How Product Recommendation Quizzes Can Help Grow Your eCommerce Site

Suddenly everyone is talking about product recommendation quizzes and you start wondering if you need one (or more) on your website. Yes, you do need them. That’s the main message we want to drive home, and further we will explore all the ins and outs of creating such quizzes and why they are all the rage in ecommerce now.

 What Is a Product Recommendation Quiz?

Product recommendation quiz is not school-like stuff when you try to give correct answers hoping for a good grade. In contrast, in the product recommendation quiz, you answer focused questions about your needs and preferences (with prompts provided) and in the end get a suggestion on what product is the most optimal for you. It’s that simple.

Product quiz is a gamified guide that gently narrows down the wide product selection and offers the most relevant products and solutions for the problem that led a customer to your website. 

This quiz type is a cool way to create a personalized shopping experience and push customers to buy the product – or subscribe for ongoing product deliveries– without annoying them.

Such quizzes usually have pretty design and simple layouts and they are presented as pop-ups, tabs, prompts, or other interactive options that lure a customer to take a peek. 

A product recommendation quiz can be compared to a chatbot that helps to decide on something, but chatbots tend to have a negative reputation nowadays. Bots are seen (and for a good reason) as a cheap substitute for live customer support when you have to deal with automated answers over and over again instead of talking to real people. No one likes it, really. 

On the other hand, quizzes are fun, they infuse the buying process with a sense of play, and instead of getting angry, a customer gets drawn into the game. In the end, the customer is rewarded on the personalized landing page where the suitable products are lined up nicely, matched to the customer’s responses, and ready to be purchased.

Reasons to Use a Product Quiz

Although such quizzes may seem like an unnecessary waste of time, in reality, they impact the customer’s decision to buy and your company’s bottom line – in a positive way. That’s if we take the situation in general. Let’s look at specific reasons that make product recommendation quizzes almost obligatory parts of a good e-commerce website.

1. Product quizzes are a cool and innocuous way to boost sales without being pushy or annoying to shoppers. 

People tend to buy more actively the stuff that meets their specific needs and is tailored to these needs, at least to an extent. Add the experience of a personal assistant and exclusivity and you get why quizzes sell your products successfully. 

2. Product quizzes are an engaging way to make customers share their contact information – in a legally acceptable way, with email opt-out options. 

That’s one of the best things quizzes can do, so never underestimate it. People tend to decline to share their emails when asked to but are more willing to do so in exchange for some useful service. Sending quiz results with personal recommendations is a cool way to persuade people to share their contacts and stay in touch even after the purchase.  

3. Product quizzes help grow the customer base and expand the outreach to new audience segments. 

Even people who don’t plan to buy something just yet like to have a bit of fun. A cool and visually appealing quiz is a good way to engage people with your products. So your e-commerce will be on their radar as a go-to because they have already interacted with it in a light and funny way.

4. Product quizzes help to reduce abandoned carts percentage. 

One of the ways to reduce financial losses of your business is to reduce the number of abandoned carts. And to do so, it’s recommended to offer tailored and targeted products right from the start. Quizzes do just that – offer specific and tailored products that may appeal to clients immediately. 

5. Product quizzes can help save money on customer support – but to a degree, and with a big caveat. 

You’ll find many remarks thrown around that you can save money on customer support by using quizzes, but that’s a wrong approach. Good customer support is one of the decisive factors that can make or break your business. Never try to cut costs in this area. Quizzes are a nice and funny supplement to help with online support, but not the complete replacement. Quizzes recommend products but they don’t answer lots of other important questions clients may have. So, yes, quizzes take a part of the load off the support shoulders but they don’t replace this support. Always keep it in mind. 

How to Make a Product Recommendation Quiz

The main requirement of any product quiz is to shape it in a way that leads a customer to a particular product. When a customer answers three or four questions and gives a particular combination of answers the confirmation action is triggered. That is, when a customer says ‘This item should have these, these, and these features’ the matching result is automatically presented as a personal recommendation. 

This approach is called conditional logic, and questions you create should pipe a client toward the product. So prepare questions carefully keeping in mind what you want to sell and decide how you will present the result – on the webpage or delivered to the client email. On the other hand, hiring a web developer to assist with this can be also a valuable step. When you figure it out, you can start assembling the quiz itself.

  1. Select a quiz maker tool that is easy to use and integrate into your website.
  2. Choose the way a quiz will be presented to customers – as a pop-up, bottom corner chat-like style, a separate landing page, or a window embedded into the existing page.
  3. Shape and fine-tune quiz questions and prompts. When you shape questions, always imagine the situation from two perspectives: 
  • you as a seller and what you have to sell
  • a customer and what they might want and need (or what you can persuade them to want)

Your task is to match your goods to the customer’s desires. There is little sense in asking questions and finding pain points if you can’t offer something that will relieve this pain for a customer. 

  1.  Set product recommendation conditions and actions. Like, when such and such answers are selected (for example, A, B, and C, or A, B, and D), this specific product is offered, and so on. Insert these conditions and actions into the quiz template carefully, it’s one of the key working steps.
  2. