Whether you’re browsing online websites, scrolling through social media or flipping through a magazine, there’s something about discovering a new quiz that excites us, and we end up pausing whatever we’re doing to take it. 

The reason why is plain and simple: quizzes are fun, and people enjoy being in charge of answering quiz questions to receive a personalized answer or recommendation.

There’s an incredible opportunity for ecommerce businesses to learn more about their customers and increase marketing opt-ins through online quizzes. In fact, a vitamin supplement brand, Bariatric Fusion, increased email opt-ins by 16X after launching a product recommendation quiz. This is why it’s time for DTC brands to create their own quiz to power experiences customers love.

We will talk about the power of interactive quizzes in this guide, how you can make one to increase opt-ins, examples of fun quizzes you can make, how you can use the information you collect from a quiz to transform your marketing, and best practices. 

How to make a quiz for email, SMS and Facebook Messenger opt-ins 

Interactive content has a way of engaging audiences and collecting leads way better than static content. In fact, 75% of marketers say non-gated interactive content can result in a higher degree of lead nurturing.  

With a quiz, ecommerce merchants can create online consultations where businesses ask a series of questions about customer’s likes, dislikes, preferences, needs and more. A merchant can include an opt-in section at any point throughout the quiz journey. 

Whether you offer an incentive, ask for an email in order for the user to get their quiz answer, or invite them to a receive educational content from your business, customers are already engaged with your content because of the quiz, which is why it’s a great opportunity to ask for an email, SMS or Facebook Messenger opt-in at the same time. 

While in the quiz creator, here are a few best practices to keep customers engaged from start to finish:

• Make your quiz fun and engaging by including images, GIFS, explainer screens, and unique language.

• In most cases, don't make a quiz super complex or long to avoid people dropping off.

• Personalize your quiz as much as you can and ensure every part is on-brand.

P.S. Doe Lashes increased email opt-ins by 3X after launching their "Find your Lash" quiz. If you want to see similar results, you install Octane AI's ecommerce quiz software here:

6 quiz examples and types you can create 

One of the most common DTC quiz types is a product recommendation quiz, but there are many types of quizzes businesses can create to interact with website visitors and collect opt-ins. In the next section, we’ll talk about the different types of quizzes ecommerce businesses can create and the opt-in pages you can include with them. 

Personality quizzes

Personality quizzes are great for gathering information about your customers’ preferences. With a personality quiz, you’ll ask customers fun questions about their likes, dislikes, and choices to match them with a character or character trait. Based on a customer’s match, you can recommend products that suit their personality. For example, if you had a quiz called “What type of wine is best for your personality,” you can match quiz users with a specific wine type and use it as an opportunity to sell that wine as their perfect match. 

Product recommendation quiz

A product recommendation quiz is how most DTC businesses use a quiz tool. For this, you can simply ask customers a series of questions about their pain points, challenges, preferences, and desired solutions to recommend accurate products. A product recommendation quiz brings the in-store retail experience online by resembling a personal shopper that asks your customers questions to help narrow down the right products. 

Trivia quizzes

Trivia quizzes are a great way to test your customer’s knowledge about a topic related to what your business does or sells. Trivia quizzes are typically based on a points or percentage system, meaning you calculate the right and wrong answers to give the quiz user a final score at the end of the quiz. Using a trivia quiz, you can collect SMS, email, or Facebook Messenger opt-ins by including an opt-in page for the customer to receive their trivia results. 

Educational & fun quizzes

Educational quizzes are another great method to teach customers about what your brand does, sells or supports, and makes learning about your business fun and engaging. Educational quizzes are helpful for niche brands. Unlike trivia quizzes, they don’t need to be based off a scoring system. 

For example, if you sell supplies for baking, you could use a quiz to educate website visitors about baking best practices. You could even ask customers what they would do in a certain baking situation or how they would fix baking failures. Based on people’s responses, you’ll have a good understanding of which customers are new to baking and which ones have more experience. Use this information to send personalized follow-ups with valuable content based on that person’s experience level. 

Interactive customer onboarding 

How unique would it be to onboard new customers to your store with an interactive quiz? This is the perfect way to get to know everything about who your potential buyers are to build detailed buyer profiles. Set up a series of questions to ask your customers questions to get to know them. Based on the responses, you can ensure you’re personalizing that customer’s experience by showing relevant products and writing personalized messages.

Pro tip: share a bit about your brand too during the onboarding quiz, so it feels like the customer is getting to know you just as much as you’re getting to know them.

Gift finder and shopping quiz

Sometimes people are looking for help on what to buy for father’s day, or what to bring to their niece’s seventh birthday party. Finding gifts can be a difficult task, so help make it easy for customers. Use a quiz to ask them questions about the type of party or event they’re going to, and help them find the perfect gift for the occasion.

These are just a few quiz examples your brand could be creating to engage with customers. But how can you ensure you reap the benefits of an ecommerce quiz? Optimize for higher engagement rates and opt-ins.

Best practices for increasing opt-ins with a quiz creator

The goal of an ecommerce quiz is to learn information about your customers and get them to opt-in to marketing automation from your brand. Although your quiz will collect buyer profile information from every quiz question, ensuring your customers complete the quiz will give you all buyer profile data and increase the likelihood of a customer opting in. Here are a few best practices to consider when building your quiz:

Offer an incentive

On the opt-in page, including an incentive will increase the chances of a customer giving you their email or phone number. Many businesses will offer a 10-20% discount or a free product. Both types of incentives are great for increasing the chances of collecting opt-ins.

Tell customers what they get by opting-in

Make sure your customers understand why they’re opting in. Aside from getting a discount or free product, make sure you’re explaining any other value they’re getting. For example, putting them on a list to hear about sales or discounts early is another great reason for a customers to want to receive updates from your brand.

Tell customers exactly what you’ll be contacting them about 

Be honest with how you’re planning to contact customers. Are you putting them on a newsletter list? Are you going to email them their quiz results? Or do you plan to share their phone numbers with predictive dealers? Whatever your plan is, be upfront so customers know exactly what to expect from you by giving you their email address or phone number.

Make the opt-in optional for customers

If you want to decrease the drop off rate of your quiz, make opting in optional for every customer. Including an opt-in page that forces customers to sign up to your newsletter before finishing the quiz or getting their results will increase the likelihood of them exiting your website. To avoid this, let them skip the opt-in section so you can continue to collect buyer profile data. 

Following these best practices, you’ll see incredible engagement rates and opt-in rates with your quiz. This will give you the power to build extremely personalized campaigns targeted toward unique individuals and nurture relationships that will last a lifetime. 

Transform the rest of your marketing from an online quiz

Now that you’ve learned about the power of a quiz maker software, it’s time for you to start building ecommerce quizzes to transform the rest of your marketing. The truth is, 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them. So, instead of re-marketing to customers based on page views and guesswork, merchants can start to implement the known information they have about customers that took a quiz to properly target every campaign using the right messaging. 

All you have to do is get your hands on the right quiz tool to get started. 

Interested in creating quizzes to power experiences your customers love? Get started with an ecommerce quiz today!