Survata ^[1], a Silicon Valley start up, just launched a research service competitive with Google Consumer Surveys. I recently talked with one of the co-founders, Chris Kelley, about how his services compare with  Google Consumer Surveys ^[2].

Although it is never easy to compete with Google, we believe Survata has an interesting service. We also believe the market for online research services is large enough that more than one company will likely survive, and we believe Survata has provided an interesting offering.

What is Survata?

Chris started Survata with his friend Aaron Wenger, and it was seed funded just four months ago by Y Combinator ^[3], a prestigious and interesting startup incubator in Mountain View, CA.

Survata and Google Consumer Surveys use similar models for research. Online consumers can access premium content on publisher sites in exchange for answering research questions. Companies pay Survata or Google to gather data, while Survata or Google pay publishers for the information.

Although similar, Survata says its services provide an improvement over what Google offers because:

• Survata offers more questions. Survata can run up to four consecutive questions to the same respondent, which allows for cross tab analysis. Google only asks one question per respondent, or two questions if the first is a qualifying question.
• Survata argues that its data sources are more reliable. Survata buys data from about six different companies in order to identify demographic characteristics such as gender, geography, income and age. Google Surveys gets its data from one source, Double Click, and much of the information is inferred from site usage and IP address.
• Survata has a lower minimum cost. The minimum project cost with Survata is $10, while Google Consumer Surveys has a $100 minimum.

How can you learn more about Survata and Google Consumer Surveys?

The Survata website is clean and well laid out. In a future post I will try both Survata and Google Consumer Surveys, and report back what I find out. Meanwhile, to learn more about Google Consumers Surveys, you can read my post ^[4].

You can also visit Survata ^[1] or Google Consumer Surveys ^[2]. While both sites provide lots of resources to help you learn more, Chris says you can ping him any time with questions about Survata at chris@survata.com ^[5].

One final offer from Survata. Want to save a bit of money? MMR Strategy readers can access a $30 coupon to Survata. Click here for coupon ^[6].

^[7]

Dominique Romanowski,
Vice President,
MMR Strategy Group