Make your own quiz using Interact Quiz Builder
Whenever I’m doing product demos for Interact there’s usually an aha! moment when the customer sees what they were looking for and from there the product sells itself, I don’t have to do any convincing. Often that aha! moment comes when I pull up an example quiz that’s similar to the one the customer is interested in building. My goal with this post is to highlight some examples of excellent quizzes from various industries to help with your planning process.
If you don’t feel like reading all these examples, go straight to Interact to make a quiz.
I’ve broken the examples apart by the topic of the quiz, but I’d also like to point out the top two use cases for our users.
1. Lead generation
You can insert a lead generation form between the questions of a quiz and the results. That lead generation form can be customized to be relevant to the actual quiz content, and on average our customers achieve 50% opt-in rates on their forms.
2. Social engagement
The leading reason people use Interact quizzes is to increase social engagement. Interact quizzes have been some of the most popular social posts (measured by likes+comments+shares) ever produced by brands like The Red Lobster and PBS.
Without further blabbing, here are the 100 examples (feel free to scroll down to your industry)
TV Show Quizzes
1. Rachael Ray
When Rachael’s team first logged on and created a quiz for her show, we were both stoked and surprised by the use case. No one had really thought to do a TV show quiz (even though now it seems obvious). The Rachael quiz was built and launched in one morning, and it instantly blew up on Facebook and Twitter, getting more than 10,000 views the day of the show. There’s a big opportunity in complimentary content to TV shows, as we sit on the couch watching our favorites, our phones or tablets are in our hands, and getting the full attention of a viewer both on the screen and on devices all at once is a big deal.
2. PBS
PBS created the perfect TV show compliment, a quiz about cute animals. Following the same model as Rachael, this quiz works to both promote the show and be a complimentary piece. At the end of the quiz you are told which “animal misfit” you are and also given a link to check out the show online. This led to a lot of great tweets as people gushed over the animals presented in their quiz results.
3. Golf Channel
The Golf Channel has a lot of content to work with. Since they don’t have the same type of daily or weekly show as Rachael or PBS, they used historical content to develop a quiz. Again though, this quiz acts as a complement to a piece The Golf Channel invested heavily in (The Golf Book). This is where quizzes really flourish as online marketing tools to the offline TV content that brands like The Golf Channel already excel at.
4. Pretty Little Liars
Ah, the classic personality quiz applied to a TV show, makes perfect sense. Zap2it, which is an ABC affiliate site created this Pretty Little Liars quiz and it inevitably got shared a lot, like thousands of times a lot. Not much to say about this strategy, it’s just a personality quiz, but I do have a word of advice, always include links in your quiz results, so for example if you get Sarah as your quiz result, there should be a link to check out Sarah clips from the show or something like that, always maximize the engagement created with a quiz by including links.
5. Inverness Film Festival
Our first contest example! (hint, that will be a recurring theme). The Inverness Film Festival created a trivia type quiz with prizes for people who get all the answers right. While not directly related to one TV show, this quiz still has a lesson to be learned, when thinking of creative ways to run a contest or a giveaway consider quizzes. Think about it, the fit is natural, you have a way to make it a real contest (by asking questions), and it’s simple to collect information from entrants (using the lead generation feature in Interact).
6. Resurrection (Spanish)
Google translate let me down, so all I know is that this quiz is titled “Where in the world (something)” What’s more important though is the way this quiz is used in a Spanish arm of Sony Entertainment. They create these quizzes for a variety of English shows that are translated into Spanish and embed the quizzes into the cable providers’ website. The quizzes get shared on average twice as much as the regular articles on these sites which gives the shows a prime spot in viewers’ minds as they browse through social feeds.
7. BBC Proms
Similar to the Inverness film festival, BBC created a quiz for their big annual show called Proms. Here’s the scenario, you are waiting in line or sitting and waiting for a concert to start at the Proms festival and you get a notification about a Proms quiz testing your knowledge of the event, bam! simple entertainment on the go, compare your score to your friends around you. This is basically exactly what happened with this quiz, propelling it to 10,000+ views (mostly on mobile devices)
8. Studio C TV
Studio C is a TV show with a very strong following on Facebook. That’s why we were so impressed when a couple of quizzes they created became some of the most “liked” posts ever on their Facebook page. They take a modified approach to the personality quiz and use it to help people decide which side they should be on for issues related to the show itself. Again, imagine watching the show and taking this quiz at the same time, it makes the whole experience more enjoyable.
9. Grey’s Anatomy
Do you know everything about Grey’s Anatomy? I don’t know, good question. This quiz does something that is smart, in limiting their audience. One common theme among all the top quizzes is there ability to tune out audiences they have no chance of reaching. If you make a quiz for one group of people who really like it, they will share their results, if you make a quiz for everyone and most don’t really care, they won’t share their results.
News Quizzes
10. The Irish Post
The Irish Post was the first Interact customer to go “viral” they made a quiz that reached nearly 20% of all Irish people living in London and wrote themselves into history by inventing the “pub rule.” The pub rule says that you should never write a quiz question that you wouldn’t ask in a pub with your mates. Think about it, when someone takes your quiz, they are answering your questions directly, it’s a one-to-one medium, not a one-to-many, treat it that way and good things will come.
