How to Embed a Google Form Poll Into an Email

Creating a survey to send out to hundreds or thousands of email addresses may sound like a daunting task. The main questions are, “Will people be bothered to fill it out?” and “How do I embed a poll into an email?” Google Forms addresses both of these questions.

With Google Forms, it’s easy to create an interactive survey that recipients can fill out directly in their email clients. In this article, we show you how to create and embed a Google Forms into an email, ready to send out to the world.

Create a Google Form Poll/Survey

To get started, you’ll need to create your survey with all its questions and answers.

First, go to your Google Drive account with your browser. At the top-left, click “New -> Google Forms -> Blank form.”

You’ll be presented with a basic template for creating a poll. Fill it out, noting that you can change certain options by clicking the drop-down next to the question, such as whether you want it to be multiple choice or let readers give longer answers.

Using the paint palette icon, you can change the color scheme of your survey and add your own header image.

There’s also a slider near the bottom that lets you choose whether recipients can skip the question or whether it’s required. Over on the right you can add images, videos and sections (more questions) to the survey, and the three-dotted menu icon at the top right lets you add collaborators.

Embed the Google Form Poll into Your Email

Once your survey is ready, click the “Send” button at the top right to bring up sending options. You can send the form via email, a link, or by posting it to social networks. If you choose to send it through email, click the envelope icon and enter all the addresses you want to send the form to.

Crucial things to note here are the “Collect email addresses” box at the top and the “Include form in email” checkboxes.

If you tick “Collect email addresses,” the recipients will be required to give their email addresses before filling out the form. You may want this data, of course, but it may put a lot of people off from filling out the form, so be wary of that.

The “Include form in email” box is a useful one, as this is what embeds the form into an email rather than getting recipients to click through to the survey (which they may also be reluctant to do). We recommend ticking this box.

While a few years ago many email clients may not have supported Google Forms surveys, these days they’re more compatible.

When you’re ready, click the Send button. You’ll be able to monitor responses to your form under the Responses heading on the poll’s main page (saved in your Google Drive, of course).

embed-google-form-poll-into-email-responses

Conclusion

While Google Forms isn’t one of Google Drive’s most key features, it’s there for those who need it and functions very well. Using this method, you can post your survey to various social networks or even embed it to a web page using HTML.

If you’re looking for other ways to use Google Forms, we have a roundup for you to read after you’ve finished here. Also, speaking of Google Drive tips and tricks, you might want to learn how to add a signature to Google Docs.