What did the group chat say about your product? Ask the buyer.

A friend texts a photo of a carry-on fitting under a plane seat. Someone else in the group buys that bag a week later. What drove the sale: the friend, the messaging app, the photo, or the search the buyer used to find the bag again? All four tell a different team something. A single answer choice called “Social” throws most of it away.

For a Shopify merchant, the interesting decision is what to make easier to share. Should the next product page lead with the bag's dimensions, a real-world fit photo, or a side-by-side comparison? Start by finding out what people are already sending.

Ask about a person, then the thing they shared

On the thank-you page, ask “Who or what first put this product on your radar?” Give “Someone I know” its own answer alongside creators, search, stores, and your other common discovery sources. If that answer is selected, ask “What did they share with you?”

• A link to the product
• A photo or video of it in use
• Their own recommendation in a message or conversation
• The actual product to try
• Something else, or I don't remember

Use a single best answer if your goal is a clear creative brief. If buyers mention several items, ask what helped most and label the question accordingly. You have no need for the sender's name, phone number, screenshots, or the contents of the conversation. A voluntary description such as “showed it fitting under the seat” already gives a photographer a usable brief.

Trace one observation into one asset

Imagine 120 buyers answered the discovery question. Thirty chose “Someone I know.” Of those, 22 answered the follow-up and 10 chose a photo or video. The creative brief can say 10 of 22 follow-up respondents remembered a visual. Saying one third of all referred buyers needed video would erase the missing answers and change what the question measured.

Read any voluntarily supplied descriptions for recurring situations. A picture of the bag under a seat answers a sizing question. A picture of the bag packed for a three-day trip answers a capacity question. Shoot them separately. For the first image, record the actual bag dimensions and avoid implying it fits every airline's limits. For the second, caption the items that went into the bag so another shopper can picture packing it.

See whether people use what you made

Add the photo to one relevant product page and give it a stable, publicly shareable URL if the format allows. Run a simple usability check: ask a colleague on a phone to send just the fit evidence to someone else. Does the recipient land on the right variant? Is the caption still visible? Can they check the measurements without first hunting through a carousel? Fix those details before buying another round of creative.

Keep the same poll wording through the test. Compare whether later answers start mentioning the new image, and look at tagged link visits if you distributed it through a campaign. Shopify's attribution reports assign credit according to the model selected. A last-click search and a friend's earlier introduction can describe the same order. Shopify marketing reports.

Add the question with OrderSurvey on the Shopify App Store. If friends often send a podcast episode or an AI-generated shortlist, follow the evidence into the podcast sponsorship worksheet or the AI product comparison survey.

Frequently asked questions