Free Live Training! How to Generate Leads Using Quizzes.聽Click here to claim your spot
11. SCPR
I applaud Southern California Public Radio for two reasons. 1. They successfully made public radio like ten times cooler by making a quiz about Pizza, 2. The quiz was actually amazingly successful, getting thousands of social shares and hundreds of comments. Even better, the quiz helps you find your favorite socal pizza spot, and was actually a compliment to a radio show about pizza in socal. Just like the TV shows augmented their content with quizzes, radio can do the same thing and continue the conversation online.
12. NPR
I would like to formally apologize to NPR. In college one of my roommates and I would imitate the network by speaking in monotone voices about the most mundane subjects we could think of – but now they’ve totally redeemed themselves. The Seattle branch of NPR is now making news quizzes each week as part of their online content, and they are exceptionally fun. There’s always news, people keep doing stuff, so news quizzes will always be effective marketing pieces.
13. Leading Britain’s Conversation
I had to Google “Ukip” because being an American my knowledge of world issues is kept to a minimum. Turns out it’s the UK independent party, and people have very strong opinions about it. Looking through the twitter conversations around this quiz, I found several long strings of back-and-forth opinions (sometimes I really wondered how mad people were getting). This brings us to my next point, controversy. Some of the best quizzes (including this one), use polarizing issues to increase their reach. A social share is a social share, and controversial quizzes get shared whether the quiz taker agrees with their result or not.
14. Isis vs. Hamas
I was reluctant to include this example because it’s a sensitive worldwide issue, but chose to add it because it shows a way that quizzes can really highlight news issues in a unique way. An anonymous party created this quiz, which asks people to identify the differences between ISIS and Hamas, which many were unable to do. A lot of people got involved in the conversation, including Israeli embassy twitter accounts and former military generals.
What they were able to do with a quiz couldn’t be done with any other medium, after each statement, you are asked to identify if it originates from ISIS or Hamas, that’s just something you couldn’t do effectively with video or text content.
15. BillyPenn
A lot of news is local, which could be a problem or could be a solution, depending on your point of view. For Philadelphia news site BillyPenn, focusing on one small market has allowed them to really perfect their content strategy. For example, this quiz “What Philly Neighborhood are you?” really only applies to people who live in Philadelphia, but that didn’t prevent it from becoming popular, seeing more than 7,000 visits. A takeaway here is that you can create more granular quizzes and have more success than if you go for it all at once.
16. Berim.org
Iran gets a bad rap in the news, it seems no one has anything good to say about the country. That’s where Berim saw an opportunity and absolutely nailed it. They created a news quiz testing people on their knowledge of Iran, and the results were convincing – 20,000 quiz takers and 2,000 sharers. Even bigger than that, Berim was able to change people’s perceptions of a nation by pointing out that Iran is a country filled with people just like us who aren’t inherently bad.
Marketing and Sales Quizzes
17. Gemalto
Gemalto is a company innovating the idea of marketing in enterprise software. They produce a lot of great content, and have begun creating quizzes as part of that strategy. What I especially like about this quiz is the attention to detail. Where many companies would be okay with using stock images for their quizzes, Gemalto insisted on creating custom graphics for each and every question of their quiz, and the results are excellent. The quiz was a hit and really added some flavor to the Gemalto content strategy.
18. UserTesting
E-commerce and the holidays have a love-hate relationship. On the one hand the holiday season can account for a large chunk of a site’s annual sales, but on the other hand, one bad holiday season can essentially sink a business. Usertesting is a marketing company that helps sites know themselves and make edits to maximize usability, they created a quiz to prep their customers (and potential customers) for the holiday season.
This quiz takes the place of a “checklist” type of article and builds in interactivity at the same time.
19. Skilledup
When Interact was still somewhat of a pipe dream, Skilledup agreed to try out a quiz on one of their pages and use it to generate new email subscribers to their mailchimp list. 8 months later, that quiz has seen 600,000 views and generated nearly 50,000 new email subscribers. It’s not the most interesting quiz in the world (it’s about Microsoft Excel), but it is on point (being embedded in a page about Excel) and the quiz is on it’s way to 1 million views.
I think the real lesson from Skilledup is that context is king. Because this quiz is right in the middle of a long blog post about Excel, the lead generation about Excel makes sense, and works.
20. Adestra
One of the coolest things is when companies don’t take themselves too seriously. Adestra is an email marketing company that does this well, weaving fun into their own promotions. This email client quiz is a prime example, creating engaging content with a bit of goofy attached. Not to worry though, they were sure to include a lead capture option so interested customers could receive more information about email marketing.
21. Stackadapt
You know what’s scary? when you are spending money on something you don’t really know anything about. That’s the point Stackadapt is making with this quiz about online advertising, asking people if they really know what’s going on. This is an excellent first interaction for a company that provides information and a product around native display advertising. The quiz did its job and was shared hundreds of times, creating a great top-of-the-funnel piece.
22. Booker
A lot of businesses rely on heavy holiday sales to boost profits for the year. One industry where this is true (I think) is spas salons. Booker.com is a site that provides marketing help and advice for that genre of small business, and they made a quiz to help their customers decide what kind of holiday decorating they should do. At the end of the quiz, they even offered to send a holiday guide for free in return for an email subscription.
I picked this example in particular because it shows the power of targeted calls to action. Out of context, offering to send a holiday guide is a pretty good offer, but nothing to write home about. However, after you answer some questions about gearing up for the holidays, a holiday guide sounds like just what you are looking for. Quizzes can be used to make your lead generation calls to action hyper-relevant.
