How to Make a This-or-That Quiz

Remember taking amusing personality quizzes or this-or-that quizzes in old lifestyle magazines? Do you ever take quizzes on Instagram stories? Or have you ever wanted to create your own YouTube this-or-that tag video?

These quizzes are fun ways to entertain people, but when the entire quiz is a single image (like in print publications), it is far less engaging. In an online version, your audience can select the options that best define them and receive results instantly—or after giving their email address, a core lead nurturing channel.

To provide an interactive quiz experience, create an engaging this-or-that quiz using a platform like Interact.

In this guide, we’ll cover the benefits of using a this-or-that quiz, how to make one to reach your business goals, and how to promote your quiz to a larger audience.

The benefits of using a this-or-that quiz for your business

This-or-that quizzes were created for entertainment. Whether you wanted a quick game for a fun night out with friends or just a lighthearted activity to spend the evening with your family, this-or-that questions were used to make time fly and stir up a good laugh. 

If you want to create a super fun and quick quiz that will make people come back for more, aim for a virtual version. This interactive alternative makes the results process easier as quiz-takers don’t have to tally their score themselves. Instead, they receive a result that’s correlated with their personality, as well as extra resources or courses they can turn to if they want to learn more about themselves.

As a business though, you’ll want to use a this-or-that game primarily as a lead magnet

A catchy title and description will pique quiz-takers’ interest, getting them super excited to see their results—excited enough to share their email address to get them. Your newly expanded email list will further the reach of your newsletters and let you personally get in touch with potential clients.

Beyond generating leads, this-or-that quizzes will help you get to know your clients and create audience segments. You’ll be able to craft future services based on their preferences and recommend products that suit their likes and needs. Revenue will increase thanks to your newly found ability to stay top-of-mind, showing prospects exactly the services or items they’re looking for.

An often unrealized bonus is that any kind of quiz will keep visitors on your website longer. You don’t have to opt for a 20-question quiz to do this. 7-10 questions will do the trick, as long as they get people to think. 

When people spend more time on your website, it positively impacts your SEO efforts. Google ranks websites whose visitors spend more time on a page higher. Keep this in mind when planning content marketing and add a quiz to your homepage or within a blog post you want to grow. This strategy will also help with branding efforts if you can keep the tone consistent for multiple posts. After all, that’s what big names like ASPCA and the American Red Cross did to get people to engage with their content.

How to make a this-or-that quiz

This-or-that quizzes can be used in all kinds of industries. 

Whether you’re a personal finance coach, a business course instructor, or a marketer looking for new ways to get your products in front of a new audience, turn this fun game into your go-to lead acquisition channel. 

“What’s your core purpose?”, “What type of eater are you?”, “Are you too busy?”, “Which career is right for you?”, and “What’s your brand personality?” are just some of the ideas you’ll be able to turn into a live quiz after reading this post.

Ready to make your first this-or-that quiz game? Set up your quiz using Interact!

Let’s dig into how you can create your own this-or-that quiz!

Step 1: Set a goal for your next this-or-that quiz

First, ask yourself why you want to create a this-or-that quiz. 

The topic and questions you choose need to align with the services or products you offer. For instance, a career coach might post a quiz titled “What career is right for you?” At the end of which, they can schedule a consultation or recommend resources and courses.

Goals for a this-or-that quiz could include:

  • Raising awareness of a topic, issue, or brand [including your personal brand]
  • Creating an email list to build leads and score sales
  • Recommending products or services 
  • Getting to know your audience better to create segments and future materials to target them
  • Positioning yourself as a thought leader in your field

Once you’ve set a goal for your this-or-that quiz, choose a topic that’s on-brand and that provides some kind of value to your audience.

The best way to pick the right topic is to consider everything you get asked on a regular basis. What are the questions you here again and again? Is there any question you could answer without actually talking to the person asking it?

Creating value way before your first face-to-face interaction with a client can help you skip some steps in your collaboration. You’ll already know a couple of things about them and they’ll know what to expect from a potential partnership. Plus, it makes the quiz worth sharing!

Step 2: Choose a catchy title and description

The quiz title should capture a person’s attention at first glance. Three seconds is how much time you have to convince people to read the description and continue the quiz.

As the decisive factor to whether they’ll take a quiz or not, we’ve put together a brief list of templates you can use. These short-and-sweet titles will be perfect if you’re just getting started and want to keep them as clear as possible. 

