Online quizzes have existed since practically the dawn of the Internet, if not since the big bang then at least since the initial proliferation of sites, certainly by HTML 2.0. In other words, they are old, and they span the gambit, but quiz sites as a means to drive users and make money didn't go away with the bursting of the first Internet bubble. They are, in many ways, undergoing a slight renaissance as marketers see quiz content and the behavior that drives users into taking them as a means to meet some of the growing challenges for traffic acquisition. In Part 1, we showed two examples, one that promotes itself as a quiz but doesn't act like one, instead using the crush behavior to drive mobile signups, and a second that does offer a quiz but uses the same general flow and monetization method - mobile. Here, in Part 2, we continue to look at three other methods currently in play.
What is yours? Take our Free IQ Test and find out.
www.TheFreeIQTest.com
Let's look at the lander. It is free, but not free from frustration:
The owner of this site is JoeTec.com, a network that talks about lead generation on its site. As we can see from the lander, we know where quite a few of those offers get placed, including one of them directly on the landing page before you get started. The quiz itself is two pages, and the questions are pulled from a variety of IQ-like tests. On each page, you will find questions that have little to do with your IQ, such as those that ask whether you'd like a gas card or free ipod or to improve your education. The real trick to this one is trying to get your score. After the two pages, the site takes you through every possible outsourced registration path possible. It was so tedious that we simply gave up, and we're pretty tenacious at these things. On our scale, this one comes in at single-serving site, has some real quiz content but a fair amount of obvious ad content, and as close to forced monetization as you can get without it costing money. Participation does come with email offers out of the gate and giving up ones demographic information afterwards in thinking you'll get your score.
The Free IQ Test is straight out of 2002, and while I want to strangle them, I have to love seeing something so decidedly unoriginal still working.
Take This Fun Free Quiz And Find Out Now!
www.ruhotquiz.net
Here is one of our favorites, mainly because it's the site that prompted our look at the role of quiz sites in performance marketing today - Chatterbean. We hold a special fondness as well, because the site isn't just some enterprising affiliate or small shop but part of the lead generation giant Quinstreet. Long known to purchase sites with high organic traffic, they are showing a new angle to owning users, converting general traffic into leads through their own, albeit non-organic, quiz site. Below is the first page to this particular quiz; although, unlike the others shown, on their root domain they offer more than just this, along with the ability to create your own.
Depending on how you answer the quiz, or it could just be random, you might see the following screen in the middle of the quiz -
There is a skip button, and while it's not small, it's not the first or second place a user will look. If you don't see the ad in the middle, you will see it at the end of the quiz. Chatterbean has the right functionality for repeat visitors; it's monetization is included in the survey and scores pretty low on the forced scale, as it's pretty easy to get your actual results without giving up anything. What also stands out is how smoothly integrated questions not pertaining to the actual quiz are, and hopw they inject themselves to help cross sell other offers. Overall, Chatterbean might not look impressive, but you can tell the level of sophistication that went into the monetization.
Love & Personality Questions? Take Our Free, Fun Quizzes Now!
www.LifeScript.com
Of all the sites profiled, LifeScript has the broadest array of content and the most built out, dare we say, professional / bigger organization feel. It's also vastly different in its monetization approach. Where as the first two were mobile and the next two were more or less lead generation (100% in the case of Chatterbean), LifeScript focuses more on display revenue, which is noticeable on their main quiz page.
Since our industry likes to drink, let's look at the alcohol quiz.
The quizzes are ten questions long and shown one on a page.
After each question, you receive the results as others have taken them, turning each into more of a poll than a quiz.
Regarding the display component, LifeScript has premium advertisers on parts of their homepage with networks and Google ad sense supplementing the rest. With two leaderboards and two tile ads, they have a healthy amount of real estate dedicated to advertising, and with each question occurring on a single page and the answer to each coming after, each pair of questions yields close to ten impressions. Go through the whole quiz, and you've generated about 80 impressions, or almost enough to cover the cost of the click. After the results, they too use a stall trick, although it's much more toned down than JoeTec.
The real value for them comes on the following page, where they look to build their email newsletters, taking the repeat usage a step further by having another touch point with the user. And, while some of their questions seem perfectly geared for a particular advertiser or follow-up lead form such as that on Chatterbean, it doesn't appear to be the case. While LifeScript has some pretty intense ad impressions to get through, they excel in the results, not just providing the polling information but in the actual end summation.
If you go through this exercise, perhaps you too will learn that that your crush is named Sam, that you aren't smarter than the average person, that you aren't hot, and you drink too much.
Editor
DM Confidential
www.dmconfidential.com
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