Personalized Interview Links: Send Targeted Research Invitations to Every Participant

A personalized interview link is a private link that belongs to one person. In Koji, you get one for every person you import with a CSV: each link opens your normal interview, skips the lead form, and attaches the response to that person, so you always know who has responded and who still needs a reminder. Personal invite links come with CSV import, which is available on the Interviews and Enterprise plans.

Pick the route that fits the study. If you already have the people (a customer list, users in your product, employees, a CRM segment), import them so each person gets a personal link: you can see who responded, chase the people who have not, and keep the columns you imported next to every response. If candour matters more than tracking (an exit interview, an engagement pulse, a sensitive topic), share the generic link and leave the lead form off, so responses stay anonymous. If people would rather talk than type, share a call link or have Koji call them. And if you do not have the people, or you need a market you have no list for, open Panel recruit and Koji finds them at a price you approve first. All routes land in the same study and the same report.

Generic Links vs. Personal Invite Links

Every Koji study has a generic link: one URL for everyone, of the form:

https://www.koji.so/i/your-study-slug

With the lead form left off (the default), responses through it are anonymous, and the landing page shows an Anonymous badge.

A personal invite link adds a private token for one person:

https://www.koji.so/i/your-study-slug?invite=8f14e45f-ceea-467a-9575-2c5b0e2d1a3c

The token is random, so nobody can work out someone else's link from their own. When the person opens it:

• They see the same landing page as everyone else, including the choice of a text or voice interview
• They skip the lead form, because their name, email and other details are already on their record
• The Anonymous badge is hidden, because their answers are tied to them
• Their interview is attached to their record, so it shows under their name in your results

Why Use Personal Links

You know who responded. Every interview is attributed to a known person from your list, so you can follow up with the right customer, confirm who earned an incentive, or pass results back to your CRM using your own IDs.

You can chase the people who have not. Imported people who have not opened their link show as Not started on the Participants table, with their own filter. One reminder to that group is often all it takes to lift your completion rate.

Less friction for participants. Invited people skip the lead form entirely, so they go from your email straight into the conversation.

Your segments come with the data. Every column you import (company, plan, role, cohort) stays with the person and comes back in the Export and Invite links downloads, ready to slice by segment in a spreadsheet or BI tool.

How to Set Up Personal Invite Links

Step 1: Import Your Participant List

Open your study's Interviews page, stay on the Self-recruit tab, and click Import CSV on the Participants table. Your file needs one person per row. Koji recognizes common spellings of:

• email: how you will reach them (a plain list of emails works on its own, with or without a header)
• name, or first_name and last_name: shown in your results
• external_id or id: your own CRM or database ID
• Any other columns: company, role, plan, segment, cohort, or anything else relevant to your research

email,name,external_id,company,role,plan
[email protected],Sarah Lee,crm_1001,Acme Inc,VP Engineering,enterprise
[email protected],Tom Park,crm_1002,Beta Corp,Product Manager,growth

Comma, semicolon and tab-separated files all work, up to 500 rows and 50 columns per upload. See Importing Participants via CSV for the full format.

Step 2: Collect the Links

When the import finishes, the dialog shows how many links were created and gives you two options:

• Download CSV returns your file, rows in their original order, with an Interview link column added at the end
• Copy All URLs copies each person's name (or email) and link to your clipboard

Uploading the same people again is safe: anyone already invited keeps their existing link, and only new people get new ones. If the study is still a draft, the links start working once you publish it.

Step 3: Distribute Links Through Your Own Tools

Because the links are plain URLs in a spreadsheet column, they work with whatever you already use:

• Email tools with mail merge: Mailchimp, Outreach, Salesloft, or Gmail mail-merge add-ons
• Your CRM: add the link as a contact property in HubSpot, Salesforce or Intercom and send it from a sequence or workflow
• Slack or Teams: ideal for internal employee research
• In-app or post-purchase messages: send the link when a customer reaches a milestone

No third-party recruitment platform is required. You own the distribution channel.

Step 4: Track Responses and Follow Up

The Participants table shows each person's status: Not started, In Progress, Partial or Completed. People who have not started do not count as responses in your study totals.

• Filter by Not started to see who still needs a nudge
• Use Copy invite link from a person's row menu to resend their link
• Use Remove invite to withdraw an invite from someone who has not started
• Click Invite links to download everyone you have imported, with their original columns, link, response status, and start and completion times (UTC)

Links you sent before personal invite links were introduced (in the older ?rid= format) keep working, so nothing already in people's inboxes breaks.

Personal Links + Structured Questions

Koji's structured questions add a quantitative layer to your interviews: scales, single and multiple choice, ranking, yes/no and more, alongside open conversation. Combined with personal links, you can:

• Compare satisfaction scores by plan or role: export responses with your imported columns and pivot by segment
• See whether ranking answers differ by cohort: do enterprise customers rank features differently than smaller accounts?
• Follow up on specific answers: know exactly who gave a low score so your team can reach out

Use Case: B2B Account Expansion Research

A SaaS company wants to understand why some accounts upgrade while others do not. They export 150 accounts from their CRM with email, name, external_id, company, current_plan and has_expanded, and import them into a Koji study that includes:

• A scale question: "How well does the product support your current workflows?"
• A single-choice question: "What is the main reason you have not upgraded yet?"
• An open question: "Walk me through the last time you considered upgrading."

They send each account its link from their CRM, filter by Not started after four days and send one reminder. When the study closes, Koji's report pulls out the themes and quotes, and the Export carries current_plan and has_expanded next to every response, so the team can compare blockers between accounts that expanded and those that did not.

Use Case: Post-Onboarding Feedback

A product team wants to hear from users who signed up in the last 30 days. They export email, name, signup_date and plan from their database, import the list, and send the links in an in-app message. Because each response is tied to a known user, they can see which new customers responded, follow up with the ones who reported friction, and compare feedback across plans.

Privacy and Data Handling

Invite tokens are random, so links cannot be guessed or enumerated from one another. Only the token travels in the URL: the columns you import are stored on the person's record in your workspace, not in the link. Imported data is subject to Koji's standard data processing terms and is used to attribute responses and power your exports.

Because a personal link identifies the participant, use the generic link with the lead form off whenever you have promised people anonymity.

Related Resources

• Importing Participants via CSV: the full import format, limits and downloads
• Managing Research Participants: track statuses, archive and export on the Interviews page
• Structured Questions Guide: add quantitative questions for segment-level analysis
• Sharing Your Interview Link: other ways to distribute your study
• Intake Forms and Consent: how the lead form works for everyone else
• Panel Recruitment: let Koji find participants for you

Further reading on the blog

• Koji vs Respondent.io: AI-Native Research Platform vs Participant Recruitment Marketplace (2026) — Respondent.io recruits research participants. Koji conducts AI-moderated interviews, analyzes results, and generates reports automatically —
• Best Research Participant Recruitment Platforms in 2026: The Complete Buyer's Guide — Finding qualified participants is the #1 challenge in user research. This guide compares the top recruitment platforms—Prolific, UserIntervi
• Agile User Research: How to Run Continuous Research in Sprint Cycles (2026) — Most teams know they should do user research every sprint. Almost none actually do. Here's the practical playbook for integrating continuous

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