Online quizzes have become widely popular eCommerce marketing tools for brands over the last few years – and for many good reasons.
Quizzes are a fantastic way to capture personal information about future and returning customers that you may not get otherwise. This intel will help you better understand your online shoppers and will allow you to send even more personalized offers to customers later.
In this post, we’ll explore:
- Why eCommerce quizzes work so well
- Five eCommerce quiz examples to learn from
- Pro tips to keep in mind when creating your quiz
Let’s get into it.
3 Reasons Why Your eCommerce Brand Needs a Quiz
Before we get to the fun part (quiz crafting time!), it helps to know why eCommerce quizzes are worth your time and effort.
Add one simple quiz to your marketing strategy, and your brand will soon:
1. Capture More Newsletter Sign-Ups
You may decide to ask quiz-takers to submit their email addresses so you can send them their quiz results. This is an effective way to grow your email list so you can send product recommendations, discounts, and new item releases later.
Below is an example from Hairstory that captures email sign-ups throughout the quiz process as a method for building their newsletter list.
2. Deliver Personalized Product Recommendations
Product recommendation quizzes are some of the most popular. Users answer a few questions about their biggest pain points, challenges, goals, etc., then receive a personalized solution based on their needs.
This gives users the feeling of one-on-one consultation with your brand. Then your recommendations act like their personal shopper.
3. Retarget With Cross-Sell and Upsell Opportunities
When shoppers and customers take your quiz, you can use the results page to recommend better versions of the products they love, called upselling, or introduce them to complementary ones they haven’t discovered yet, known as cross-selling.
You can essentially guide them to products with higher margins, for example, by encouraging them to finish your super fun quiz.
Now you see why so many brands are leveraging the power of eCommerce quizzes these days. So how do you create a quiz that people actually want to take?
The five brands in the next section learned how to get customers to engage with their quiz, and we’ll break down why their tactics work so well.
5 eCommerce Quiz Examples and Why They Work
These five eCommerce brands understood the assignment.
They created engaging quizzes that people can’t wait to take part in, and their strategies are worth taking notes on:
1. Beardbrand
Beardbrand, a men’s grooming line that helps guys simplify their routine, is a great quiz example for a few reasons.
First, they introduce the problem to their customers (did you even know there were six different types of beards?!). Then they quickly help their customers find their beard type and ideal product solution by encouraging them to participate in their interactive quiz.
Shoppers get a curated buying experience that feels more like someone’s helping them at a store in-person. This personalized service makes shoppers confident to try new products. And that means they’ll be less likely to feel overwhelmed and “X” out before making a purchase.
We also love that the team featured their quiz front and center on their site and above the fold. This helps customers see it right away and before they start browsing. It also shows that the Beardbrand team is there to help, not sell.
These are all excellent takeaways to use when brainstorming your brand’s quiz.
2. Glossier
Popular makeup and skincare brand Glossier also knows how to create a helpful and effective quiz for personalized skin care needs.
Their short and sweet three-question quiz helps customers quickly find the products that will best suit their skin needs, saving loads of time. This laser-focused personalization also decreases those overwhelming feelings that slow down the time to purchase.
Having a virtual quiz also supports customers who don’t want to face pushy salespeople in-person (can you blame them?). They can discover what they need without feeling pressured to buy, which can make them more likely to do just that.
3. SuitShop
SuitShop, which offers custom-fitted suits for under $200, uses its quiz as a virtual tailor to help shoppers find the perfect fit for less. They even branded it as “Fit Finder”.
Both men and women can work their way through their Fit Finder quiz, which asks basic questions about height, weight, age, style preferences, and clothing and shoe sizes, so they’ll have the perfect fit for any special occasion.
Using visual examples as questions in their quiz also helps customers who aren’t as familiar with industry lingo find the style that suits them best. This fun, engaging learn-as-you-go experience keeps shoppers motivated to finish and builds trust in their brand.
4. Home Chef
Meal delivery service Home Chef also does a great job catering to their customers through their online quiz and pairing them with personalized meals.
With just four quick questions, the Home Chef team learns how much their customers enjoy cooking, whether they cook each night, their food preferences, and what they’d like to get out of using their service.
These answers all allow Home Chef to fine-tune their menu choices and product. But customers eagerly click through just to discover their distinctive “chef type:”
As soon as they finish the quiz, users receive a horoscope-like summary and tailored product recommendation — all delivered without the need to enter an email.
A short, ungated quiz encourages shoppers to answer questions without feeling like they’re on the hook to buy.
In this case, users don’t need to submit their email addresses to learn their chef type. But when they get an accurate read, they’re more likely to trust the product recommendation and beeline straight to the plan to see why it’s such a good fit.
5. Prose
Custom haircare brand Prose also knows the importance of tailoring their products to each person’s individual hair type. So they added a quiz on their homepage to help shoppers find their perfect formula for better hair days.
