Everything you need to know about lead quizzes [w/ examples]

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Release a product or app today, and someone could be selling an imitation within a week. Or at least one interpretation of what you built. What they can’t copy, though, is your experience, knowledge, and way of thinking. Turn those things into a marketing tool, and you’ll always have an edge. Lead quizzes are an excellent way to start a conversation and earn the trust of people who are considering your product or service. Especially when you ask the right questions and automate responses to respondents’ answers — a quiz can quickly turn into a lead generation machine.

What are lead quizzes and outcome quizzes?

A lead quiz, sometimes called an outcome quiz, is a form that asks a series of questions and then directs respondents to a call to action page that is personalized based on their answers. Most (but not all) lead quizzes require an email address to see the final results or outcome.

One of the most basic examples of a lead quiz is one that includes a series of trivia questions and an invitation for respondents to receive their results in their inbox. But with a powerful form builder like Fillout, the final output could be a price quote, design recommendation, meal plan, or any resource that can be personalized based on a handful of answers provided by a lead.

How to create a lead quiz

Let’s say you have an eCommerce shop for hobby and craft supplies. You’ve heard from new customers that they don’t know where to start, whether that’s in terms of which project to begin with or what materials they’ll need. A "Find Your Perfect Crafting Project” quiz would help on both fronts and act as a natural introduction to your store.

First, you’d create questions that would inform the eventual recommendation. Questions like “Are you more interested in textile, paper, or jewelry crafts?” or “How long would your ideal project take?” For this topic (and most others), you’d want to limit lead quizzes to a dozen questions or less. That’s long enough to feel like the output is actually personalized without feeling like a slog.

Collecting emails with lead quizzes

You should always add an email field in your outcome quizzes — ideally one that can validate addresses. If you’re worried about respondents bouncing out of your quiz after seeing the email field, one option is to highlight that it’s not required. Another is to put it at the beginning of the quiz so that respondents who aren’t comfortable providing contact info can close the quiz before investing time in answering all the questions.

Some experts argue that putting a required email field at the end of the quiz will generate enough new leads to make up for the frustrations of those who stuck around only to abort on the last page. Ultimately, the right decision depends on the size and demographics of your audience.

Sending custom emails for each result

When your quiz’s fields are finalized, it’s time to set up the conditions that produce personalized recommendations. For example, respondents might receive a list of “Quick DIY Jewelry Projects” resources in their inboxes if those were answers they provided during the quiz.

In Fillout, you’d set this up by going to Settings > Notifications > Custom Emails. Then, add a respondent email and enable the Send conditionally option. Anyone who indicated they were interested in jewelry and quick projects would receive recommendations that matched those preferences.

Alternatively, you could show the recommendations without leaving the quiz window. To do that, you’d create multiple End Pages with personalized recommendations. Then edit the form logic to show the correct End Page based on specific combinations of answers throughout the quiz. For example, the last page with a field input could require an email or an opt-in for a coupon code, with an informational End Page that was determined by responses on the first few pages of the quiz.

Form features you need to create high-converting lead quizzes

Putting together an outcome quiz in a basic form builder like Google Forms would be a nightmare. You need a form builder with far more advanced notification, logic, and integration features:

Custom respondent emails - If you want to send recipients quiz results, you need to be able to send them conditionally, with different messages going to different people, based on their answers.

Page logic and calculations - You must be able to skip pages when earlier responses make them irrelevant and, for quotes and estimates, add/subtract/multiply numbers from multiple questions to calculate the final tally.

CRM integrations - Syncing lead data to third-party apps like HubSpot, MailChimp, and Airtable will significantly speed up your future marketing and outreach efforts.

Data security - Forms that collect contact information or personal information must keep that data secure, ideally with encryption and two-factor authentication.

On the nice-to-have side of things, it helps to have a form builder that can show answers from previous questions in subsequent fields (i.e., answer piping). And, to cater to mobile users, your lead quiz should be responsive on smaller screens and save partial submissions.

Qualifying leads, generating audience data, and other benefits

When most people think of lead quizzes, they think in terms of lead generation. Sure, it’s the primary reason to use them, but it's far from the only benefit. Even if you don’t require an email address for respondents to see the results, you’re still addressing people’s pain points and obstacles, earning trust and credibility in your market.

If you do collect contact info, outcome quizzes let you disqualify leads that are a bad fit based on their answers. Or segment qualified leads based on things like their budget, project needs, or location. You could, for instance, create MailChimp emails with dynamic content that is shown or hidden based on how someone responded to a question from your lead quiz.

Even if you don’t use the data to segment your email list, it’s still an invaluable source of audience and buyer insights. Structure your questions carefully enough and they’ll align with both the quiz’s topic as well as broader preferences, behaviors, and expectations of the people you sell to.

5 Real-world examples of outcome quizzes and why they work

Templates are great for avoiding the blank page problem and giving you a jumping-off point. But at the end of the day, they’re still placeholder text, stock images, and Acme logos. They can’t compare to live forms out in the wild. After all, if someone is still paying the bills to keep a lead quiz running, it must be doing something right.

1. Knockaround’s Find Your Perfect Frames

Many people prefer not to provide their email and would rather see your advice before giving you the key to their inbox. Knockaround’s solution is to make quiz results visible without requiring an email address. If respondents like what they see, there’s a handy Back button to return to the coupon code signup page.

2. Neil Patel’s 7-Week SEO Action Plan

It’s a small touch, but I love the avatar and explanations at the bottom of this lead quiz. On each question page, Neil offers a brief, one-sentence explanation about how your answer affects the eventual output. The end product is something that feels like a privileged one-on-one consultation. And all it took was adding an image to each page of the form.

3. Match My Makeup’s Find Your Perfect Foundation Shade

This lead quiz leans heavily on visuals to create a really intuitive and helpful product finder. Each question has an expandable section with more detailed advice for people who aren’t sure which answer to pick, and the final result is a filtered list of products based on your answers. It’s proof that you don’t have to ask too many questions to create a streamlined user experience.

4. Vegan Foodiez’s Vegan Vitality Quiz

There’s no doubt that this nutritionist knows her target audience. The questions in her quiz are carefully tailored to vegan diets and the struggles that can come with them. There’s a ton of positivity and encouragement throughout the quiz, and Alena makes sure to drive home the level of personalization that comes after a submission.

5. Glory Girl’s What is My Scalp Type Quiz

On a first run-through, you wouldn’t even notice what makes this lead quiz so effective: excellent use of branching logic. By taking the one-question-per-page approach, Glory Girl created different form flows based on respondents’ answers. You’d never know certain fields were skipped unless you retook the quiz and provided different responses. I also appreciate that the email field is on page two, letting respondents who don’t want to hand theirs over opt out early.

Use your expertise to automate lead generation

It gets harder every day to convince people to provide their contact information. In many cases, they’re coming to you after someone else has over-promised and under-delivered. Lead quizzes give you a chance to show that you’re different; that you genuinely understand their situation and have enough experience to improve their situation.

Fillout has all the features you need to create standout lead quizzes quickly and easily. Sign up for an account today to get started.

Everything you need to know about lead quizzes [w/ examples]