Kickstarter’s survey tool makes it easy to collect information from your backers in order to fulfill rewards, such as mailing addresses, reward options (e.g. size, color, add-ons), or anything else you might need.
You can start building your surveys at any time during your project’s funding period. However, don’t worry about gathering backers' information before your project is funded. If backers are curious, let them know that you’ll follow up when you're ready to deliver their rewards. For more information about tools to help you with fulfillment, please visit the Creator Handbook.
To create a survey, simply follow the steps below:
- Open the creator menu on your project page and click the “Reward surveys” button
- Select the reward tier you are creating a survey for and, if you’d like, include an introduction for your backers
- Add questions by choosing from one of the three question formats in the dropdown menu: text (open answer), multiple choice, and address
- By default a question will require an answer, however you can choose to make some optional. Keep in mind that if a question isn’t optional backers will be unable to leave answers blank. If a question doesn't apply to everyone in that reward tier, make sure to provide them with the option to say "Not Applicable"
- If your survey includes an address question you can opt to let backers update their shipping information until you are ready to ship, at which point you can close the survey
- We run the addresses that backers provide through a validation check, just to make sure that the address is properly formatted and to catch any typos
- Questions are automatically saved as you work on them, so if you’re not ready to send a survey yet you can always return to it later. When you are ready, simply click the "Send Survey" button
Remember, surveys can only be sent once per reward tier, so make sure that you are asking for everything you need in order to fulfill backers’ rewards.
You can view the survey responses in your backer report, or export them as a CSV file that you can open in Excel, Numbers, or any spreadsheet program.
Please keep in mind that for backers who have opted to hide their email address when signing up to Kickstarter with their Apple ID, you will only be able to see their private relay email address in your backer report at the end of the campaign. The unique private relay email address tied to their Kickstarter account can only be used for communication within Kickstarter. This means that any communication you may send outside of our platform will unfortunately not reach their inbox.
If you need these backers’ email addresses to fulfill your project, we recommend reaching out to them directly via the Kickstarter messaging system to request that information. To message backers individually, just use the 'Send Message' link from the backer list or their backer card.
Once you obtain the information, you can update the email address for the backer by editing your backer export. It isn’t possible to change the email address on the platform, however you can leave a note to yourself for the backer in your backer report. If you are using a third-party survey service, we suggest that you update the information there too, and if needs be re-send the survey link to the backer.
Please note: The backer report export contains personal information about backers, and it is your responsibility to protect it. Do not share it with services or third parties you do not trust. If you do use backers’ information with another service, like a shipping partner, make sure to read their Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to see how they handle private information.
How do I collect information related to add-on rewards?
If you need to collect specific information related to add-on rewards (such as size or color), we recommend including optional questions in your survey for the relevant reward tiers to allow backers who selected add-ons to provide the necessary information.
For any backers who haven’t selected a specific add-on they can either leave the text box blank or, if the question isn’t optional, write "Not Applicable".
What should I do if there are backers who haven’t provided their information?
If you are still waiting to receive information from some backers, and you have made attempts to contact them, we recommend moving forward with the next stage of your project. We email backers when a survey is sent, and send them a reminder email every week for two weeks. They will also see a notification banner on top of the screen reminding them to complete the survey when they next log in, so it’s possible they may still get in touch with their information.
If your backer report access has expired, you can request an extension following a few simple steps.