Quizzes have always been and remain one of the most popular interactive formats on the web, and they are also the least-known hidden gem for email lead generation. Quizzes outperform any other method for email collection.
Introduction
Quizzes are everywhere. They are used in competitions, raffles, offline in pubs and print magazines, and on websites to engage users and collect emails. While traditional methods to collect user information like names and emails yield fill-out rates of 0.5 to 5% for high-performing pop-ups, quizzes get 30% to 50% completion rates. In this post, we will explore why quizzes work so well.
The appeal of online quizzes
Surveys and forms are less successful than quizzes when collecting information. There is a very simple explanation for this. You need an incentive to fill out a form or survey. These are not completed for the benefit of the audience, but for the benefit of whoever created the survey, so the user expects gratification for filling it out. A quiz, on the other hand, is the incentive itself, taken solely for the user’s enjoyment. The gratification is the quiz result. It shows that the user is an expert, and the result can be used to shine in front of friends by sharing it on social. Or perhaps the result is horribly bad, which can also be used to share with friends and make fun of yourself – “I thought I knew everything about baseball, but check out my miserable score of 10% in this rules of baseball quiz.”
The role of curiosity and instant gratification
Quizzes challenge readers, and who doesn’t like a good challenge? It is incredibly hard not to start a quiz on your favorite topic, sport, or hobby. As you can take them in total privacy, they provide a safe space to learn more about yourself and your skills on the subject matter. If the quiz is created as a personality quiz with no right or wrong answers, quizzes can also provide deep insights into the psyche of the quiz taker. A psychiatrist might create seemingly mundane questions such as “What color fits your style?” to determine your level of depression, for example. As the internet allows for relative anonymity when taking quizzes, users will lose some of their inhabitations when taking quizzes on sensitive topics. Furthermore, quiz makers like Riddle.com, which work without using cookies or trackers, will increase the feeling of safety needed to take a quiz on a more personal topic. When picking a quiz maker, use tools that do not track your quiz takers in any way.
The power of personalization
A good quiz maker will be able to use the user’s answers and data from form fields to personalize the quiz result and show it not just on a result page but also send it to the user via email (maybe even with additional, valuable information in the email). Personalizing results will make the quiz much more relevant for the quiz taker and increase the likelihood of sharing the result with others via email or social networks.
The exchange: value for information and the habit of entering data
The extremely high lead form completion rates that we see in millions of quizzes on the Riddle.com platform can be explained by a simple psychological fact. Users that are willingly filling out data and answer questions that truly interest them for 3 to 5 minutes will feel much more at ease about filling out yet another form field with their name and email. It is a process that comes naturally. Even if the form is skippable, the completion rates do not drop by much. In contrast, a pop-up is often shown after a user has spent a certain amount of time on a website or has scrolled to a defined scroll depth. In both cases, the form interrupts the reading process and is a distraction compared to a form in a quiz, which is a natural progression of what the user has already been doing.
Conclusion
The enduring appeal of online quizzes lies in their ability to engage users through challenge, curiosity, and instant gratification. Unlike traditional forms and surveys, quizzes offer an enjoyable, personalized experience that naturally encourages participation and information sharing. The psychology behind this is simple: People enjoy discovering more about themselves and showcasing their knowledge or personality traits, whether they excel or falter in the quiz.
Quizzes’ interactive and rewarding nature makes them powerful tools for email lead generation. By seamlessly integrating email collection into a fun and engaging activity, quizzes can achieve completion rates that are significantly higher than conventional methods. Users willingly provide their information as a natural extension of their quiz-taking experience, resulting in higher engagement and more effective lead generation.
Understanding the psychology behind why people love taking quizzes and giving their email addresses can help businesses and marketers leverage this interactive format to build stronger connections with their audience and achieve their marketing goals more efficiently.
Further reading
Wired Magazine: Quizzes tap into people’s curiosity and desire for self-discovery.
Psychological research supports this, showing that people have an innate drive to learn about themselves. As MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle explains, “People want a read on the self, an order to it. They’ll use a [body] sensor to get the number; they’ll use a quiz to get the number. It gives people something to look at, an object to think with.”
Positive Psychology: Personality Assessments – 10 best inventories, tests & methods.