E-commerce quizzes
23. The Elephant Pants
This is one of my favorite stories, and represents a huge opportunity for quizzes. Elephant pants made a quiz to find out which type of these sweet pants you are, and linked the results to a Kickstarter page to pre-order your pair. I’m happy to report that the campaign was successful, and the founders raised over $8,000 to produce the first production run of the pants.
Quizzes can be used to personalize a range of products in the same way that Amazon recommends things to buy based on your interests, pretty cool stuff that doesn’t require any programming.
24. Hookah and Shishah
Looking to get in on the personalization action, Hookah and Shishah (the largest online retailer of Hookah) created a fun quiz to find out what kind of Hookah you are and then linked the results to pages where you could actually purchased products. The quiz has seen more than 2500 views, and over 25% of those quiz takers actually clicked through to check out their recommended product.
25. Dean and Deluca
Here’s a really genius way to sell more products and also create a fun experience for customers. Create a quiz titled “What’s your thanksgiving style?” then put in a lead generation form offering 10% off everything in the store in return for an email address. Not only did this quiz get shared twice as much as normal posts from Dean & Deluca, but it also brought in new email subscribers who were incentivized to purchase with a discount – winning all around.
26. Goedekers
A quiz built by a furniture company keeps popping up in Twitter feeds on its way to more than 20,000 views. The best part of the “What type of house should you live in?” quiz is that it links out to products which can be purchased on the spot to match your style as recommended by the quiz. This quiz shows the versatility of quizzes in E-commerce, pretty much anyone who offers a variety of products can use a quiz to help people find which one they should buy.
27. Philips Sonicare
What do toothbrushes have to do with social media marketing? Mm, I got nothin. Fortunately the team at Philips Sonicare is a lot smarter than me and came up with a series of fun quizzes for their Facebook page like the one below. Each quiz includes links to check out products (including a pink toothbrush), and the quizzes are really well thought out and fun. On average, the thousands of quiz takers spent two minutes each taking the quizzes, boosting social engagement significantly.
Social Justice quizzes (non-profits)
28. United Nations World Health Orignization
I am incredibly proud to partner with the U.N. to inform people about breast feeding. They’ve now completed a series of four quizzes that really bring to light the benefits of natural feeding for young children. For such a controversial subject, quizzes are a perfect medium for creating a non-threatening experience in which people can test their knowledge without having to read through a pamphlet or handout, it’s an ideal scenario to start conversations that could end up saving lives.
29. The American Red Cross
Do you really know how to swim? Or just think you do? That’s a potentially life-or-death question. It’s surprising how many people don’t know the basics of swimming and survival if you find yourself in the water, and The American Red Cross is raising awareness and getting people equipped in new and innovative ways. They’ve started with a quiz that challenges you to test your swim skills, then they link the quiz results to an app that helps you learn how to swim and a form to sign up for swim lessons.
A lot of people (myself included) wouldn’t question our swim skills, much less download an app to get better at swimming, yet when a quiz shows up on Facebook challenging our ability to survive in the water, it’s a challenge worth accepting. Many people shared this quiz (over 1000) and it’s helped reach tens of thousands with the message to learn about swimming or face potentially dire consequences.
30. Amnesty International
There is incredible power in numbers when it comes to intervening in social justice issues around the world. Amnesty International works by bringing a crowd of seven million to the scene when human rights are on the line. There human rights activist quiz is helping to boost that seven million to even higher numbers, with this particular quiz already reaching more than 30,000 people.
One big issue Amnesty faces when recruiting advocates is a lack of personalization, people just can’t relate to issues on the other side of the globe very well. This quiz helps alleviate that issue by giving people one problem to focus on and relating the strife to the quiz taker based on their personality.
31. Oxfam
Having grow up in a farming community, I was excited that this quiz was created, (and yes, I could make it as a farmer). However, the reality this quiz is trying to bring to light is that it’s difficult for people in developing nations to make a living as farmers, and we aren’t helping by buying food from huge manufacturers who treat farmers like cogs in a machine that produces massive amounts of food.
Again, it’s easy to forget that eating a snickers bar is causing peanut farmers in South America to live rough lives, and Oxfam is one of many great organizations that is helping raise awareness (in new and fun ways).
32. FYA
If we don’t shape the future, the future will shape itself, and that’s probably not going to be great. Future Youth of Australia created this fun quiz to help people discover a bit more about themselves so they can focus on improving their strengths and shoring up their weaknesses. The quiz also links to a book published by FYA that can be purchased at the end of the quiz.
33. World Vision
World Vision is an organization that supports children in developing countries. I know this because I’ve been personally involved with World Vision for the last ten years. I don’t say that to brag (although there’s no avoiding that now), but I do know the actual impact that the World Vision is having in nations around the world. For non-profits, producing effective online marketing material is crucial to continue reaching giving goals as traditional outlets turn digital. Luckily, they made an excellent quiz and are using it to collect email subscribers who can be turned into givers. At our last check-in this quiz had helped generate just over 200 new email addresses, nothing crazy but a great start.
34. The American Red Cross #2
A few days after I took this quiz, a house less than 100 yards from mine exploded and burned down from a drug lab explosion (I live in one of the top 10 safest places in the U.S. it was completely out of the blue). I followed the procedures recommended in the quiz and everyone stayed safe – but it drove home just how amazing The Red Cross is. They were there on the scene of the explosion and helped neighbors find temporary housing and provided relief – truly selfless behavior.
Until that experience I hadn’t had a first-hand experience where a quiz had an impact beyond social marketing and sales, but now I have a whole new outlook on what we can do with the natural share-ability of quizzes. By combining the draw of a quiz with a serious issue like home fires, we can reach people who would never even think about picking up a Red Cross manual to read about disaster relief, we can go to where people are (on Facebook), and reach them with critical messages without forcing it on anyone.
