The Easiest Way to Make Your Website Addictively Engaging, Gain Insights and Collect Leads

Author 
Jay   52

Updated on December 22, 2019

Lucky Louie at the breakfast table.

Here's Louis CK, trying to explain to his daughter that she can't play outside at 5 AM. Poor Louis (or Louie) is thrust into an existential crisis through the kid's relentless questioning.

Have you ever been in this situation? You're bombarded with inane questions, stuck in a loop that will lead nowhere, but you just can't stop answering?

Why is that?

Questions act as a psychological irritant, causing the grey cells in your brain to spike up into a neurological hoedown. You almost feel like you owe an answer.

You can use this powerful trigger to engage your audience. Ask questions and they will instinctively interact with you.

The best way to ask questions on your website​ is through a quiz.

Let’s see how you can quiz your visitors to increase engagement in a fun way!

More...

How to Turn a Bunch of Questions Into an Engaging Quiz

"I want to ask you a bunch of questions. And I want to have them answered immediately."

So a quiz is essentially just a bunch of questions, right?​

While Arnold's technique is effective, it's not the best way to engage your website visitor. No, for marketing purposes, we need to be slightly more strategic with our questions.​

You're not making a survey.​ You're not interrogating your visitor. You're most definitely not going to become that annoying kid by asking "why" repeatedly.

The point of a quiz is to ENGAGE your visitor by interaction.​ To do that, your quiz needs three key elements:

1. Entertainment

While quizzes can provide valuable information, it’s not a survey. The main purpose of any quiz is to entertain. It’s meant to break the boredom and monotomy of your Facebook scrolling.

That’s why you should aim to make your quiz if not lighthearted, at least quick to answer.

  • Ask unexpected questions that have clear cut answers.
  • Make it easy to reply using good software. Nobody wants to reply to a quiz that’s slow, unresponsive or otherwise painful to use.
  • Make it challenging, humorous and fun. We're not creating an aptitude test, but something you would find at a pub quiz event.

Buzzfeed, the kings of fluff, are also masters of entertainment. They've created a ton of quizzes for the explicit purpose of timewasting.

Useless they may be, but just one of these completely useless quizzes gathered over 700k shares. That's not a figure to be scoffed at.

It shows how we yearn for entertainment and colour to break our daily routine.

2. Personality

Your quiz, as with any content you create, should be a clear extension of your website and brand.

If you're a serious person running a factual website, show that in your quiz. If you're more personal and humorous, let 'er rip.​

  • Your readers need to feel emotionally invested. Speak to your visitor directly, as if from one person to another.
  • Don’t be afraid to polarize your audience. Your quiz can't and shouldn't interest everyone.
  • Pick the right topic. As with any other content you create, your quiz should connect with your audience's dreams, fears, hopes or goals.

3. Shareability

The interactive nature of a quiz gives it huge sharing potential.

  • Title your quiz with a captivating headline. Make it funky and challenging. "Which Game of Thrones-character are you?" is much more interesting than "Do you know the Game of Thrones-character traits?"
  • Stroke your reader's ego with a positive and rewarding result. Your reader should learn something new or get a good laugh from seeing their result. Give them a reason to show it off to their friends!
  • Make sharing easy with sharing buttons. If your reader can't share their result with one click, you can be sure they won't do it.

This quiz on Women.com got 2.3 million shares. And it's about spelling.

If this were merely an article about spelling, would you have shared it? Perhaps, if you're into that sort of stuff. (Say, if you're a writer like me.)

However, since it's a quiz, there's an element of gratification involved. You can show all of your friends how well you spell. That makes it interesting to a much wider audience.

3 Ways a Quiz Will Help Your Content Marketing

You now know the basics of how to create a successful quiz. Next question is - how do you use it for marketing? Here are three basic ways you can use quizzes in content marketing.

1. Drive traffic from the social web.

When you’re browsing social media, an article or ad will have to be absolutely fascinating to earn your commitment. But if it's a quiz with a lighthearted premise, you'll be much more inclined to click.

Your quiz should function as a low-commitment way to draw traffic from social media into your sales and marketing funnels.

2. Generate new leads.

When you do manage to get a visitor to your website, you want them to sign up to your mailing list, so they’ll keep returning again and again.

