Here are some of the best questions for an ecommerce shopper survey about email marketing relevance, plus direct tips for crafting questions that reveal true insights. You can use Specific to build and refine such a survey in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for ecommerce shopper survey about email marketing relevance
Open-ended questions give ecommerce shoppers space to share genuine opinions in their own words—perfect for uncovering what really matters, what you might miss with only set choices, and why certain emails resonate (or fall flat). Use open-ended feedback to go deeper, find new ideas, and spot hidden pain points or opportunities. For email marketing surveys, these questions shine when you want to uncover specifics about content, timing, value, and what shoppers truly think or want.
What makes you open an email from an online store?
Can you describe a memorable marketing email you received from a shop? What stood out?
How do you feel when you get promotional emails from ecommerce stores?
What type of product announcements do you prefer to receive by email?
Tell us about a time when an email offer influenced your buying decision.
What do you wish ecommerce brands would change about their email marketing?
How relevant are the emails you receive from your favorite online shops, and why?
What email content or subject line prompts you to make a purchase?
Which kinds of emails do you usually ignore or find unhelpful?
What could brands do to make their emails more valuable for you?
Personalized emails, for instance, get a notably higher open rate—18.8%, over 5% higher than non-personalized[3]—highlighting how relevance leads directly to engagement and revenue.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for ecommerce shopper survey about email marketing relevance
Single-select multiple-choice questions help quantify responses and make it easy for ecommerce shoppers to respond quickly. They're great when measuring how many people prefer certain types of emails, tracking preferences at scale, or starting a conversation—sometimes it's easier to check a box than write out a thought. These options can be ideal for pulse checks, while laying the groundwork for deeper follow-ups (“why?” prompts).
Question: How often do you open marketing emails from online shops?
Always
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Question: Which type of marketing email do you find most relevant?
New product launches
Special discounts/offers
Back-in-stock notifications
Personalized recommendations
Order or shipping updates
Other
Question: What subject line makes you most likely to open a store’s email?
Exclusive offer just for you
Biggest sale of the season
Your favorites are back in stock
Personalized picks for you
When to follow up with "why?" It's ideal to add a “why” follow-up if you want the story behind a choice—like when a shopper chooses “Personalized recommendations” as most relevant. Asking “Why do you find personalized recommendations more helpful than other emails?” can unlock deeper understanding to guide your content strategy.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Including “Other” in multiple-choice makes sure you capture insights you didn’t anticipate. With a follow-up prompt, you’ll discover new themes or wishes (maybe a shopper loves reminder emails or prefers interactive content), giving you edge others miss.
NPS: How likely are shoppers to recommend your emails?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures how likely an ecommerce shopper is to recommend your emails to friends or colleagues. For email marketing, it’s a fantastic pulse check on relevance and satisfaction—letting you segment responses by promoters, passives, and detractors. It’s straightforward and universally recognized.
You can generate an NPS survey tailored for ecommerce shoppers about email marketing relevance with a prompt-powered builder: try creating an NPS survey here.
Including an NPS question lets you benchmark improvements over time—and thanks to Specific, you can even trigger different follow-ups for each NPS group, asking promoters for favorite features and detractors for pain points. This keeps your data actionable and finely-tuned.
The power of follow-up questions
Open-ended or single choice responses are only as good as the context behind them. That’s why automated follow-up questions are a massive leap forward, especially in a busy ecomm landscape. Specific’s AI follow-up feature means your survey asks relevant, human-like clarifications based on a shopper’s initial reply or their choice—much like an expert interviewing in real time.
Shopper: “I only open emails if there’s a discount.”
AI follow-up: “What type of discounts get your attention the most, and is there a time when you ignore even those?”
Shopper: “The emails are fine, but sometimes they come too often.”
AI follow-up: “Could you share how often you’d prefer to get marketing emails from online stores?”
Without automated follow-ups, you’ll get unclear answers and may have to chase down users via email, delaying projects and losing valuable insights. Follow-ups push for specifics in the moment, yielding actionable data.
How many follow-ups to ask? The sweet spot is usually 2-3 follow-ups—deep enough for clarity, not so many it’s a drag. And you can set surveys to skip ahead when you get the detail you need. Specific makes this easy to configure for every survey or question.
This makes it a conversational survey: Every respondent feels heard as the survey adapts to their answers. The interaction feels more like a purposeful chat than ticking boxes, increasing both engagement and insight.
Analyze survey responses with AI: Even with a flood of free-text responses generated from follow-ups, you can tap into AI-powered analysis—which quickly spots key drivers, pain points, and new opportunities. You won’t have to wade through spreadsheets manually.
Automated follow-ups are a new standard in surveys—explore creating and testing an AI-powered survey and see the clarity that real-time, context-aware probing brings.
How to prompt AI to generate questions for ecommerce shopper email marketing surveys
Creating high-quality survey questions is easy when you use a GPT-based survey maker. Start simple, then provide context and structure to get even better results:
To get a basic list of open-ended questions, you might prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for ecommerce shopper survey about email marketing relevance.
But AI always works best with more context. Enhance your prompt by describing your audience, your goals, or emphasizing what you want to learn:
I’m building a survey for ecommerce shoppers to understand which aspects of email marketing they find most relevant—so I can improve personalization, timing, and offers. Suggest 10 open-ended survey questions to inform better email campaigns.
Then, organize and refine your questions for clarity and focus. Ask:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Scan your categories for those that matter most—such as “personalization”, “purchase triggers”, or “send frequency”. Then dive deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories personalization and purchase triggers.
This way, you guide the AI to hone in on exactly what you need your survey to reveal.
What is a conversational survey and why go AI-first?
A conversational survey is more than just a modern form—it’s a chat-like interview where questions unfold one at a time and real-time AI follow-up questions dig deeper, just as a skilled researcher would. The mobile-first flow, context-driven probing, and natural tone mean shoppers engage more authentically and at higher rates.
Manual surveys? They rely on static, predefined questions and struggle to adapt when a respondent gives a half-answer or shares a new idea. With an AI survey generator, surveys are built quickly from a single prompt, and follow-up questions are tailored to every reply, keeping feedback detailed and insightful.
Manual survey | AI survey example |
|---|---|
Predefined, unchanging question list | Dynamic questions and personalized follow-ups |
Static form feel, less engagement | Conversational, chat-like flow boosts completion rates |
Little context if answers are unclear | AI probes for clarity and specifics in real time |
Harder to analyze unstructured answers | AI summarizes and categorizes instantly |
Why use AI for ecommerce shopper surveys? The ecommerce space is fast evolving—AI-powered survey tech lets you respond just as quickly, with surveys that adapt and grow alongside your needs. By surfacing new insights and acting on shoppers’ real voices, you never miss a shift in customer expectations. Tools like Specific's AI survey editor and automated follow-ups remove the manual work so you can focus on strategy.
Specific makes it simple to run conversational surveys that are friendly, visually appealing, and effective—making both survey creation and response a seamless, enjoyable process for everyone.
See this email marketing relevance survey example now
See how conversational AI generates smarter, more engaging surveys for ecommerce shoppers—get actionable insights fast, keep your questions sharp, and connect deeper with your audience. Start creating to unlock instant, tailored feedback and discover what truly works in your email marketing.