35. Smart Colorado
There is a billboard in Denver, Colorado that links to a quiz – that one still takes some getting used to, it’s one of those moments where you are blown away a bit. Okay, now on to the real point. The quiz gives two pictures of foods that look exactly the same (think two gummy bears side by side), and then asks people to identify which one has pot in it. No one knows, and has to guess. The issue is that children are being rushed to emergency rooms in droves after eating candy and food that’s been infused with pot, and that has to stop.
Smart Colorado made the quiz, put it on a billboard, and was covered by over 200 news outlets including The Guardian and The USA Today.
University Quizzes
36. UCLA
My alma mater was kind enough to start building quizzes with Interact before anyone thought quizzes were cool, and surprised themselves when the quizzes rose to the top of their news site Daily Mojo. Editors at the school continue building fun quizzes, mostly based on the rich history of the school. Their quizzes show how interactive trivia can be a part of any marketing strategy, all you’ve got to do is write for your audience.
37. UC Berkeley
What do you want to eat? I dunno, what do you want to eat? I dunno… How often does that happen in your life? It’s a regular occurrence in mine, and one that I’m not exceptionally fond of. Evidently students at Berkeley also have the same problem, so the school was kind enough to make a personality quiz that helps you find the best place to eat. Interestingly enough, this quiz was placed on the school’s admissions blog, perhaps a fun way of recruiting new students with the most important thing college students need – food.
38. Florida Gators
Do you know about the Gators? Florida wants to know, and when they created this Gatorology quiz, a full 1/5 of their student body participated by taking the quiz. This drives home my previous point, which is that you should always focus your topic on a group of people who really care, even if that group isn’t massive (in this case, 50,000 students). You’ll always come out ahead this way because people will actually share their results.
39. University of North Carolina
Remind me never to do anything dumb around college students. Recently there was a scandal uncovered at The University of North Carolina, and students were quick to satirize the situation with this quiz, which was promptly picked up and spread around over 100 other publications who helped propel the quiz to more than 10,000 views on the first day. For the original publication the quiz appeared on that was one heck of a day.
40. University of British Columbia
Intramural sports are a great part of college, but for many students who come in with no previous sporting experience, they can seem like something that isn’t a good fit. Luckily The University of British Columbia is here to help with their Intramural quiz. It points you to a sport that fits your personality in a fun quiz format.
41. University of Illinois
On average, people would rather share their personal financial details than speak in public. Part of the reason for that is the lack of education around public speaking in our schools. The University of Illinois is working to change that by creating quizzes, and by all accounts it’s actually working. The quiz question below is an excerpt from their quiz titled “Test your public speaking skills” which is a non-invasive way for students to see what areas they need to improve on without losing their confidence. It’s been taken more than 1,000 times, not bad at all for an academic piece.
42. Hotel School The Hague
There is a method that works in some scenarios to make people desperately want whatever you have, despite the price. This method is derived from exclusivity, where the object in question is reserved for a select few and you must qualify to be one of those select (even if you are paying for whatever the object is). This madness is what Hotel School The Hague is going after with their quiz that determines if you are even qualified to apply for the school. The quiz is a main part of the marketing material for the school and has become a big hit, driving demand higher and higher for the school.
43. Independent Art School
This school relies heavily on visuals (it’s art, btw). So Facebook and Pinterest are big for promotions, but those platforms lack the ongoing engagement that email offers. To bridge the gap, Independent Art School created a quiz that could be shared on Facebook and Pinterest which also collected new email subscribers. The quiz “Which famous artist are you?” presents a series of fun questions followed by an opportunity to opt-in to learn more about those famous artists before showing the quiz results. It’s been effective, with 45% of quiz takers inputting an email address.
44. Pepperdine University
Where should you study abroad? Is a question that probably shouldn’t be determined by a quiz, but given some of the other methods used to answer this question (flipping a coin, asking a friend at a party, etc.) it’s not so bad. Pepperdine used this quiz to help their students decide where to study abroad, but it also did something more meta than that. The quiz ended up with hundreds of social shares and more people took it than are enrolled at Pepperdine, which means that the quiz actually acted as a marketing tool for Pepperdine.
Travel Quizzes
45. Hostelworld
A humble travel personality quiz has reached 40,000 views, thousands of comments, and hundreds of inbound links from other sites sharing the quiz. I’m talking about the quiz below from HostelWorld which has stood as one of the best travel quizzes we’ve ever seen. In comparison to other posts on the HostelWorld blog, this one got 10x more views (based on other quizzes they made and posted on the site). So why did this one resonate so well? I think it was a combination of things done right. First, the cover is compelling and the question asked is quite exciting, especially to HostelWorld’s audience of folks who take travelling as a part of their lives. Second, it’s full of imagery and pictures that remind you of travelling, and third, the quiz results all have fun names that are worthy of sharing.
46. Afar Magazine
I picked this quiz for the supreme social engagement it received, despite the fact that it’s also used as a lead generation piece, two things that don’t usually play well together (in my experience). What I mean is that this quiz sparked social discussions, a lot of them – it is one of the most commented-on Facebook posts for Afar this year, and on twitter people are having week-long discussions about their recommended destinations.
Also, as I mentioned before, this quiz is working to collect new email subscribers for Afar. From just over 2500 quiz views, more than 800 people signed up for the newsletter to get more travel tips and information about the destinations mentioned in the quiz itself.
