Ask Relevant Questions In a Quiz

When I faced a challenge to improve my business’s performance, asking relevant questions turned out to be the most useful skill. Asking suitable questions is really an art. I wouldn’t say that I’m the number one expert in the world here, but let me share some valuable recommendations, which helped me quite a great number of times.

As I wrote before, the overall conversion rate of a quiz depends on 3 key milestones of a funnel:

  • How many people started to take a quiz
  • How many people answered all the questions
  • How many people left their contact details or were redirected to a specified webpage. 

After you’re done reading this article, you’ll have 5 recommendations on what questions to ask in a quiz to get as many people completing the quiz as possible. 


Recommendation #1 - Open or closed questions?

Let me remind you that a closed question suggests an answer from the given options, like “yes” or “no”, “red” or “white” and so on. 

In open questions, the user has to provide an answer with no restrictions. Let’s compare two examples.

Do you prefer red or white wine?

What kind of wine do you prefer?


What works best in your case is unpredictable. Even though it all depends on the purpose. If you need to get as many answers as possible, then offer to choose. In this case, the stress is minimal, which highers your conversion rate. 

If your purpose is to get a piece of information, then use an open question. Let’s say, you’re hiring someone and use a quiz for that, and you prefer to get a detailed response rather than just a yes or no answer. You’ll get fewer responses, but more of them will be qualified. 

Recommendation #2 - the sequence of questions

For the last two years, quizzes have become a popular marketing tool because of their effectiveness. You can get twice or three times as much leads with a quiz as you could get with the same amount of traffic without a quiz. This particular result happens due to the sequence of questions. 

Use the “simple to complex” strategy. Try to assign difficulty rates to your questions. For example, the question “Have you ever tried espresso?” is simple and can be rated 1 out of 5. But, the question “What kind of coffee roast do you prefer?” is rather difficult and requires some expertise. In order to answer this question, a customer needs to a) understand what types of coffee roasts exist, and b) actually realize what kind of a coffee roast he really likes.

If you need to ask a medium to higher difficulty question, put it at the end of a quiz. After 3 simple questions, a potential customer will have a higher engagement rate and will more likely answer a difficult question. That’s why we ask for contact details at the end of a quiz when the user is more loyal.  

Sometimes you don’t even need to ask difficult questions, so just do without them, if it’s possible.


Recommendation #3 - questions about the past or present

If your task is not only getting enough leads but also getting truthful answers, then ask questions about the past. In this case, it would be hard for the user to lie. Let’s take a look at the example of a question about learning a foreign language. 

For how long are you planning to learn Spanish?

  • One month
  • Three months
  • Half a year or longer

How often did you take language classes before?

  • Irregularly
  • One week was enough
  • One month was enough
  • I’ve already been learning Spanish for several months 

When we speak about the future, we tend to have more power and exaggerate our expectations. We’re sure that we’ll be doing sports regularly or learn Spanish every other day, read books every night before we go to bed, or become our friends’ client in their start-up company.

In reality, we never become clients of our friends, because their product is useless for us and tend to put off sports activities because we’re too busy. So we lie to our friends and to ourselves, not because we’re bad, but because our brain functions thus way. If you want to get a truthful answer from your potential client, ask about the past. If he’s never learned Spanish before, it will be better off to sell a subscription for Spanish lessons, rather than offering to pay on a one by one basis. 


Recommendation #4 - explain why you ask a question

I wrote about this recommendation in the article on common mistakes, which can ruin a quiz conversion. Sometimes it’s unclear what exactly or why are we being asked about something. Let’s take a look at some examples. 

Q1: What’s your level of Spanish?

It’s unclear what exactly I need to answer. How can I assess my knowledge? Do I just express my opinion or do I have to base my assessment on the Oxford scale? What if I’m wrong and can’t evaluate my own knowledge? Will I be able to learn effectively?

So, I get stuck on this question and get even more questions in my mind. It becomes uncomfortable for me and I prefer to stop it and close the quiz. 

You’d better paraphrase this question like this: “If you’ve taken a test recently, what level did you scale on from Beginner to Advanced?” Sometimes you can break a question in parts and put the second part in the options given. “Your last test on Spanish scaled you on ...”

  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • I haven’t taken a test recently


What is your budget?

It’s a very common question from designers or advertising agencies. This question is not so good due to the following reasons. Firstly, it’s a question about the future, which requires some planning. So, you’d better provide some options here, like “What’s your minimum or maximum budget?”

Secondly, this question makes people think like: “If I answer too high, they’ll give me a higher bill, and if I answer low, they’ll think I’m not serious enough and won’t calculate the expense of my project at all...” In order to avoid this, add a hint from a consultant to this question, like “It will help us select the appropriate channels or materials.” 


Recommendation #5 - appeal to emotions

A quiz is a tool for business, but it can be fun at the same time, which helps marketers keep within the budget and attract more potential customers than their serious competitors. 

When making up questions for a quiz, try to imagine the scale of emotions, which changes with every question. Instead of boring yes or no answers, use emoji to answer the same question. When asking something like “What style of interior design do you prefer?” provide images to be more to the point. With every well-considered question, your potential client will escalate in his emotions. The higher the level of emotions, the more leads you’ll get with the quiz. 

One more way to escalate emotions is to use a scenario method. Put the questions in a sequence so that a potential customer wants to know what happens next. Get to the end to see the result or leave contact info to see the “next episode”, which is, for example, a recommendable pair of skates and the smile of one’s daughter, who twirls around at the skating rink in these skates. 

I’ll elaborate further on the scenario method in a separate article. Now, go ahead and practice in asking the right questions and see your conversion rate grow. 

If you don’t have a quiz yet, you can create one for free without developers or designers at marquiz.io 

Alex Balin
Development Director at Marquiz
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