How to Master Interactive Ad Creative: Quizzes

Welcome to our Interactive Storytelling series. Here, we’ll share our favorite strategies on how to turn static stories into interactive ad narratives. Missed the last one on games? Read it here. 

Quizzes are among the most effective ad units that we create at Infillion, and for several very good reasons. Consider:

• With quizzes, we don’t have to guess a consumer’s motivations. They tell us by answering questions. All we do is reflect their input at the end.

• The barrier of entry is exceedingly low. Nobody needs to learn how to take an online quiz. We’ve been taking online quizzes for ages. (Thanks, BuzzFeed.)

• They consistently deliver full-funnel results while driving every digital metric that we measure.

So why aren’t all of our interactive units quizzes? Because quizzes require us to create an original, in-house asset: Quiz copy and logic. While we have the expertise and the pedigree around creating quiz logic, they aren’t the quickest ad to build. But if your brand has the time, we can drive those results..

If an Infillion quiz is the right fit for your campaign, consider one of the following quiz strategies:

With a Recommendation Quiz, users answer a few questions about their preferences. Then, 3 answers later, we give them a single entry point to start their journey with your brand. This is great for brands that have more than one product or offering, especially if the array of products may make it difficult for a single consumer to decide. 

This has a lot of storytelling power. Consider:

• This can help consumers home in on which of a brand’s offerings is right for them – they don’t have to decide among 31  figurative flavors of ice cream. (Paradox of Choice, anyone?) A quiz, acting in a “concierge” role, can give users ONE entry point tailored to their specific needs.
• Quizzes can help introduce new use cases, accessory products, and even regimens on how to use the product.
• We can pass back key data to the client about user choices and results. 

Pound for pound, Recommendation Quizzes may be our most powerful units.

Personalization

Recommendation Quizzes suggest an individualized product recommendation to a user out of an array of options. Personalization Quizzes, on the other hand, reflect your individualized relationship to a single product. 

An easy comparison is the classic Buzzfeed-style quiz. After answering questions, we’ll just tell you something about yourself through the lens of the brand or product. “Based on your answers, you’re a [BRAND] Super-user!” 

We’d recommend Personalization Quizzes in the following cases:

• Where a quiz-based unit is desired, but the brand is only promoting ONE product.
• Education on the user’s brand “type” to help them better find their role in your brand’s clan, so to speak. Are they night owls or early birds? Introverts or extroverts? Online shoppers or brick-and-mortar shoppers? Once we know that, we can figure out where their personalities fit into a brand’s ecosystem.

Entire media companies have built their empires on the power of personality quizzes. It can help your brand, too. 

Knowledge Check Quizzes

Think of Knowledge Check Quizzes as “brand trivia.” Unlike its siblings, the Knowledge Check Quiz will grade your score at the end. This experience brings replayability and a desire to win. And as we’ve seen with our game-based units, people like to win.

Typically, here’s how we use Knowledge Check Quizzes:

• To Introduce a Pain Point: Sometimes we’ll subtly show users what they don’t know.
  
  This can create a slight feeling of discomfort. However, if we position your brand as the solution to that pain point, then we’re increasing the likelihood of down-funnel actions.
  
  For instance: a quiz about water benefits hosted by a bottled water brand. How much water should you be drinking per day? How can better hydration improve your sleep, focus, or workout performance? The quiz creates the ache; your brand is the relief.
• To Introduce Benefits: This is a subtle way to educate users on a given product. Imagine a question like: “What’s your favorite thing about New Product X?” with the answers being: Benefit A, Benefit B, and so on.
  
  Of course, if it’s a new product, users won’t know. So in this case the Quiz acts as both a source of education for the users AND a source of data for the brand.

• Pure Fun: Not every quiz-based ad needs to be packed with brand information. A fun time-waster, sponsored by your brand, can be a fantastic way to build sentiment.
  
  Consider universal quiz topics, like: “Halloween Trivia, sponsored by [YOUR BRAND].” You’ll replace an ad break with fun. Your customers will remember.

Now, Quizzes aren’t the only way to engage users and drive them down-funnel. We have a lot of solutions for that very problem. 

It’s just that Quizzes might be the best at it. 

Interested in building a quiz ad for your brand? Click here to reach out and get started!