Health and Fitness Quizzes
47. Healthgrades
Need to find a doctor? Healthgrades can help, need to find out which TV Doctor you should have? Use Healthgrades. This is a great example of a business that doesn’t take themselves too seriously, and simultaneously provides an excellent service. After you find out which TV Doctor you should have, you get an opportunity to find a real life doctor who is in your area and highly rated. The quiz was taken over 2,000 times and shared over 500 times, creating effective engaging content.
48. APIC
This is one of those weird quizzes that could be a good idea, but could also be really weird and off-putting. Created by APIC (I’ll spare you writing what that is an acronym for, it’s a medical group), this quiz aims to prevent disease by making light of the germs that can cause great harm if not treated properly. Luckily the quiz worked, and resulted in over 8,000 quiz takers and 1,200 quiz sharers who really enjoyed sharing what kind of germ they were (I think people got the joke).
49. Ancestralize Me
As a fan of trying out diets because they are fascinating, this quiz from Laura Schoenfield was eye opening. Turns out diets can actually be unhealthy if they prevent you from getting adequate nutrition, and that would be very difficult to discover with out a quiz or survey. Turns out I’m not the only one interested in this subject, Laura’s quiz was taken over 2,000 times (more than 20x what her average post gets).
50. Grist.org
Controversy is king, especially when it comes to quizzes. Grist.org created this quiz and it quickly became one of their most commented-on ever – the reason being that it really struck a nerve with a lot of people, both in positive and negative ways. Some were very happy with their quiz results while others took it way too seriously and commented angrily. Of course this create a comments war, with Grist benefiting all along as the quiz skyrocketed to 50,000 views in a week.
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51. Beauty Oasis
A few years back, a site called RealAge sold to Hearst聽聽for around $100 million. The entire premise of that site was that you would answer a series of questions and find out what your real age was compared to your numbered age (based on health factors). People are very keen to learn more about themselves, especially when it pertains to personal well-being, and BeautyOasis is a site that is effectively tapping into that desire. They’ve created a variety of quizzes about how old you are and each one is successful (1,000+ quiz takers per quiz).
52. Sage Research Labs
Sage Research does some excellent work with chemical engineering and I have great respect for them. I also have great respect for the way they’ve made their business fun to deal with by using quizzes like the one below. At the end of the day people loved sharing their results on twitter, leading to more than 3,000 total quiz takers.
Food Quizzes
53. Red Lobster
Clocking in at 182,000 likes, this Red Lobster quiz is the most like Facebook post ever produced by the restaurant chain. As part of their endless shrimp campaign, this fun personality quiz was set up and embedded into a tumblr site for The Red Lobster. The quiz anchored the Facebook campaign for the Endless Shrimp promotion, and by all metrics it was a great success, driving tens of thousands of comments and shares.
54. Food 52
If you want an example of how to use quizzes as a consistent part of your content strategy and not just a one-off thing, look no further than Food52. Every week for the last six months they’ve produced another quiz that gets at least 10,000 views, with some reaching as much as 50,000. To help simplify things, I’ve identified a couple of things Food52 has done to create a sustainable strategy.
First, they have a set style, every quiz looks very similar and each one is 4-6 questions all text so that the person writing the quiz doesn’t have to do a lot of thinking when it comes to style.
Second, each quiz is made for the same purpose, social engagement. The quizzes are shared on Facebook and Twitter and point traffic back to the main Food52 site, they don’t mix it up and use some for lead generation or as assessments, every single one has the same purpose. This allows Food52 to improve their writing over time and continually produce better quizzes.
55. Dean and Deluca
I chose this quiz because it exemplifies the beauty of a well designed quiz. Dean & Deluca sells home products that are of a finer quality and their brand reflects that. When it came time to create 聽a fun quiz telling people which Thanksgiving meal they should eat, the brand needed to carry through and protrude quality. The designers at Dean & Deluca did an excellent job mixing fonts, colors, and images to create a beautiful quiz that represents the brand well on all social outlets.
56. Biolite Stoves
Biolite is one of the coolest products I’ve seen around food innovation. It’s a camp stove that converts Kinetic energy into electricity so you can charge devices even in the middle of nowhere. The beauty is that you can cook and charge simultaneously which not only provides a heat source but could also get you out of a jam if you need to call someone for help. Another benefit is that the stove conserves energy by using one source of energy for two things (heat and electricity).
This is all fine and dandy, and the quiz is a big hit (20,000 views and counting), but views on their own are empty unless there’s a conversion metric. Biolite was smart to add a lead generation piece to the quiz and offer a prize to one of the people who opt in. This led to more than 1,000 new email subscribers and increased engagement in the long term.
57. Food 52 (again)
I put this brand on here twice because they invented a method that I now recommend to every single Interact user. They make food quizzes, which give you some sort of food as your result (in this example, Cranberry Sage Pie), and the they link you to a blog post that has a recipe for that Pie. Because these quizzes get shared all over the place (75% of their traffic is from social), it’s easy for the brand to get lost which devalues the quiz as a marketing tool. However, because each quiz result links back to the Food52 domain, they are able to get traffic back to their site from social, which is genius.
58. The Micro (Wisconsin State Fair)
What’s better than the Wisconsin State Fair and craft beer? I don’t know actually, I’ve never been to the Wisconsin State Fair so I wouldn’t be a good judge to determine what’s better. What I do know however, is that this beer quiz was used to generate new email subscribers for the fair who got updates and discounts, helping drive foot traffic to the fair and in particular to The Micro, who was serving craft beer at the fair.
