The Internal Survey Method is an easy way of segmenting your email list so you can send your subscribers specific, targeted content.

This method works by sending your subscribers an email asking them to click a link that best identifies themselves:

When a subscriber clicks a survey link, they will be added to a Tag that remembers their choice.

This way, you can set up subsequent emails to be sent to only subscribers who have (or don’t have) certain Tags.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to set this up, step by step. Let’s dive in!

For example, if you write about paddle boarding, then you could segment your subscribers according to their levels of paddle boarding experience:

Alternatively, you can also segment your subscribers based on their interests.

For example, if you write about paddle boarding and kayaking, you could then let subscribers decide whether they’re interested in receiving emails on paddle boarding, kayaking, both, or something else.

If you are surveying your subscribers on their paddle boarding experience, for example, your survey question could be: “How experienced are you in paddle boarding?”

You could then map your subscriber segments to the following survey response options:

Next, click Subscribers in the Grow tab in the top navigation to create new Tags for each of your subscriber segments.

(Learn how to create Tags in Kit here.)

You don’t have to give your Tags the exact same name as your survey response options, but pick a name that succinctly describes each segment.

Following from our paddle boarding example, we could name our Tags like this:

A Link Trigger is a special link that automatically carries out certain actions when clicked.

In this case, we want subscribers who click your survey response options to be added to the appropriate subscriber segment Tag—and a Link Trigger will do the job perfectly.

(You can learn more about setting up Link Triggers here.)

When creating your Link Triggers, be sure to use “Clicks a link” as the Trigger and “Add tag” as the Action.

If you have a dedicated landing page for sending your subscribers to after they’ve clicked your link, (such as a custom thank you page), use that as the Destination URL.

Otherwise, feel free to use our default “Preferences Confirmed” page: https://app.kit.com/preferences-confirmed

When you’re done, you should have one Link Trigger set up for each of your survey response options. (In other words, if your survey has four response options, you will need four Link Triggers.)

And don’t forget to enable your Link Triggers if they aren't already!

Now the final step—putting your survey together in an email!

Your survey email can be a Sequence email if you want to automatically prompt new subscribers as they opt in. Alternatively, if you’re doing a one-off survey of your existing subscribers, then set up your survey email as a Broadcast.

Go ahead and write your survey email, including your survey question and responses. Then, highlight each of your survey responses and add their corresponding Link Trigger.

To test your Link Triggers, add your email address to your Kit account. Then, create a Broadcast with your survey and Link Triggers set up, and send that Broadcast to yourself.

When you’ve received the survey email in your inbox, click any one of the survey options. You should be sent to the destination URL for that survey option's Link Trigger.

Then, check that your email address has been added to the correct subscriber Tag in Kit!