Can You Really Make Money Taking Surveys on GlobalTestMarket?
If you’ve ever tried taking surveys to make extra money or earn prizes, you might feel lost trying to pick the best, or at least most legit, option.
While we don’t usually love surveys as a way to make money, we get a lot of questions about which survey sites are best — and we try out as many as possible so we can share our unbiased opinion with you.
Recently, we put GlobalTestMarket to the test. Here’s how it works — and our take on whether it’s worth your time.
What’s GlobalTestMarket?
GlobalTestMarket was founded in 1999 and has more than 1,400 clients around the world. The company specializes in gathering online consumer research in multiple countries.
The coolest thing about GlobalTestMarket is many of the surveys seem to be interactive, featuring video or audio prompts.
Instead of answering hypothetical questions or checking the same old boxes about your lifestyle, you have a chance to comment on real advertising campaigns by major brands.
It’s a cool peek into the advertising world — and a chance to actually provide feedback on commercials, instead of just lunging for the remote every time the commercial you just can’t stand comes on.
Signing Up is Easy
Signing up takes about 10 minutes, and the company asks for your address, age, email address and phone number — but you only need to provide your number if you’re willing to answer questions over the phone.
Once you verify your email address, you can immediately search for and start taking surveys.
Your first few questionnaires are profile-builders to see what sorts of surveys you’ll be eligible for. You know, the ones that want to know if you’re employed and how many people are in your household.
You don’t earn money for these, but you’ll earn entries into a quarterly sweepstakes where you could win a first prize of 500 MarketPoints, two prizes of 250 MarketPoints or 100 prizes of 10 MarketPoints. (We’ll talk more about what those points are worth in a moment.)
After you build your profile, you quickly move into “real survey” territory, where you’ll evaluate ads and provide feedback.
What are GlobalTestMarket Surveys Like?
One survey asked our tester to watch a two-minute video ad, then answer questions about how it made her feel, based on a sliding scale.
The second survey featured a shorter ad, but the survey wanted to know more about how the ad made her feel and what she remembered from it.
The two surveys each took about 10 minutes, and were each worth 22 points, which showed up in our GlobalTestMarket account by the end of the day.
Most surveys seem to come with rewards of 20-35 points, but some indicate a time investment of 15-30 minutes, so your rewards-per-minute rate is probably going to be pretty low.
You may also find yourself halfway through a survey before you get “screened out,” or disqualified because of some circumstance in your profile: you work in the wrong industry, you don’t have children or some other factor.
GlobalTestMarket usually gives you a few sweepstakes entries or a points when you get screened out, so you don’t get discouraged.
If you prefer to use your smartphone, GlobalTestMarket’s mobile app (for iOS and Android) promises simple surveys that won’t make you go blind squinting at your phone, and you’ll earn just as many points as you would on your computer.
But the download process is complicated, requiring you to generate a download link and send it to your phone via your desktop account. Our tester tried to download the app on her iPhone 6 several times, and received error messages each time.
Let’s Review Rewards
GlobalTestMarket advertises a host of rewards you can choose for taking the time to complete surveys.
MarketPoints are valid for three years from the date they’re awarded, and you can start redeeming rewards once you’ve earned about 120 points.
It’s probably not surprising PayPal is the most popular redemption option.
But you’ll need at least 240 MarketPoints to be able to redeem a $10 PayPal credit. For a $15 PayPal credit, you’ll need 360 MarketPoints, and 480 MarketPoints for a $20 PayPal credit.
You’ll need to be eligible for (and complete) a lot of surveys to earn those points. This isn’t an instant-gratification game — it’s a long-term effort.
Other rewards in the under-250-points range include $10 gift cards to retailers like Rite Aid, the MLB.com Shop, and Bass Pro Shops. The same retailers have $20 gift cards, too, but they require about 430 points.
One particularly attractive reward we noticed: Redeem just 110 MarketPoints for a one-month Pandora One Pass. A Pandora One membership usually costs $4.99 per month for the privilege of almost unlimited streaming music.
If you’ve ever balked at the price of getting one more subscription, this might be a good way to try the service for free. And if you’re good at scrounging up 110 points per month, answering surveys could be your ticket to free tunes for a while.
If you’re a nice person, but short on cash to donate, you may want to put your points toward charity.
Users can contribute 110 MarketPoints as a $5 donation to The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, and 220 MarketPoints for a $10 donation.
UNICEF is known for providing children with health care, nutrition and education services, especially in places affected by war and natural disasters.
Should You Sign Up With GlobalTestMarket?
OK, that’s cool, you’re excited. But you won’t be playing “Pick a gift card, any gift card” with the cashier at your local drugstore any time soon.
You’re going to screen out of a ton of surveys, so you’ll miss the chance to earn points for the majority of the time you spend on the site.
Over a two-day test period, our test subject spent about three hours getting sucked down the survey rabbit hole.
In that time, she started 18 surveys. She completed two to earn 44 points, and earned 5 points from screening out of a third survey.
The rest of the surveys she screened out of earned her 260 sweeps entries, but she wasn’t lucky enough to win anything in the most recent quarterly drawing.
Our tester received notifications in her inbox about surveys she was eligible for in her inbox five or six times a day, but they were either closed or full by the time she was able to get to them a few hours later. In total, she earned 49 points for her time.
It’s nothing to shake the ungrateful stick at; it’s just not going to be a real gift-card generator for you. But if you’ve got time to spare, like while you’re watching TV, it might be worth giving it a shot.
Your Turn: Have you signed up for GlobalTestMarket? What are your secrets to survey-taking success?
Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. We’re letting you know because it’s what Honest Abe would do. After all, he is on our favorite coin.