Quizzes embedded in Facebook tabs
59. California Recycling
I love that the California State Government is making quizzes, something about that strikes me as funny but amazing all at once. What’s even better is that they are using a quiz to fundamentally change our perception of recycling. When you think of recycling, you probably picture a blue bin with a recycling symbol on it (or maybe that’s just me and I’m weird). You don’t really think of recycling as “fun” and not much as been done to change that – until this quiz. That’s over dramatic, but I really do like that Cal Recycle made this quiz a semi-permanent part of their Facebook page by embedding it in a tab and displaying it for all to see.
60. Eegee’s
I chose this one for its design. Since Facebook is a new-ish platform that means it’s being bombarded with spam – entire websites are built with viral articles with the sole intention of getting millions of Facebook shares and driving ad revenue. I’m saying all this to point out that people are wary of Facebook stuff coming from third parties, there’s a lot of junk being spread around. When embedding a quiz in a custom tab, the goal is to make it look as natural as possible and not stick out as a third party app. Eegee’s did this very well and the result is a great looking integration.
61. Brad Gouthro Fitness
One in every ten Interact customers is in the health and fitness industry, where Facebook and Instagram rule the market for posting fitness pics and nutrition advice. Brad Gouthro took advantage of his large Facebook following to gradually leverage some of those fringe followers into paying customers. He has a program called LiveLean that helps people get in shape and keep their gains. His quiz asks people how much they know about fitness, and depending on how they do, he links to his fitness program as an offer to help.
62. itransition
Name the top 5 most fascinating things you can think of – code should be on that list, but for many it’s not. itransition is a company that makes websites and they are using a quiz on their Facebook page to humanize the work they do. “Which programming language are you” personifies each kind of code so that when clients get around to proposals and actually having their products built, they know a little something about what’s going on. It’s really a smart way to make something traditionally shrouded in mystery a more manageable topic.
Publisher’s quizzes
63. Forbes
Google “college quiz” and the first hit is the quiz picture below. Because of the search engine ranking and the evergreen nature of the quiz, it actually gets more visits per week now than it did right after launch. This is a perfect example where a quiz has become a staple part of a website that continues to draw traffic even after the social buzz has long faded away.
To imitate this success, the topic of the quiz has to be one that people will care about for a long time, college is a great example of this, something like a news quiz is not. Also, realistically you do need some sort of social buzz and launch for the quiz to get backlinks and gain the traction it needs to rank well and get mentioned in other places for referral traffic.
64. The Boston Globe
Sports! The Boston Globe covers all things Red Sox, Patriots, Celitics, and Bruins, complete with interactive quizzes. This quiz in particular was effective because it is both simple and goofy. The editors created custom graphics for each question, and with results like “Full Head Tattoo Guy” you know people shared their results on Facebook (at leats 535 people to be exact).
65. Verso Books
I don’t know who Hegel or Hubbard are, maybe that makes me an idiot, maybe not. Regardless, there is a subset of people who really care about which of these authors they are. Over 700 individuals took it upon themselves to share their results on Facebook or Twitter, and proceeded to argue amongst themselves as to why they got the result they got. For a publisher like Verso Books this is awesome, people are having vibrant social conversations about educational books, imagine that.
66. Simon and Schuster
You know that guy who wrote Steve Jobs’ biography? He’s back with a new book about Innovation, and even made a quiz for it. From Simon and Schuster, this quiz is one of our best looking ever, they did an excellent job of picking colors and images that give off a visually appealing aesthetic. What’s even better is that this quiz was used to reach people who probably would have never heard of “The Innovators” book by getting shared on Facebook and Twitter.
67. Kansas City Public Library
When I think of public library, I remember the smell of books and the nice old lady who would check out the books, not online quizzes. Evidently Kansas City Public Library is way ahead of my vision, for the last few months they’ve featured quizzes on the home page of their website. The quizzes are successful to, averaging about 8,000 views apiece. But that’s not just for bragging rights, the quizzes are used to recommend books to kids who need to read more. At the end of the quiz you are given a book recommendation and a link to reserve it right online.聽
68. TED
Imagine you are watching a TED talk about introversion (one of their best) and as an aside you see the quiz pictured below. Of course you want to find out how introverted you are, you are watching a talk about introversion, so you click on the quiz. At the end of the quiz you are prompted to enter an email address if you’d like to receive more talks similar to this introversion one – that sounds pretty cool, what the hell, why not.
That scenario is exactly what TED envisioned with their introversion quiz, and it works, this quiz continues to drive new email subscribers who support TED talks to this day.
Entertainment Quizzes
69. Grand Theft Auto
Don’t know what it says, but do know it was created by Rockstar Games, the company behind Grand Theft Auto. Quizzes are similar to games and can be used to market games.
70. Smooth Radio
These guys are like the kings of the trivia quiz. They’ve done like 15 quizzes and every single one gets hundreds of shares and comments, creating extremely effective online content to compliment the on-air radio shows produced by Smooth Radio. Here are just a few examples of the types of quizzes they have success with.