This is where your opt-in offer comes in. Provide value in exchange for your visitor's email address. Usually this is in the form of something downloadable, like a PDF.

Why not use a quiz as your opt-in offer?

  • Its interactive element makes it more engaging than any standalone download.
  • It provides value by teaching and entertaining.
  • You get a new lead AND specific data you can use for highly accurate segmentation.

3. Gather valuable information and segment your visitors.

We use quizzes to find out what our visitor knows. It's entertaining for them and useful for us.

While it’s not meant to be a survey, you can use quiz data to segment your participants into groups based on demographics, skill level, tastes, gender etc.

You can use this segmentation to improve the accuracy of your email marketing, provide more relevant content or even create webinars specifically designed to these people.


Five Pro Examples of Using a Quiz for Content Marketing

Now let's take a look at some expert examples of using quizzes for content marketing.

1. Social Triggers - What Type of Entrepreneur Are You?

Here's the headlining quiz on the Social Triggers-website.

What type of entrepreneur are you?​ It’s such an intriguing question. Did you know there's more than one type? I didn't.

You can't help clicking the button, if only for fun.

You navigate through a handful of thought provoking questions, all designed to get an upcoming entrepreneur's mind racing with ideas.

Before seeing your result, you obviously need to give up your email. At this point, why would you resist?

After navigating through a handful of questions about your business potential, you get a moniker for your entrepreneur-type.

Note the possibility to easily share your results.

However vague this type of test seems to be, the answer can be priceless for an entrepreneur looking for some sort of direction. For the website owner, the benefit is information. Derek Halpern finds out what stage of their business his visitors are in, and how he can best help them to succeed.

Entertaining

Personal

Shareable

Social Triggers


Facebook ads is a massive topic that evolves and changes constantly, and Jon Loomer's site covers most of it. As a newcomer, this vast knowledgebase can be intimidating. Where do you begin?

Jon knows his audience consists of readers of all skill levels, so he gives us a chance to test our skill level before going any further.

It's not an easy quiz. These questions are tough, and you're not supposed to know these answers outright, unless you're a seasoned FB Ads-pro.

The results page summarizes your skill level in using Facebook Ads, but it doesn't stop there.

Jon uses this information to create content that more accurately corresponds to his users' wishes. In fact, after the quiz, you can sign up for a webinar suited for your skill level.

The only negative aspect of this quiz is the lack of follow-up in the end. I find no buttons for sharing or clear CTA to sign up to Jon's webinar. Easy mistakes to fix that would undoubtedly increase conversions.

Entertaining

Personal

Shareable

Jon Loomer


Ramit’s whole schtick is to show you how to be rich without the complicated jargon and bullshit that seems to plague the personal finance-industry. He wants to make it immediately accessible to every visitor, and that’s what this quiz is about.

This quiz promises a chance to earn money in as little as an hour. Wouldn’t you give it a try, just for the heck of it?

You’re faced with a handful of enlightening and thought provoking questions, bringing the whole being rich-idea closer to reality.

You'll notice these questions are very mundane and down to earth. You don't need an economics degree to follow what's going on.

After the quiz, there's the standard sign up to receive your results.

The results help you to increase your earnings immediately.

Of course, getting a dream job or starting a business isn't exactly something you can do overnight, but it's enough to raise an eyebrow and get you interested.

What follows is Ramit's admittedly feisty newsletters full of information on how to achieve whatever goal you choose and an inevitable invitation to take his Earn $1k-course.

This quiz is a great example of how to collect qualified leads for your online courses, while at the same time educating and challenging your visitors.

Entertaining

Personal

Shareable

Ramit Sethi


4. Autotrader - Check your cool quotient

Autotrader, an automobile trading website, is no stranger to content marketing.

They attract their car-enthusiast audience by publishing automotive news and articles, or in this case, a quiz about cooling systems.

This quiz is more designed to educate the car-going public about a common fault, the coolant leak. Do you know about coolant leaks and how vulnerable your car actually is to common every day faults?

It's an interesting premise, but the quiz is nothing to write home about.

You’ll immediately notice the lack of presentation. Just a few simple graphics and some attention to the user interface would massively improve the user experience.

Interesting and challenging questions, but what, do I have to use PAPER to answer these? What is this, a kid's toy?

