Quiz marketing: 5 things to expect in 2021 (& beyond)

There’s a generational divide when it comes to faith in advertising. Younger consumers just don’t trust it.

Take a look at the meteoric rise of ad blockers currently in use by 30% (and rising) of all internet users. Combine that with 84% of millennials disliking traditional marketing and the old business model has something to worry about.

Consumers have good reason to be skeptical about marketers. Scandals ranging from Cambridge Analytica to the massive Facebook data leaks have done nothing but sow doubt in the ability of companies to protect their most valuable assets — our data.

But fear not! For the savvy marketer, quiz marketing is here to help.

Who doesn’t love easy-to-create quizzes, listicles, polls, and more? That’s the easy part. The real work is in convincing users to participate. Transparency is crucial and it’s time for us to be honest about the data we’re collecting.

More content flexibility

In 2021, expect quiz makers to deliver a greater range of formats and experiences for marketers.

Retention mechanics are a big thing to watch since successful marketing is based on healthy relationships which require more than one visit. Content teams will deploy auto-refreshing content alongside video game staples like leaderboards and timers.

Automated interactive content creation is also on the rise. Instead of a ‘one and done’ quiz, marketers can upload questions via spreadsheet and choose the refresh time. Formats like our quiz generator, functions as ‘evergreen’ content, cycling through new questions every hour, day, or week.

Enhanced quiz customization

Quiz, poll, and other formats will evolve past the current ‘one size fits all’ model into new types with more customization. All to perfectly match their customer’s needs.

Instead of going with a strict quiz or poll, marketers will be able to mix and match within a quiz. The first question could be multiple choice while the second is a poll, etc. Out of this creative freedom comes more engaging experiences.

Riddle is fully on board with this shift. I’ve had our teams completely rethinking our quiz maker — they’re hard at work on Riddle 2.0, which launches in August. Riddle 2.0 is a reimagining of our quiz maker and will fully support ‘mix/match different question types’ in almost all of our content offerings.

Power for product recommendations

Online marketing quizzes are good at suggesting products according to user answers. The most effective quizzes are six to ten questions, which give marketers the perfect opportunity to suggest the ideal products.

Upon quiz completion, rather than simply showing results, each user can be led to their unique shopping experience. Imagine a customer takes a quiz to find their ideal headphones. A well done post-quiz experience should take them to a page to buy noise-canceling headphones they might need in order to work better in an open office, for example.

Create more efficiently

It’s remarkable how fast online marketing tools have developed over the past decade. The same goes for quiz marketing. It’s so easy now to create quizzes.

Remember the days before YouTube? Prior to its arrival, video content was prohibitively expensive to create and publish. Today, just about anyone can create fairly high quality video content.

Marketing teams will continue the trend of bringing interactive content in-house. In the past, it would have taken six to eight weeks for an agency to be hired, briefed, and then ready to deliver relatively straightforward custom content for a campaign.

This trend is the same for quiz creation and maintenance. In the past, this content would have been outsourced, whereas today, even small teams can easily take on the task and create content for themselves.

This doesn’t mean agencies will become antiquated. They’ll still be brought in for high-budget, high-profile campaigns.

Improve data capture

It’s becoming harder to collect data from potential customers. The EU got this moving with its wide ranging General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May, 2018. California (the fifth largest economy in the world) followed up with the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) on January 1, 2021.

All this means is that it will be more and more difficult for marketing campaigns to be as effective as they were in the past. Classic online advertising such as banner ads relies on cookies and other tools to track behavior across the internet. There’s a ‘manage privacy’ option, but how many people take the time to explore this?

Quiz marketing offers a compelling and honest way to get customers to part with their data. Interactive content seamlessly blends data collection above board, not secretly behind the scenes. Explicit lead generation steps prior to result delivery makes it clear to customer’s exactly what is being harvested.

Imagine someone begins a quiz on a career consultant website. After they answer 12 questions about their ideal job, right before seeing the result, they can choose to submit their name and email in return for a free 10 minute video call with an advisor, to help them further in the search. This offer and others like it have big payoffs with up to 45% opt-in rates from quality leads.

The big takeaways for 2021

Look for marketers to embrace a more transparent approach. This will be the decade of consent based opt-ins and engagement. This will be possible through extensive customization, lead generation, and powerful product recommendation tools. Engagement and transparency through interactive content: The new marketing playbook for 2021.

Read more on this topic on the Riddle Quiz Maker Blog