CRO 101: How to Pick the Perfect Survey Questions
Get the scoop on which survey questions will help you gather the most useful information from your visitors at the start, middle, and end of their journey.
The on-site survey can be a mixed bag, sometimes. When done right you can get a lot of extremely valuable conversion optimization information from customers , but it's not all gold. As we all know, sometimes surveys can be bothersome or poorly timed. When putting a survey on your site, it's important to go into it with your expectations aligned.
TL;DR: Two surveys are worth running on almost every eCommerce site: an exit survey (for visitors leaving without converting) and a post-conversion survey (for buyers who just completed a purchase). Exit surveys tell you what people couldn't find. Post-conversion surveys tell you what actually motivated the purchase — which is the language you need in your copy, ads, and product pages.
When and where do I put my survey?
Most survey tools will assist with the timing and placement of your survey. However, you want to be sure it's not covering any important content on the page. Typically, the survey should go in the left or right corner so it's not obstructing anything, and just visible enough so it can't be entirely ignored by the people who want to engage with a brand they love.
As for the timing, please don't just show it to everyone who lands on your site. That is the best way to guarantee poor results. First, you need to figure out what information you are looking for, and what people are best suited to give you that information.
The Exit Survey
The exit survey is ideal for improving your user experience and shows your survey to people about to leave the site without clicking or engaging with anything. You're identifying and showing this survey to people who are leaving your site because they likely haven't found what they're looking for. If you have what they're looking for, but people can't find it, then it's obviously important to know this information.
Typical exit survey questions include:
- What brought you to our site today?
- Did you find what you were looking for?
- Please tell us more about what you were looking for.
- What could have improved your experience?
The Post-Conversion Survey
My favorite, and one of the most overlooked surveys is the post-conversion survey. It's important because you're gathering information from people who have been through your entire sales funnel and actually bought from you. They also encountered and overcame any barriers, but certainly weren't oblivious to them. This survey is where we can gather useful information on what emotions led to a purchase, and why people choose your company over the competition. You want to use this type of survey to identify the pains that a customer is experiencing leading up to the purchase, and how your product or service resolves them.
Great questions for your post-conversion survey include:
- How would you describe "your company" to a friend?
- Which other options did you consider before choosing our product or service?
- Why did you decide to use us?
- What nearly stopped you from buying from us?
- What was going on in your life that made you purchase our product or service?
- Before you purchased our product or service, how did you solve this problem?
- If you could no longer use our product or service, what would you miss the most?
- What's the #1 thing you would mention to a friend or family member if you wanted them to try our product or service?
Conclusion
Start with what information you're looking to gather from your survey. Then, identify which visitors are most qualified to give you that information. Make sure your survey is showing up at the right time and isn't too obstructive but not completely invisible. Lastly, make sure you understand the nature of the survey game. Not every answer will be gold, but there will be nuggets if you do it correctly.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I show an exit survey?
Show exit surveys to visitors who have been on the site for at least 20–30 seconds but are about to leave without clicking anything substantive. Triggering it immediately on page load creates friction before the visitor has experienced anything. Targeting visitors who haven't engaged with any CTA or product page gives you the most useful signal — these are people who came with intent but didn't find what they needed. Most survey tools (Hotjar, Getsitecontrol, Klaviyo on-site forms) allow you to set behavioral triggers for exactly this.
How many questions should be in a survey?
One to three questions per survey — never more. Each additional question reduces response rate significantly. For exit surveys, one open-ended question often generates more insight than a five-question form. For post-conversion surveys, limit to the questions that map directly to your current optimization hypothesis. The goal isn't comprehensive data collection — it's targeted insight on a specific question you're trying to answer about your audience.
What do I do with the survey responses once I have them?
Tag and cluster responses by theme. Look for patterns — if 30% of exit survey responses mention confusion about shipping costs, that's a priority fix. If 40% of post-conversion respondents say they bought because of a specific feature or benefit you're not highlighting prominently, rewrite your headline. The responses should feed directly into your CRO test backlog: each pattern becomes a hypothesis, and each hypothesis becomes a test. ConversionFlow uses this process — voice-of-customer to hypothesis to A/B test — as the core of its CRO methodology.
Can surveys hurt my conversion rate if done wrong?
Yes. Surveys that trigger immediately on page load, cover important content, appear too frequently, or show to people actively engaged in checkout can create friction and frustration. The fix is behavioral targeting: only show surveys to visitors who meet specific criteria (time on site, scroll depth, exit intent, or post-purchase confirmation page). Never show a survey during the checkout flow. Test your trigger settings on a small segment of traffic first to confirm they're not creating a negative experience before rolling them out broadly.
Final Thought: Your Customers Are Already Writing Your Best Copy
Every post-conversion survey response is a potential headline. Every exit survey answer points to a gap in your messaging or UX. The brands that use this data consistently — feeding it back into their copy, their A/B tests, their product pages — compound their conversion rate advantage over time. The ones that don't are guessing. There's no reason to guess when the answers are one question away.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about when to run surveys, how many questions to include, and how to act on the results.
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