Then we get to the results, which is not a separate page, but more of something you might've seen in a newspaper back in 1989. This is not an engaging way to present results.

There's no way to know your score, no call to action, and worst of all: no way to share your results.

Not surprisingly, there's also no comments.

As much as I enjoy car related topics, this quiz is a good example of how not to do content marketing with quizzes.

Entertaining

Personal

Shareable

Autotrader


5. Ericsson - Recruiting a Dev

Ericsson, the communications behemoth, is no stranger to audience engagement. This quiz, as part of their ongoing recruiting process, serves as a preliminary exam before letting people apply for the job.

Imagine planning a career at Ericsson. This recruitment page looks rather cool, doesn't it? Of course you'll click the Start-button.

You soon learn that Ericsson wasn't playing around. This is bloody not easy!

It's well made with relevant images, and the challenge for a non-developer is unsurmountable. Description of ... what?

This quiz is ridiculously difficult for me, but it's also automatically filtering me ​out of the recruitment process. As a result, Ericsson gets more qualified applicants.

As any marketing professional should, Ericsson has added a complete sign-up form ​to collect leads before showing results.

You can also share your results.

This is the exact point of keeping your results positive. Even my measly 1/5 score​ is accompanied by a healthy dose of irony and a funny picture.

As a company, they must have been through their own ups and downs in recruitment. Using a quiz can be an entertaining way to showcase what the job entails. Even if you don’t want to apply, you can still see what kind of work a person in this particular position would need to do.

Entertaining

Personal

Shareable

Ericsson


How Do You Make Your Own Quiz?

Now that you’ve seen quizzes in action, do you have any ideas for your own?

As it happens, we've created Thrive Quiz Builder, the most bad-ass quiz building plugin.

Free E-course: How to Use Quizzes to Boost Conversions

We now have a full Thrive University course to teach you the ins and outs on how to use quizzes to build your email list, get more social shares and boost sales.

Check it out... it's free!

by Jay  January 27, 2017

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Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that we believe will add value to our readers.

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Leave a Comment

  • So many samples from other websites, but is there actually a demo of the thrive quizz plugin or already some websites that have it on, so I can click through and test it directly?

  • I purchased a lifetime licence in 2012 of Viral Quiz Builder and you never updated it and now you talk about this ? c’mon… It is not running fine when I needed.. No support because it is an “old “product. No way to get updates… I have also purchased Thrive Content Builder in 2014.

    • Hello Bernard,

      As a customer of Viral Quiz Builder, you’ll receive a special upgrade offer in the near future.

  • Wow. The timing here couldn’t be more perfect (kind of). I just launched a quiz via thrive leads using 15 total states for 3 questions. Obviously, clunky way of doing things. Can’t wait to try out this new plugin. You guys rock! Please don’t ever stop innovating (*cough*leadpages*cough*)

  • I purchased & installed Viral Quiz Builder last year & then in went offline…do I get access to Thrive Quiz Builder, even though I’m not a full Thrive member (I do own Thrive content builder & purchased the square theme, and am considering Ovation based on a video of Hanne’s I just watched on YouTube last night :P!).

    • Hello Gwen,

      As a customer of Viral Quiz Builder, you’ll get a special offer that we’ll let you know about soon.

  • Great timing! Have recently made a quiz with other, not Thrive Themes, free software. My quiz gets a lot of hits but unable to ask for email to send results and build my list… Will definitely try Thrive Quiz. Nice little project for this weekend 😉

  • Another terrific article. Very timely for me as I’m about to begin a humorous program that will end up with a serious course. I can see that beginning the first program with a funny quiz will likely be even more attractive. Thanks for that!

    However, might this piece might have been even more compelling had it started with a quiz?

  • I saw the Webinar replay about Thrive Quiz a couple minutes ago and I thought that I would need more examples to apply it.. and now this post figured out all my questions. Nice! I think I am ready,,,,

  • the one day I search “Thrive Themes Quizzes” because I want to add them to my website and this post was published the same day.

    Can’t wait for this to be released!

  • Love the video! Question: What’s the average drop-off rate, when you force the visitor to opt in before results are given vs. the opt-in offer made after results are automatically displayed, like the webinar example you gave?

