Can a quiz help your business? A review of Interact's quiz-building software.

Note 02/2023: This post is in the process of being updated. 

One of my content goals for 2018 is to talk more about tools that clients and other folks may be interested in. There are so many exciting SaaS (software as a service) tools out there that claim to level up your marketing, build your list and change your list—and let's be real, I love trying them out. And, because so many of our clients come back to us with questions about digital marketing, list-building and strategy, it's part of my job to be informed so our consulting clients are getting quality advice.

First up is Interact, a quiz-building tool that surprised me!

I'm sure you've see personality quizzes all over the web (I'm looking at you, Buzzfeed). These are short quizzes that tell you what TV character you are, what sort of vacation you should take or what kind of personal style you have. There are lots of permutations, but essentially they're no more than 10 questions and lead you through an assessment of some sort. Many require that you opt-in to a list to get your results. These are fun and interactive ways to engage people with your website. Interact is a very robust quiz builder that I took for a spin for myself and a handful of clients (more on that in the future).

When I set out to create my quiz, well, let's just say, WHOA, it's way harder than I imagined! Interact actually has a lot of demo quizzes that you can use as starting points. And, while I'm an overachieve who has to do everything from scratch, I did deconstruct several example quizzes that Interact provided and that helped the quiz-building process click with me.

What I ended up doing was mapping out my quiz from the end (the results I wanted displayed) back to the beginning. Then, I got out the old fashioned paper and pen and mapped out my quiz's journey. Like many newbie quiz builders, I started out way too complex—I took a few people's quizzes and realized that the simpler ones were more engaging. Honestly, I think my quiz is still too complicated.

Now, when it came to actually building my quiz, this was ridiculously easy.

In the pen and paper process above, I mapped out what results would be associated with each response, so connecting the dots was dead simple.

Where I stumbled, however, was that I wanted to build in loads of conditional logic (again, remember that I was overly complicating my quiz to begin with) and I really struggled with the logic of it. The folks at Interact offered to do a walk-through with me on how to make that happen and I plan on taking them up on that as soon as I have a bit of time. With the logic, I think there's even more opportunity for what excites me most about quizzes: the chance to use a quiz on your website as an education tool!

While I know the prevailing logic is to leverage quizzes for list-building, I'm not comfortable requiring people to opt-in to my list to get their results (with mine, it's an optional opt-in) and I haven't found the time to build a lead magnet that's awesome for my list that I feel would be valuable content in exchange for that email sign-up. (Again, my philosophy of this is always that of providing high value rewards for someone being so generous as to invite me into their inbox.)

However, I LOVE that I can use my quiz questions to educate prospective clients or even just folks who are curious about the types of services we offer.

The three types of quizzes offered by Interact.

The three types of quizzes offered by Interact.

My thinking is that educated clients—mine or otherwise—are good clients and that there's always value in teaching people about what you're offering. A long time ago, a boss told me that the best salespeople are actually educators, and I do believe that. I have no interest in hard sales, but I love teaching them and hopefully that makes them able to make a decision that's right for them.

Along those lines, my next Interact experiment is a different type of quiz, one that's tallied and tests visitors' knowledge about a subject. I think this will be a great discussion tool for some common questions I get and a few services and product offerings we're introducing.

Would I recommend adding an Interact Quiz to your website?

If it makes sense for your business or organization, it could be a great tool for you to generate leads, build your list or educate potential clients and customers. You can try ours here:

I'm think that service-based professionals in particular can take a similar tactic as me, using the tool as a way to educate folks about what you do and your unique approach or point of view. Nonprofit organizations could also use quizzes as a way to both inform potential supporters about their cause and also build a list for a future campaign. And, if you have a killer lead magnet tool (a giveaway like an ebook or email course in exchange for an email address) or an online course, you could definitely use a quiz to promote those.

I've tried a few other quiz building tools, and Interact definitely stands out in terms of way it integrates into your site (it works with Squarespace, Wordpress and any other website that allows you to embed code) and it talks to many, many email list tools, as well as Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics (on some tiers). Interact also has its own built-in analytics, so you can see where people drop off on your quiz (I'm going to be making some modifications to mine after collecting some data). I also think the model quizzes are killer—you could easily adapt their sample quizzes to your industry and call it a day.

Who isn't it for?

If you don't have your content marketing fleshed out (hey, we can help with that, by the way!), then a quiz will simply be a fun toy and not a tool that will work for you. I would make sure you're planned out your email marketing (I've only tested it with ConvertKit, but it worked seamlessly with that system and I was able to tag all quiz takers in specific ways and send them a special email that's different from my normal welcome email), have consistent traffic to your site and have a service or product that is "quizzable" before spending the time to map out a quiz.

Frankly, I also think Interact would not be a great fit for folks who haven't committed a small budget to online marketing. I know this is a big leap for a lot of people, and while there's a free tier, it wouldn't do as much for you, since it doesn't have the list-building options. But, if you're looking for a different tool that your usual Facebook ads or boosted Instagram posts, building an Interact quiz could work for you.

Want to give Interact a spin? You can do a 14 day trial over here.

Disclaimer: I am an Interact Partner/Affiliate.