours later, a second reminder a few days after that, and a final reminder timed to land the day before the survey closes.
Spreading them out keeps the cadence from feeling like a barrage and gives each send its own chance to catch someone at a better moment.
Pro Tip: Match the send time to your audience, not the calendar. A reminder to nurses, retail staff, or shift workers will land very differently than one to office workers, so think about when your specific respondents actually check email.
A high-performing reminder is short and has a clear job. Include these elements and little else:
Keep the tone friendly and the message scannable. The harder a reminder is to read, the less likely it is to work, the same principle behind making the survey itself engaging for respondents.
The subject line decides whether your reminder gets opened at all, so it is worth real attention.
Above all, change the subject line for each reminder. If someone ignored your first one, a fresh angle gives you another shot, and there is no downside to trying something new when the alternative is no response at all.
Here is a simple first reminder you can adapt:
Subject: Quick reminder, your [Company] survey is still open
Hi [First name], we noticed you haven’t had a chance to take our short survey yet. Your feedback directly shapes [what it informs], and it takes only about 3 minutes. [Take the survey] before it closes on [Friday]. Thank you for helping us improve.
And a shorter final reminder for the last day:
Subject: Last chance, the [Company] survey closes [Friday]
Hi [First name], this is the final reminder for our survey, which closes [Friday]. It takes about 3 minutes, and your input genuinely makes a difference. [Take the survey now]. Thanks so much.
When email reminders stall and you still need responses, a phone call can break the logjam. A short, friendly call reminding someone about the survey, or even offering to complete it over the phone, reaches people who tune out email entirely.
This mixed-mode approach, combining email and phone, is a proven way to increase response rates among hard-to-reach groups.
Phone follow-ups take more time and cost more than an email, so they make the most sense when your sample is small, your audience skews toward older or less email-engaged respondents, or hitting a specific quota is critical.
Our comparison of online surveys versus phone surveys digs into when each mode shines and how to blend them.
How many survey reminder emails should I send?
Send at least one reminder, then a final reminder if response rates are still low. Two to three total sends, including the invitation, is the sweet spot. Three to four is the practical ceiling, since each additional reminder returns fewer responses and raises the risk of spam complaints.
When should I send a survey reminder email?
Send the first reminder 48 to 72 hours after the initial invitation. Midweek mornings tend to see the best open rates, though evenings can work well for mobile-friendly surveys. Sending too soon annoys people, and waiting too long lets the invitation get forgotten.
What should a survey reminder email say?
Keep it short. Include a fresh subject line, a personalized greeting, a one-sentence reminder of why the survey matters, a direct link, a completion time estimate like “takes 3 minutes,” and a deadline if you have one.
How do I write a survey reminder email subject line?
Keep it under 60 characters, reference the survey without repeating the original subject verbatim, add a time element such as “closes Friday,” personalize it when possible, and avoid all-caps or heavy punctuation. Change it for each reminder so it feels new.
What is the average survey response rate?
It varies widely with the audience and the relationship. External email surveys often land somewhere in the 10% to 30% range, while internal surveys and highly engaged lists do considerably better. Reminders, incentives, and a strong subject line all push that number up.
Should I change the subject line for each reminder?
Yes. If a recipient ignored your first subject line, repeating it gives them no new reason to open. A fresh subject line, ideally with a deadline or a different angle, gives each reminder its own chance to land.
Drive Research is a national market research company, and we manage the full survey process for clients across the country, from invitations and perfectly timed reminders through analysis and reporting. We know how to lift response rates without burning out your list.
If you have an upcoming project or just a question about reminder strategy, we are happy to help. You can also browse our online survey FAQ for quick answers.
Contact Drive Research today to talk through your survey and how to get the strongest possible response.
