Knowledge base

Multicountry Surveys

How to create your own Multicountry survey.

Entry Point

In order to create your Multicountry survey go to the Multiprojects tab at the top of the page and click on “New Multiproject”.

Projects Selection

Select an existing finalized or ongoing project to start your Multicountry survey. Zinklar will capture its specifications and make it the base of your Multicountry survey. You will be able to adapt the questionnaire country by country, but the structure will remain the same.

Choosing Multicountry

Select the Multicountry option. Name your Multicountry survey and click on “Create”. Now the project you selected to start your Multicountry project has been duplicated so that you can launch the survey in a second country.

Selecting a country

You will need to select the country in order to continue. Be sure not to select a country that you have already launched the study in. We recommend that you include the country inside the name of each single project so that it will be easier for you to manage them.

Choosing the language

If the language is different from the one of the original survey template, you can take advantage of our automation translation service by pressing the right button. Your survey will be immediately translated into the language of the country you have chosen. Please check the translations thoroughly to make sure there are no mistakes.

Determining the survey sample size

You can select different sample sizes and/or different profiles from the original template although we recommend you to keep them consistent with the country you have already launched to fieldwork.

Review your target selection

Always look at the summary on the right side of your screen to make sure you are doing things correctly.

Configure your multicountry survey

After you are done with the target selection you can move to the second step of the questionnaire (Configure Survey) by clicking on the arrow on the top bar.

Survey structure

You should now be seeing the same structure that the project you previously ran in another country. You should see the same exact questions and answers, just translated into the new language of your choice.

Comparable survey questions

The purpose of a Multicountry study is to compare the exact same questions and answers, in the same order, across different countries. This is why at the top right side of each question there is a pill that says “Compare results”. This pill is active by default and it will allow you to see the results for each question in an aggregated way (meaning that you’ll be able to see the results of up to 10 countries for the same question in a single graph).

Non-comparable survey questions

Not all types of questions are comparable: short and long open-answer questions are not comparable because they do not have any predefined answers to choose from, making them impossible to be compared across countries in your multicountry survey.

For these questions the comparability pill will always be disabled but you will still be able to access the different word clouds of each country from the Multicountry results. Remember that the codification of open-ended questions into a word cloud is only available for English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. If you select a language that is not supported, the word cloud will not show.

Adding extra answers

It is possible that for a specific question the answers need to be changed and adapted to the surveyed country (for example, if you are testing the awareness of competitors’ brands). The moment you start changing the text inside the answers, the comparability pill for that question will immediately switch off and a warning message will appear. If you are just correcting the translation you can then reactivate the pill because the question is still exactly the same.

If you are changing the meaning of the answer or if you are adding a new answer or deleting existing ones, you SHOULD NOT reactivate the pill because the question is now different and comparing them with the ones from previous countries will generate misleading results.

If you think you have made a mistake and you are not sure if the order or the meaning of the answers is the same, we recommend that you eliminate the project from the Multicountry study (explained later in the guide) and start again from the beginning.

Linked Answers and Logic Jumps

The Linked Answers feature follows the comparability logic, meaning that if a Parent question is switched to non-comparable, the Child question will also be non-comparable.

Questionnaire order

Because the questionnaire structure needs to remain the same in order to be compared, the system will not allow you to move questions around (something you would be able to do if you were working on an independent survey).

For the same reason, the system will not allow you to delete any questions or change the settings of the questions (if you have selected to add the option “None of the above” for a specific question, this will stay active for all the countries you launch surveys in).

Images & Videos

However, the system allows you to change the images or videos inside the questionnaire in case they need to be in the language of the newly selected country.

Adding extra questions

For this new country, you may need to ask country-specific questions: the system allows you to add as many questions as you want after the last Multiproject question. These questions will only show in the results of the single project, not in the Multiproject aggregated results. You can recognize country ad-hoc questions because they do not have the comparability pill next to them.

IMPORTANT: if a question becomes non-comparable, it will always stay this way until you remove all the projects that have that question marked as non-comparable.

Review and Launch

Once you are done configuring the survey, have checked that all comparable questions are active and that the translations are correct, you can go ahead and launch it by clicking the arrow on the top bar. If you don’t want to launch it just yet, you can always save the project as a draft and come back later.

Multiprojects page

If you save the project and return to the Multiprojects tab you will see that a new box has been created with the name you have chosen earlier.

Managing your Multiproject

If you click on the 3 dots on the top right of your Multicountry project box, you can then click on “Manage Multiproject”. From here you are able to see what projects are part of this study and what their current status is. You will be able to access results only when at least 2 projects are finalized.

Adding and Removing projects

From the Multiproject menu you can select “Add new project” by clicking on the corresponding action. You will then repeat the previously explained tasks. You can have up to ten drafts, which is currently the maximum number of countries for a Multicountry survey.

You can decide to view the results of every single project (especially if you had different ad hoc questions for certain countries) and you can decide to remove any single project from the Multicountry study. This option is useful, especially for draft projects in case you realize you don’t need them anymore or that you made a mistake in creating the questionnaire. (Removing projects from the Multiproject will not eliminate them from your account, they will still exist in your Projects page.) Viceversa, if you eliminate them from your Projects page, they will automatically be removed from the Multiproject as well. You will not be able to delete all projects. At least one project is necessary to keep the structure of the survey.

Multiproject Results

Once you have at least 2 finalized projects, you will be able to access results by clicking on the Multiproject box. Depending on the total number of projects and interviews, the results may take a few more seconds to load.

On the left side of your screen you can see the aggregated age and gender demographics for all the countries that are part of your Multiproject. You can filter results for these variables at all times.

Language selection

On the top bar you can find the language box. You can decide to view the results in any of the languages that are part of your Multiproject. Depending on the language you select, the preview will also show in that language.

Countries selection

On the right side of the language box you can find the countries box. You can decide to only view the countries that you are interested in at any particular moment. The minimum number of countries that can be displayed at the same time is 2.

Results view modes

When you look at the results for each question you will notice that you can choose between Graph View and Table View. Both options are available for Single Answer, Multiple Choice, Numeric, Yes/No, and Single Score. Ranking, Multiple Score, and Matrix questions only support the graph view.

When a question is non-comparable (for example, open-ended questions) you will be able to navigate the different countries by clicking on the corresponding flag at the top of the question box.

Percentages, Absolutes, Average

You can view results in percentages or in absolute values for each question and you can view the average across countries (which will add a new column to the graph).

And that’s all you need to know to create your first multicountry survey!