-Weekly news quizzes
-Pick a famous artist and do a trivia quiz
-Compare two artists using a trivia quiz
71. Warrior Lodge
If this quiz were in high school, it would win “best dressed” Warrior Lodge did an excellent job picking out vibrant images that make you feel as if you are part of the action when taking this WW2 trivia quiz. While great design alone doesn’t make or break a quiz, it certainly helps, and I would definitely recommend getting a designer involved if you plan on investing heavily in your quizzes (which you should 馃檪
72. Wayfm
How do radio stations do marketing? There’s so much content from so many different sources, it seems almost impossible to distill it down to something tangible for their audience. WayFM has a good solution, which is to create quizzes about particular bands that are part of the station’s normal lineup. The one below is for Casting Crowns, one of the most popular christian bands, and it links to the station’s online stream to listen for the song you get recommended to come on.
73. When I work
While I don’t normally recommend quizzes “just for fun” this one was appropriate in November, when many companies participated in Movember.
74. Warrior Lodge (again)
I put Warrior Lodge on this list twice for a good reason – it’s one of the top posts on the site of all time. Why? I couldn’t exactly tell you, but I would guess it has something to do with the mix of special forces material and celebrity draw.
75. Kingdom Rush
So quizzes can be used to run contests. First, you make a quiz that rock on its own, second you use the email capture feature of Interact quizzes to collect emails from people who took your quiz and would like to be entered in your contest, third, give something away to one of those people who entered. It’s subtly genius because you have the engagement of a quiz on its own, but then you tie that to a contest which also gets you longer term email subscribers.
76. StyleCraze
Back before quizzes were cool, StyleCraze discovered the draw that celebrities can bring to quizzes by simply creating a “Which celebrity are you?” quiz that attracted more than 50,000 views. I’ve written extensively about how to integrate celebrities into your quiz strategy, but the gist of it is that we all see celebrities so having them in your quiz makes it relatable.
77. The Daily Sheeple
Sometimes a freelancer really nails it and creates a post that gets circulated all over the place. That’s what happened with Daisy Luther and her ‘SHTF’ quiz. After creating it for one client, it was then reposted on more than 50 other sites pointing massive links and traffic back to her client, who I’m sure was elated. The key with this one is knowing an audience, Daisy knew that there is an entire subculture of people that exist who live off of doomsday theories. Her quiz is built just for those people and only for those people, which is why it was able to be spread to so many sites that focus on that subject.
78. Harry’s
This is an excellent way to monetize a website – sponsored content that is quite literally more popular than a lot of the non-sponsored content on the same site. Pixable created this mustache quiz as part of a promotion for shaving brand Harry’s, and it ended up getting several thousand visits and being shared like any other post. The beauty of this quiz is that it creates a full experience for you and only hints at the sponsoring brand (although you sure aren’t going to forget it’s there). I really like this, it’s a way of advertising that is neither intrusive nor disrupting yet effective.
79. Boston Ballet
I’ve seen this type of quiz done a few times now, and it has yet to underperform. The idea is that you make a quiz about a physical play (they still do those, you know), and then offer a link to buy tickets at the end. This one pictured below ended up getting shared a few hundred times driving around 2,000 views and some strong sales originating from social media.
Car Quizzes
80. AICA
Whenever I need an example of a quiz that shows you can have a successful quiz about literally almost anything, I come back to this trucking piece. Created by America’s Independent Truckers’s Association, the quiz has been taken over 20,000 times. It’s built for big rig truckers, of which there are only 3.5 million, that’s not a bad ratio.
Real Estate Quizzes
81. Century 21
Real Estate on social seems like a tough thing to do. We’re talking about making a purchase you’ll spend 15 or 30 years paying off, and you make a decision about it based on a Facebook post? Probably not – or maybe you would, I don’t know. However, from a real estate group’s standpoint, social media can be used to make sure your firm is on the top of people’s minds when it does come time to make a home purchase.
That’s what Century 21 did with their Home Critic quiz, it asks if you’d like to discover “Which home critic are you?” The quiz is a simple four-question test with lots of pictures, nothing fancy or heavy. It’s a simple engagement tool used on a landing page created with Kickoff Pages聽and worked into the social marketing strategy for C21.
82. MatchLiving
83. RealSavvy
Sports Quizzes
84. Boston.com
85. Mystery Tackle Box
Fishing is the most under-rated sport. It’s not dangerous, excellent fun, and can be done pretty much anywhere (I promise I’m not being sponsored by a fishing company). Mystery Tackle Box is a company that effectively created a “box of the month” deal for fishing. Part of their social strategy is quizzes, for which they used Interact. They did a series of quizzes, one of which his pictured below, and each one did well, one quiz collected over 500 new email subscribers, another was shared more than 1,000 times, another led to 50 new free trial signups.
86. MarsReel
87. Trainer-Baade
I will admit that being an American with less knowledge of the world than I should have, I didn’t really know the concept of the pub quiz until after starting Interact. I am now enlightened, and thanks to partners like Trainer Baade in Germany, Pub Quizzes are now being put online for everyone to try (after the event of course). This one in particular impresses me because it’s 40 questions long, and yet over 3,000 people completed it and commented with their results. Frank (the editor) even emailed me to say how much of a positive response he got.
88. Balls
Viral News Quizzes
89. Beliefnet
This quiz hit 100,000 views in literally three days, it was ridiculous. The biggest thing here is the full language immersion, Interact supports any language (and has customers in 95 countries), so no matter what language your audience speaks, you can reach them.
90. Eldeforma
Here’s a prime example of sustainable quiz use on a website. Eldeforma is based out of Mexico and uses the international feature of Interact quizzes to make content about local politics, technology, and a variety of topics. They are what I’d call “news chasers” which is when you create quizzes as the news unfolds. These quizzes don’t have the same lasting effect as a quiz that’s evergreen, but for a site that drives traffic primarily from social media it’s a strong method for continually creating quizzes.
