Direct Energy Canada is one of Alberta’s largest energy retailers. Over the past two and a half years, their marketing team has built a quiz strategy using Interact that has generated over 80,000 quiz completions, won the Content Marketing Award for Best Content Strategy in 2025, and produced measurably higher engagement rates than any other content format they publish.
The strategy was built and led by Vilasini P. Pillay, a content and product marketing manager at Direct Energy, who joined the Interact Podcast to share how it all came together.
The quizzes live in a dedicated Quiz Hub inside Direct Energy’s Learning Centre, where customers can find more than 10 quizzes covering topics from understanding their energy bill to calculating their carbon footprint. The hub gives the strategy a home base while individual quizzes are promoted through newsletters, emails, and customer communications.
The flagship example is the What’s My Carbon Footprint? quiz, launched for Earth Month. Rather than publishing a standard article about green energy, the team turned the topic into something personal. Customers answer questions about their daily habits and receive a result showing their estimated environmental impact, followed by information about Direct Energy’s green energy add-on option. The quiz makes the product feel relevant to the individual rather than like a generic promotion.
The team has found that quizzes consistently outperform every other content format in their newsletter and email campaigns in terms of engagement. Personalized follow-up emails sent based on quiz results have generated significantly higher open rates and click-through rates than broadcast emails sent to the full list.
One of the more creative applications is a quiz tied to their referral program, called “What’s Your Refer Personality Type?” It segments customers into different referral styles and sends each group a tailored follow-up with tips matched to how they naturally recommend things to friends. Customers who received those personalized emails engaged at a notably higher rate than those receiving generic referral communications.
The strategy works, Vilasini explained on the podcast, because quizzes feel like a conversation rather than a survey: “We’re just talking to them and having a conversation. It’s written in a way that it’s like a friend asking you a question. Our customers don’t even realize they’re giving us data because they’re doing it in a way that feels natural to them.”
That data now fuels a growing backend of customer preferences that Direct Energy uses to personalize future communications at scale.You can explore Direct Energy Canada’s full quiz library at their Quiz Hub, and take the carbon footprint quiz here.