1. The “Which (Blank) Are You?” title

Quiz title examples: 

  • Which shopper type are you?
  • Which entrepreneur are you?
  • Which Instagram hashtag are you?
  • Which dog breed is best for your family?
  • Which workout is best for you?
Which Kimono Are You? quiz cover

2. The “Is Your (Blank)?” title

Quiz title examples: 

  • Is your Facebook Ads personality costing you money?
  • Is your job right for you?
  • Is your communication style effective?
  • Are your life choices keeping you happy?
  • Is your stress score getting the best of you?
Is Your Idea Profitable? quiz cover

3. The “What is Your (Blank)?” title

Quiz title examples: 

  • What’s your soul purpose?
  • What’s your spirit animal?
  • What’s your business personality?
  • What’s your ideal career?
  • What’s your brand cocktail?
What is your #1 block to business success quiz cover

4. The “Discover Your (Blank)” or “Find Out Your (Blank)” quiz

Quiz title examples: 

  • Discover your life’s true purpose
  • Discover what’s holding you back
  • Discover your leadership style
  • Discover your true self
  • Find out what your future holds
Abundance mindset quiz cover

Once you create a brand for yourself, get creative with one-of-a-kind titles that will stand out from the crowd. 

Trademark titles could differentiate your quizzes from others out there, but they should also be clear. You don’t want people guessing what the quiz is about. Here’s an example of an original title that Jammie Baker, stylist and blogger, used for her “What’s Your Momiform™ Style?” quiz.

what is your Momiform style quiz cover

Alternatively, have a look at the more than 200 quiz templates Interact provides to find one that matches your targets. The templates are adaptable so you can edit them to fit your needs exactly.

There are templates for all kinds of industries and you can customize each one to help you hit your KPIs. Filter through them by goal to reduce the time it would take you to choose one:

quiz templates in Interact

Pair each title with a catchy description that reminds people why they need to take the quiz. Keep descriptions brief but on point, with no more than two sentences. Share some potential results in the description to raise expectations and include a short call-to-action (CTA) to entice people to move forward. 

Don’t forget, you can also customize the CTA text. Aim for something like “Find your type!” to give insights into the results or “Take the quiz and receive 10% off your next order!” to add even more incentive.

what's your beauty style quiz cover

Step 3: Design your this-or-that quiz

If you don’t yet have a solid image of what you want your quiz to look like, browse Interact’s free templates. Add your brand colors and fonts to maintain design consistency with your website. Use the same colors and fonts throughout the quiz cover, question pages, final opt-in form, and result pages.

For images, check out the free stock photos from Interact’s library or use your own one-of-a-kind photos for extra customization. Opt for images that clearly define the answers. Take it one step further and choose images that complement your brand color:

What is your career direction quiz cover

Find out more about how you can design a beautiful quiz that suits your brand and goals to distinguish yourself from the competition.

Step 4: Make a list of questions and potential answers

With this-or-that quizzes, the questions already include the answers. So if you opt for this quiz format, you’ll spend considerably less time on this step. 

The catch is that using the same this-or-that questions you find in other quizzes won’t help you differentiate yourself. 

Each question should serve a separate small goal. This way, you’ll be able to piece answers together to deduce the final result. 

Have one or two real people in mind and imagine you’re asking them these questions. Creating a list of customer personas beforehand will help ensure your questions aren’t too generic. Research other quizzes that are similar to the one you have in mind to make sure your chosen questions are unique; if they’re not, come up with more intriguing ones. If you have some rough ideas for your questions, write the list down and then revisit them with fresh eyes to recreate scenarios or make them more challenging, if necessary.

For example, having someone choose between pizza and burgers is clearly less interesting than giving them the pizza in Rome vs burgers on a New York rooftop option. More details or visual images add a solid plus to an otherwise plain question.

To make sure your this-or-that quiz keeps people engaged, we’ve put together a list of this-or-that questions that will get people to think:

Marketing and entrepreneurship

  • Facebook or Instagram?
  • Video marketing or content marketing?
  • Lose all of your social media followers or all of your email subscribers?
  • Have low profits or have a bad reputation?
  • Run your business alone or have a clumsy partner?