91. QuizCrunch
Quizcrunch.com is a quiz website built entirely with Interact quizzes, but you wouldn’t know that unless you looked at the source code of the site. It’s entirely possible to create a site full of quizzes, run ads on it and build an entire online presence by white labeling Interact quizzes, and we are elated to support that. Quizcrunch is one of several sites that are doing this (but by far the one with the best name). While creating a quiz website is probably not on the docket for most marketers, Quizcrunch shows that Interact quizzes don’t detract from your brand at all or drive traffic away from your site, which is vital when every click could be a new customer for your business.
Political Quizzes
92. Gcorr
Relations with Native Americans is always a touchy subject. Whether it’s the Washington Redskins and their refusal to pick a more culturally acceptable name or the latest revelation of corruption on Native American Land, something is always amiss. The Methodist Church decided to get involved and see if people really know what’s going on with Native Americans using a quiz. It’s both fun and eye opening, which is part of the reason for its success, becoming one of the Churches’ most popular social posts ever.
93. Tea Party Express
Hollywood + politics, what could go wrong? Probably a lot actually. Fortunately that wasn’t the case for Tea Party Express, and their quiz has seen over 19,000 views and 3,500 opt-ins via the built-in lead generation.
After you answer the quiz questions (there are 8), there is an opt-in form to receive optional updates from the Tea Party Express. At this point they’ve made a pretty good case for opting in with their goofy quiz, I mean, who doesn’t want to know with far-right celebrity they are?
Then you get your results, which are the picture of share-ability. You’ve got a great picture that stares into your soul, and a flattering explanation that makes you sound like the savior of our broken world. What this led to is nearly one in four quiz takers sharing their results, the entire reason this quiz got so much traction.
94. McDonnell Trial
A no-name site built a quiz that was tweeted out by Rachel Maddow and more than 100 prominent reporters and journalists as well as links from The Washington Post and The New York Times. All they had to do was make a satirical quiz about a buzzing trial over corruption in Virginia. The quiz was a personality quiz about a trial revolving around the Governor of Virginia and was viewed nearly 20,000 times in one day.
This takes us to our next point – using popular stories to get your quiz noticed. This example shows that you don’t need any “brand recognition” to make a hit quiz using this strategy.
Intra-company quizzes
95. McKinsey
17,000 people work at McKinesy & Company, it’s a global organization with more than 107 offices. It’s so big that the company has internal publications with a thriving readership just from their own employees. The main publication is called McKinsey Insights, and is sent out quarterly to all employees. As a game/engagement tool, McKinsey created a quiz to see if people really know about the publication.
This is a prime example of using what works for marketing in the outside world on your own company and employees to delight them. When you are as big as McKinsey, keeping employees engaged is crucial, and quizzes can be used for that.
96. Ericsson
Ericsson was the first company large enough to use Interact as an internal tool. Here’s the way I see it – at a certain point in your company (Ericsson middle europe has 5,000 employees), you have to start marketing to your own employees to keep them engaged and effective. One of the ways Ericsson does this is to hold conferences where large groups of employees come for education and fun, think of it like a carnival for adults who work in cubicles.
As part of the run-up for this year’s conference, Ericsson created the quiz below that not only helps people find out which part of the conference would interest them the most, but also was used to create custom badges and prizes for each employee based on their personality type. The quiz was a hit, and out of 5,000 employees, nearly 3,000 took the quiz.
97. The BakerySF
Sometimes I come across a site that uses an Interact quiz as a big portion of what is presented, and when it’s done right, that’s a beautiful thing. One such site is The Bakery SF, a members-only community of innovators who share ideas. They use a quiz to help you find out how you might fit into the group before applying for membership. It’s pretty cool, and a fun quiz, and adds to the appeal of the group.
98. ZTA
Fraternities and sororities have vast networks of alumni and active members. The more connected and engaged those members are, the stronger the organization becomes, and the more people donate. When Zeta Tau Alpha created this founders quiz, it immediately resonated with members, more than 12,000 took it and 3,000 shared their results in some form on Facebook and Twitter.
99. Oregon Cultural Trust
Every once in a while you create an asset that lives on long after its initial popularity. Weeks, months, or years later people still share it and link to it, helping to build your brand in the long run. This quiz from Oregon Cultural Trust is one of those posts. Yes, it was popular when first released, getting shared a few hundred times on the first day, but what’s more exciting is the weeks and months after the launch when it continued to get shared several times each week and brought inbound links from related sites.
One pain point I know content producers face is the ability to produce pieces that continue to bring in traffic after the initial spike, and with a well put together quiz, this is entirely possible.
100. Zagat
Combining the power of ratings and personal preference is a strong combination. Zagat is the original ratings company when it comes to all things food, and they are using their vast knowledge base to create fun quizzes like the pizza one below. While this doesn’t exactly fit into the “made for employees” category, it’s a great quiz that could be taken by employees.
At the end of the quiz you get a result along with a link to check out the pizza place that’s been recommended for you, driving traffic to internal pages on the Zagat site from social sites where the quiz get shared and draws in new users.
If you read this far, then thank you. My goal with this post was to pull in examples from all sorts of industries so that no matter what you do in your marketing job there would be something you could reference to get started. The hardest part of implementing quizzes is knowing what to do, you are already good at writing and creating visually appealing content, the missing piece is how to actually use the quizzes.