    • Hi William,

      Not sure there is such a thing as the “average” drop off. It will depend mainly on what you offer for those who opt-in.
      But you should definitely test opt-in gate vs opt-in on results page!

  • Can this plugin replace the 15 or so question survey I use as a lead magnet that’s currently hosted by survey gizmo? The responses are yes/no/maybe and currently not scored, but could be …

  • The concept of this tool is great and it has huge potential.

    However, one of the biggest challenges is in framing the questions, and the ultimate result, so that the user will actually want to share the result. You’ve made this point in the Ericsson example above in “keeping the results positive”. I don’t think that this point can be over-emphasised.

    The mechanism that you have provided in this tool is fantastic and innovative. However, to be effective, the actual makeup of questions, and the purpose of the quiz itself, does require careful consideration and good language skills.

    • 100% agreed Stephen, just like a good opt-in form will need good copy to convert, a good quiz will need good questions and good language skills to be efficient.

  • If you have any more advice on how we can create better websites without becoming “click baiting” as Buzzfeed or not to be perceived as “yellow” or “trashy” I would love to read about it. Thanks for the post a lot of good information.

    • Hey Ori,

      Buzzfeed creates instant gratification content, with fluffy clickbait articles and fun but useless quizzes.

      When you create engaging content that provides longlasting practical advice and value, you’re on the right track.

  • Amazing content and I can t believe how great you guys are!!! Currently I use Qzzr and the on stage time for several articles sky rocked. There are several negativ points about qzzr so I am super happy and excited that you have established such a plugin. I am even more excited cause I know the quality you are working :-D.

    Please please please make a tutorial via the Thrive University. I am using it extensively and it is awesome how all important information are structured and gathered in one place.

    Great job!

    Warm regards,
    Michael

  • Some quizzes will be a flop. It would be great to add instructions on setting up a Goal for the quiz, and a funnel, so you can see how many people complete the quiz and where people drop out.

    • Hi Gregory,
      For sure, no guarantee that every quiz will be a home run 🙂
      We’re working on teaching material for quizzes, keep an eye on Thrive University!

  • I love you guys! Now I can get rid of typeform.
    Is there a way to send the quiz results to ActiveCampaign or Zapier?

  • 2 Suggestions:
    1) Adding additional variables, not only the score variable and making it accessable via other shortcodes %variable1% etc.
    2) Zappier integreation to capture the quiz answers or making it possible to add them as hidden fields inside the opt-in gate, so this information can be transfered to the CRM.

      • For examples I would love to ask people how many hours they work with Excel per week. With multiple choice answers ~5h (assigned value 5), ~10h (assigned value 10) etc.
        On the resultspage I want to display the assigned value. Best would be if you could do simple math with these variables. Like displaying %assignedvalue%*40.

        Another great addition would be displaying the given answer %Q1ANSWER% and of course other question types as well 😉

        Currently typeform or leadquizes have huge disadvantages and are also quite expensive. I think with a couple additions you can easily charge like 30$/month for this plugin alone!

      • I see why you would like to use this Daniel 🙂
        Can’t promise anything, but I made note of your suggestions.

  • Apreciate this very informative article. Wonder if it would be a good idea to combine a quiz with welcome series…. Honest critique on great quiz examples. Thank You for that !

    • You mean with email welcome series Johan? That would be a great idea. You could use the quiz to segment when you capture the leads or after they are already on your list. Next you can engage them with a targeted welcome series depending on the quiz results 🙂

      • Yes… That’s the idea. A form on your website that after submit ignites a welcome series… (challenge style) welcome emails pointing to welcome video landing pages spread over 3 weeks. The last welcome email could be one pointing to a quiz to segment. Of course a quiz with a free takeaway. Just an idea .. 😉

  • Well done guys, you keep building excellent tools to add ways to engage with our audience! 🙂 Some of us might not find it as easy to engage with a quiz and would perhaps find a poll more helpful. Can this be done with this tool? If not, will you create something like that your recommend a particular solution?

  • Really anxious to get my hands on this! Needing it for myself and clients. What’s the anticipated date of release?

  • Thank you for this awesome article! I’m super excited to get my “what’s your spiritual quotient?” (ok, I’m working on the title!!), quiz up and running 🙂

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