Wellness, health, and fitness

  • Have more money or be healthier?
  • Only do yoga for the rest of your life or cardio?
  • Work out twice every day or only work out once?
  • Take a pilates class with your best friend or go for a jog alone?
  • Back day or arm day?

Life choices

  • Invest $5,000 in healing your inner wounds or learn how to make more money?
  • Radically improve your best friend’s life forever or help 100 people get out of poverty?
  • Be someone who always makes others feel better or someone who gives reliable tips?
  • Change someone’s life or be known as having had a fruitful life?
  • Build a family or discover the world’s hidden destinations?

Fashion, beauty, and style

  • Wear only sparkly outfits or black ones?
  • Never leave the house without lipstick or without foundation?
  • Gucci or Hermès?
  • Be praised for your sense of fashion or for your amazing hairstyles?
  • Have your best friend choose all of your outfits or get whatever is on sale?

Career

  • Love your job but have a low salary or be unfulfilled at work but make a ton of money?
  • Have a single job for the rest of your life or change your career every two years?
  • Plan your career in great detail or adapt as you go?
  • Be known as a reliable coworker or an independent creative?
  • Choose a job based on your intuition or your mother’s advice?

Copywriting

  • Only write long-form guides or social media posts?
  • Use lists in all of your articles or illustrations?
  • Write to teach or simply enjoy the process?
  • Use content to earn more money or raise brand awareness?
  • Write from a quiet space or a bustling coffee shop?

Need more inspiration? Check out our comprehensive 206+ this-or-that questions list and find out how you can use them within a quiz.

Adding images to the questions

90% of the top 100 most viewed quizzes have image-based choices.

Answers can be paired with images to give a clear picture of an object or concept. Images are more engaging, they appeal to a person’s visual interest, and allow you to test out people’s preferences for certain products and images. For this-or-that questions in particular, using images helps the audience clearly envision a scenario so their choice is more realistic.

Live with unique purpose or follow the crowd quiz question

Fun fact: When the quiz allows, replace answers with images so people can choose their answer based on an image’s vibe or the product it’s displaying. No words needed.

But how many questions should you have?

While there’s no limit to how many this-or-that questions you can include, it’s best to keep these quizzes on the shorter side. Besides making it easier for you to correlate the answers, quiz-takers won’t get bored and leave your website. 

The best way to decide how many questions you’ll need is to consider the number of factors required to give a result. 

For instance, if you want to recommend a career type, you’ll need separate questions to figure out if a person is creative or analytical, if they prefer working independently or within a team, what their future goals are, what things they hate and would never do regardless of pay, and how they make a decision.

As a general rule, 7-10 questions should be enough for most quizzes. Fewer questions would only make the result seem vague and you’ll lose your audience’s trust. You might want to add even more questions to give a super accurate result. Keep in mind that people will probably quit halfway through if there are more than 15 questions, especially if you haven’t given a solid incentive to begin with.

Note: Don’t make the answer-result correlation obvious from the start. This will make the results less mysterious and people will be more likely to quit before giving you their email address to receive the result. Fun but non-specific this-or-that questions like “Always have to be followed by annoying people or be left alone forever?” or “Give or receive the worst advice possible?” are a good addition if you want to record some hints into their personality without giving away the result from the start.

Step 5: Create the quiz results 

This is perhaps the most important stage of the this-or-that quiz creation process. If the quiz results really fit a person’s personality and interests, it will display your expertise and credibility. Also, getting a relevant result will help people remember your quiz.

Note: You have the option to show multiple results at the end since quiz-takers might get the same or similar score on two different results.

Remember the customer personas I mentioned?

Creating one result for each persona makes it less burdensome for you to recommend accurate solutions or materials. Aim for three to five results. While more results make for a fun quiz, it will take you considerably more time to put them all together.

Each result requires specific graphics, resources, landing pages, and even its own email sequence and call-to-action. Kayla Hollatz, for instance, gives the results for her brand voice quiz without asking for an email address first. For anyone who truly wants to find out more, she gives a CTA at the end of the result page that leads to a form where quiz-takers can submit their email to get her copywriting secrets.

storyteller quiz results with CTA

AVON uses the result for their Lipstick Finder quiz to redirect people to a product they would enjoy:

True Colour Perfectly Matt Lipstick quiz result

Jessica Dowches-Wheeler sends quiz-takers to a free resource page like the one below where they can learn more about their own personality. While no email is required, this helps Jessica position herself as a thought leader in the field and gain trust around her coaching services.

enigma quiz result

You’ll find an easy-to-apply template to help you create a personality description in our guide to building an interactive quiz.

