Identify Users
Identifying users connects survey responses to individual user profiles. We recommend identifying your users whenever possible, regardless of how you deliver your surveys.
This helps you understand both what your users think and who provided each answer. For example, you can see that 30% of respondents requested a feature, identify those users, and understand which customer groups they belong to.
Why identify your users
Connect feedback to user profiles
When you identify a user, their survey responses are linked to their profile in Refiner. You can review their feedback alongside user traits such as their subscription plan, role, or signup date.
This gives you context for each response and helps you identify users you may want to contact for follow-up questions, interviews, or support.
Segment and target the right users
For In-App Surveys, identifying users lets you create target audiences based on user traits, tracked behavior, and past survey interactions.
For example, you can survey customers on a specific plan, ask for feedback after a key action, or follow up with users who previously answered a survey.
The same user identifier also helps Refiner recognize returning users across sessions and devices, so their survey history stays connected.
Sync feedback with other platforms
Identifying users allows you to sync survey response data to matching user profiles in other platforms through integrations, including Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Salesforce.
This lets you combine feedback with product usage or customer data and use responses in your existing analysis and workflows. Each integration has its own requirements for matching users.
What data to track
At a minimum, provide a unique User ID or an email address to identify each user. We recommend providing both whenever possible.
You can also send additional user traits. These are optional, and you decide which data to share with Refiner. Common examples include:
role: The user’s role in your app, such as “admin” or “member”.subscribed_at: The date the user started their subscription.is_paying_customer: Whether the user is a paying customer.subscription_plan: The user’s current plan, such as “free”, “pro”, or “enterprise”.country: The country where the user is based....
These traits help you create user segments, target surveys to specific groups, and compare their responses. For example, you could survey paying customers, ask admins about account management, or compare feedback across subscription plans.
Beyond user traits, you can track events with our JavaScript SDK, Mobile SDKs, or REST API. Events capture actions users take in your app, such as:
- Completing onboarding.
- Using a specific feature.
- Upgrading their subscription.
- Completing a purchase.
You can use these events to segment users based on their behavior and trigger surveys after specific actions. For example, you could ask for feedback after a user tries a feature for the first time or completes a purchase.
How to track users
Each Delivery Method has its own way of passing user information to Refiner.
| Delivery Method | How to identify users | Setup guide |
|---|---|---|
| Web App Surveys | Call identifyUser with the JavaScript SDK, passing the current user’s ID or email address and any additional traits. | Identify users with the JavaScript SDK |
| Mobile App Surveys | Call identifyUser with the Mobile SDK. Refer to your SDK’s documentation for the exact syntax. | Identify users with the Mobile SDK |
| Survey Pages | Add contact_id or contact_email URL parameters to each user’s survey link. | Personalize Survey Page links |
| Email Surveys | Configure the Identify User field when generating the embed code. Use your email provider’s personalization tags to insert each recipient’s ID or email address. | Generate Email Survey embed code |
| Embed Surveys | Call identifyUser with the JavaScript SDK to identify the respondent. | Identify Embed Survey respondents |
Survey without identifying users
You may not have a user ID or email address available, for example when surveying visitors on a public website or sharing a Survey Page through a public link.
You can still collect feedback in these situations, but there are tradeoffs:
- Responses cannot be linked to a known user profile in your application unless you provide an identifier.
- For Web App Surveys, anonymous mode offers fewer targeting and launch options. User segment targeting and Tracked Event triggers are unavailable.
- Recognizing returning respondents depends on browser storage rather than a consistent user identifier. Recognition is less reliable across devices or when browser storage is cleared.
- Integrations that require a user ID or email address cannot match responses to an existing user profile.
For website surveys using the JavaScript SDK, omit the identifyUser call and set the survey’s Audience Type to Website visitors. When identifying users, use Logged-in users instead.
Survey Pages can be shared without identification parameters. Mobile App Surveys require an identifier; if your app does not have user accounts, you can use a device ID as described in the Mobile SDK guide.
Privacy considerations
Collecting feedback without identifying users reduces the user information you send to Refiner. However, responses can still contain personal information if you ask for it or attach it to a response.
When identifying users, you can provide only a user ID and leave out names, email addresses, and additional traits you do not need.
Usage and billing
Identifying users through an SDK counts toward your Monthly Active Users (MAU), even if those users do not respond to a survey.
For Email Surveys and Survey Pages, only users who submit a response are counted. Anonymous website surveys also use Pageviews as a secondary usage metric.
See Monthly Active Users (MAU) for details.