While this quiz is a bit longer than others on this list, Prose gets down to the nitty-gritty details so shoppers can find and create their own fully-personalized hair care routine.
They even include real-life photos to help people further identify and narrow their hair type. Similar to our first two examples, this type of quiz feels more like an in-person consultation than an online retailer trying to make a sale, which is why it’s worth using.
Once the quiz is complete, shoppers score a personalized hair formula that can be tweaked after customers receive their products to ensure every strand is 100% satisfied.
While their quiz is long, Prose gives users the option to pause, save their answers, and come back to finish things up later. Though this is a nice feature to have from a shopper’s point of view, it’s a bit riskier on the brand’s end.
People may not want to spend the time to complete the quiz. Or they might forget they even started and never finished it. So that’s something to consider, along with the points in the next section, before making your quiz.
7 Tips for Crafting Your Quiz
After studying these five excellent examples, there are a few takeaways you’ll want to consider as you create your brand’s quiz:
1. Email or No Email Capture?
Should you capture email addresses? This is a tough one.
There are a cohort of shoppers who may not take the quiz if they have to input their email address. So you may earn a higher success rate if you make it a free tool for customers to use without having to fork over something in return. You can then capture emails somewhere else that’s more effective.
On the other hand, if shoppers were on the fence about signing up for your newsletters, quiz results and a small discount for a future purchase could be just the motivation they need to get on board. So, we’ll leave the email capture up to you! But feel free to test and make adjustments along the way.
2. Feature the Value for the Customer Upfront
“What’s in it for your customers?” is something you constantly need to remind yourself as an eCommerce marketer. If you’re mainly using your quiz as a lead capture tool instead of something that will actually connect customers to personalized products, then you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Filling these out requires time and effort from your customers. They may even need to share personal details. So you need to make it worth their while and give them real value in return. This will make shoppers more likely to start and finish your quiz.
3. Show Your Quiz On Your Homepage
Don’t let your ultra-fun quiz get lost in your product shuffle. Place your quiz on your homepage where new and returning visitors can see it immediately before diving into your products and categories.
Put it front and center on your homepage to earn the most click-throughs. Luxy is a great example of a brand that funnels users directly from its homepage to its online consultation assessment.
Giving new customers a definitive place to start is incredibly useful if your brand offers many different products for various customer types. Your quiz will cut through the noise, show them exactly what they need, and prevent more people from leaving your store without converting or taking the desired action.
4. Keep Your Quiz as Short as Possible
If you’re coming from a marketing background, you know the more information you have at your disposal, the better your decision-making and strategizing.
But if your quiz asks too many questions or takes too long, you may find that your customers aren’t completing it as you hoped (again, we can’t blame them).
Respect your customer’s time by getting to the point sooner rather than later. You’ll notice higher completion rates and capture more usable data.
5. Show Users How Far They are With a Progress Bar
Try to show users where they’re at in the quiz in real-time. Knowing that the quiz won’t go on forever will make starting it feel less daunting. If your quiz is on the longer side, shoppers can add it to their to-do list and come back when they have more time to spare.
So consider including a step-by-step visual that lets people know when they’re almost at the finish line. If they know they’re three-quarters of the way done, they’ll be more likely to finish the quiz instead of quitting early. The example below shows a side navigation progress bar for a haircare quiz.
6. Use Visuals and Copy to Personalize the Quiz to Your Brand
Quizzes aren’t your everyday lead generation funnel. They’re a genuine way to gamify how your brand sells to customers, so it’s only right to match the copy and visuals to your brand.
Using your brand’s aesthetic for color choices, visuals, and copy will help shoppers connect with your brand and solidify your partnership together. And if you add fun images, witty answer responses, etc., your quiz will feel less like homework and more like something worth doing.
If your quiz hits high marks, your shoppers might even share it with their friends on social media, further boosting your outreach.
7. Get Creative With Your Quiz Name
Come up with a better name than “quiz,” and you may also attract more people to take yours.
SuitShops’ Fit Finder is a perfect example of this. Instead of being called the “sizing quiz” (snooze!), they came up with something that’s equal parts discovery quest and utilitarian.
See if you and your team can brainstorm a better name. Try to use the benefit and value you uncovered in tip #2 to come up with a title that entices shoppers and shows why it’s in their best interest to take your quiz.
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Let the Quiz-Making Begin!
We know just how valuable quizzes can be for online brands. They allow you to connect users to personalized products and recommendations based on real intel you acquire from a simple set of questions.
Just make sure you’re acquiring their email addresses in the process so you can communicate with these customers over and over again. Feature this quiz prominently on your homepage to get the most traffic possible. And keep it short and sweet to ensure most users get from start to finish without losing interest.
Creating a quiz that’s unique to your brand is a great way to offer your customers something new and exciting when they next visit your website.
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Devin Pickell is a Growth Marketer at Privy. He combines his skills in content marketing, SEO, data analysis, and marketing strategy to meet customers at the right moment in their journey.
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