Step 6: Correlate answers with results

To maintain accuracy, every question should have the same number of answer correlations as the potential outcomes. With this-or-that quizzes, you can’t possibly have just two results at the end. Instead, you can correlate one answer with either a single or multiple potential results like in the example below:

result correlation mapping

Tip: When making a this-or-that quiz with four potential results, have two answers. Each one of them can be tied to either the first or the second result. Your next question can then provide two more answers that will correlate with the remaining two results. This means you’ll have two different questions for the same four results.

Each of these correlations accumulates points as the quiz-taker goes through the questions. At the end, the result with the most answers tied to it will be presented to the user, guiding them toward another action, like downloading a guide or free course, signing up for a consultation, or reading a blog post.

Step 7: Gather email addresses through the opt-in form

Congrats! You’re now done with the quiz-building process. The last step is to set up your preferred way of gathering email addresses. 

To maintain the quality of your email list with subscribers who regularly open and read your message, use the email lead capture form together with a “Skip this step” option. Turning this feature on guarantees that the quiz-takers who shared their email are truly interested in hearing from you in the future.

quiz opt-in form
quiz opt-in form with Bonus question

To get everyone’s email instead, keep only the “See My Results” CTA button. Bear in mind some people might not want to give their email, causing them to abandon the process. Meanwhile, not everyone who shared their info will truly want to receive more than just their result.

Don’t ask for too many details or for information you likely won’t use. An email address and first name should do for most quizzes. If a person’s location is important for your business, ask for a ZIP code. Similarly, if you target B2B companies, ask for their company name but never for everything all at once. Most people won’t be willing to spend that much time giving their contact info after they already spent a couple of minutes completing the this-or-that quiz game.

A tool like Interact allows you to integrate your quiz with other email service provider tools you’re already using, like Mailchimp, GetResponse, or Constant Contact. This way, all leads will get sent to your email service provider where they’ll continue to receive the automated email sequence you’ve set up for them.

Interact quiz integrations

You can later create customer segments based on quiz results. This will make it easier for you to send targeted resources, courses, and messaging based on their exact needs instead of general emails they’re bound to skip. As a general best practice, keep all future communication engaging and educational before you start selling a product or service.

Step 8: Promote your quiz

A secondary step you definitely shouldn’t skip is bringing attention to your this-or-that quiz. Be prepared to put in just as much effort into the promotion if you don’t want your work to go to waste.

The following quiz promotion techniques should work for you regardless of your industry:

  • Write a blog post focused on the quiz topic and add the this-or-that game at the end to keep readers engaged and turn them into leads
  • Make a YouTube video on the topic and add a link to the quiz in the description
  • Upload a pin and add a call-to-action on your Pinterest account
Destini Copp Pinterest profile highlighting quiz
  • Tweet about it
  • Add a link to the quiz in your Instagram bio and share a post with a preview of the quiz
  • Set up a Facebook Ad for your quiz
  • Share it in Facebook and Slack groups
  • Prepare a special this-or-that quiz for an online event or conference and have your audience take it in real-time
  • Add it to your email signature
  • Reference it to your network whenever you talk to someone who’s interested in the topic
  • Use as a popup on your website or place it within an announcement bar
What's holding you back quiz cover in popup

For more hands-on examples of how other professionals and brands are promoting their quizzes, check out our guide to using social media to spread the word.

Build your own this-or-that quiz with Interact 

Now you’re ready to create your first this-or-that quiz from start to finish.

Bookmark this article to keep these tips at hand. Interact will provide you with an interactive quiz creation experience that’s bound to considerably reduce the time you’d spend on building the quiz from scratch. Choose a template and questions from Interact’s list and you’ll be set to launch your best lead magnet yet.

Ready to get started with building trust and increasing your conversion rates? Make your own one-of-a-kind this-or-that quiz and share it with us!

Josh Haynam

Hi I'm Josh, CEO and Co-Founder at Interact. My Co-Founders and I started interact with the idea that it should be easy for any business to create recommendation systems and benefit from the value of personalization for every customer interaction.

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