How Do You Get Paid to Take Surveys?

At some stage in time anyone who browses the Internet comes across the option to fill out a survey. Big ones, small ones, all different types are out there. After awhile we can get fed up with the idea; most people just generally ignore them.
But surveys are important, especially to the ones that make them. Surveys are a valuable source of information about what people are thinking. They provide insights and details of customer/client preferences, wants and needs.
The instant types of surveys, at least the serious ones, select prospective survey takers based on positional context. PayPal, for example, uses a "quality of service evaluation" type of survey questionnaire that it asks its members to fill out after every problem resolution exercise is finished. At that point in time they already know that (1) You are one of their client/members.(2) You just had an experience with their problem resolution department, and (3) That you are logged in to their website and online. That makes you clearly qualified and in a position to immediately comment on that experience, how you felt about it, how you were treated, etc.
But not everyone with questions to be answered has that kind of close and immediate contact with those who have the answers. In fact, many companies have little or no contact with their customers.
Consider the plight of a company producing, packing, selling and distributing mayonnaise. Their immediate customers are distributors and major supermarket chains. They ship their product out by the truckload. Days later, maybe thousands of miles away, their real customers, the ultimate consumer, passes by their product on the grocery store shelf and makes a critical buying decision. He or she either buys their product or buys a competitor's product, or buys neither. The mayonnaise packer must know, or have a pretty good idea, why that ultimate customer chooses one product over another. But how to find out?
The answer is surveys. The mayonnaise packer hires a Marketing Research firm to find out what potential buyers think. The Marketing Research firm carefully crafts a series of questions designed to get answers to the primary questions that management has. Then they contract a Survey making company to physically get answers to their questionnaire. They specify the demographics; geographic areas, qualifying questions, "How many times do you buy groceries a month?" "How much do you spend on groceries each month?" and so forth.
The survey maker runs a computer sort on its database of survey takers to see how many qualify under the demographic specifications. Then they select a representative sample of these, adjust the sample size to fit within their budget for this survey. When they are ready they post the survey on a private page of their website and send out email notifications to the chosen survey participants.
Now how do they know that these people are qualified and that they will take the time to go to the website and fill out the survey forms? [Aha! Now we come to the meat of this story!]
They know that these survey takers are qualified because they had all filled out applications earlier giving their complete demographic information. And, they know that most will come in and fill out the survey forms because they have already agreed to pay them for their participation!
And the survey maker's contract with the Marketing Research firm included the funds to pay the survey takers.
And so you see, it makes perfect sense for the mayonnaise packer (and thousands of companies in similar situations of needing information and feedback from their distant customer base) to pay for this survey information. This means that there are many thousands of surveys being made, and the survey makers must have a large, stable list of survey takers available to send them out to.
So all you have to do to get paid to take surveys is to get on the survey makers' lists, then check your inbox and respond to the surveys you are offered!
There are hundreds of survey companies out there, some good and some bad. The market situation is constantly updating, so you will need a really good paid survey guide company to advise you about which to choose and which ones to avoid. Pick your guide company with great care, since the quality of that guide company's service to you will be critical to your future success.