Members QuickStart Guide

A little about Octopus Group — Australia & New Zealand’s high‑paying online survey community. This page keeps the original content and links intact, in a clearer, mobile‑first layout.

A little about Octopus Group

Octopus Group has been open for registration since October 2016 and open to clients since 20th January 2017. Our goal is to provide a means for anyone to supplement their income through online surveys that incentivise fairly. We take education seriously, so please read this page carefully.

~~As of February 2017, we (Octopus Group) have grown our membership to over 8,000 members and issued almost $10,000 of incentives.~~

~~As of November 2017, we (Octopus Group) have grown our membership to over 32,000 members and issued over $145,000 of incentives.~~

~~As of April 2018, we (Octopus Group) have grown our membership to over 45,000 members and issued over $230,000 of incentives.~~

~~As of November 2018, we (Octopus Group) have grown our membership to over 58,000 members and issued over $500,000 of incentives.~~

As of April 2022, we (Octopus Group) have grown our membership to over 209,000 members and issued almost $11,000,000 of incentives.

The industry has already been changed with some of the lowest paying suppliers lifting their incentive rates, although not anywhere near what we offer.

What we’ll do for you

We promise to provide a minimum survey rate of 28 cents/min for qualified and completed surveys; we’ll follow up on any project where our members could have missed out on incentives and we’ll look for and implement any opportunity that will benefit our members.

We will maintain a non-invasive service, this means that we won’t share your details (without your permission), we won’t send you advertising/marketing materials. We will send you survey and “QuickPoll” notifications, we will send survey reminders.

and — What we need you to do

We need you to be honest and respectful with your survey answers, we need you to be responsive to survey notifications. If you have any queries or issues we can be contacted at support@octopusgroup.com.au.

Most important of all, we need your support and patience so that together we can grow this community into the highest paying and most informative opinions group that the market research industry has ever seen. We don’t issue the most surveys yet, but with your help we will become the provider of choice and we will all win.

A Special note on the importance of a balanced community

Clients have a lot of expectations of online communities; it has to be nationally representative (think gender/age/state), it needs to have a good spread of traits (employment types, occupations, shopping habits, drinking habits, reading habits, sports routines etc), it has to be insightful/respectful/responsive/available. This is very hard for any online community to live up to.

Traditionally, online communities have more females than males and have much lower numbers in the harder to reach areas (like the Northern Territory).

The ability to win a survey (or many surveys) always comes down to the smallest target group that can be fulfilled. So if you were wondering why you keep hearing about the need for males to join or be referred; now you know why.

Common Support Questions

What are the profile questions for? And where do I find them?

The profile questions help us to select you for relevant surveys. If a survey requires parents of children under 15, we will first select from the members that have this information, followed by the members that might fall into this requirement should we need further members to complete the survey.

The profile questions are (currently) only available via the website. After you log in click on the Profile tab (for those on computers) or on the Menu then Profile (for those on a mobile device). Remember for those on a mobile device, tap the menu a second time to collapse the menu (displayed as “MENU (TAP ME TO HIDE)”).

What are QuickPolls? (IMPORTANT)

QuickPolls are our way of getting information to win surveys from clients. They are vitally important that when you get a notification for these you answer them asap otherwise the number of surveys that get distributed will be limited. Polls are generally only a single question, but some may have a follow-up question.

How many surveys can I expect to get?

There are no guarantees to how many surveys you will receive; however, we are looking to deliver as many surveys as our community can representatively handle. Remember we are a new community so we have to prove ourselves in the industry.

How do online surveys work? Just the basics

Online surveys are one method of data collection for research. Every project has its own requirements so not everyone will be selected to attempt every survey. Surveys are often mobile optimised but on occasion they are required to be filled in on a computer.

I’ve referred people but my account balance hasn’t gone up!?

You can check your Incentive history by logging into the website and clicking on History. Your referred people will be listed here. If they are not in your list they have not used your referral link. We are not able to give you any details about other members, if you are certain that something has gone wrong with the referral process you will need to get your referrals to email us (support@octopusgroup.com.au) to request who their referrer was.

Why aren’t I getting any surveys?

In general surveys are released Monday to Friday.

Surveys have:

Specific requirements
- “Males 25-45 Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Adelaide/Perth”
- To be run for 3 days
Specific targets
- 100 Syd/Mel/Bris, 75 Adel/Per

Members are selected randomly from the entire pool based on the survey requirements and targets.

I did a survey and it has been recorded as “ScreenerFail” in my history!?

This means that you started the survey but did not meet the specific requirements of the survey

I did a survey and it has been recorded as “QuotaFail” in my history!?

This means that you started the survey, qualified for the requirements but the target for your group has already been filled

I did a survey through till the end and it has not been recorded as “Completed” in my history!?

The main reason for this is that technology failed. It is likely that something went wrong on the survey tool side and the status of the survey was not sent back to us. Or there was an honesty validation question at the end of the survey. Either way, when the project is finished we always compare our status with the clients list. This allows us to manually update those that completed the survey correctly.

I did a survey and it redirected me back to Octopus Group immediately!?

This is most often the case of digital finger printing; the client will often have this enabled for their projects. This service is intended to stop duplication, those attempting to do the survey more than once. It will also do IP address validation. This process is not 100% accurate, so if you are repeatedly flagged as a Duplicate and you definitely haven’t done the survey before please contact us (support@octopusgroup.com.au) and we’ll take this up with the client.

How long does the redemption process take?

We aim to pay redemptions weekly, it is then up to your bank to clear the funds; this is normally done within one business day. Our terms state up to 30 days, this is to cover any issues that might arise.

How do I redeem cash from my account? Are my bank details safe? Do you offer PayPal?

Redeeming is done through the website only; there is a redemption section where a transfer to the chosen bank account can be created. Having bank details only allows us to put money in, not the other way around, and yes they are safe, our system is a one way only; publicly details can be sent to us, there is no way to display them publicly (this is the reason they have to be entered every time). Additionally, redemptions are linked to the accounts mobile number, and mobile numbers can’t be changed.

This way only the owner of the mobile number can verify a redemption, so even if an account was hacked, no money could be extracted.

What about gift cards?

We are going to offer gift cards and we’ll be working with the same providers of gift cards as the other online survey providers. There are is an important point you should know:

We have secured a deal that will allow you to purchase Octopus branded gift cards for less than the card value.

Were really sorry about this, but that option isn't ready just yet.
We're working fast so expect it to be available very soon.

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Use the official mobile apps to get survey notifications quickly and increase your chances of qualifying before quotas fill. (Images preserved from the original page.)

“Note: Poll Notifications will only go to app users.” — from Octopus News.
Make sure notifications are enabled during install and leave the app running to receive alerts promptly.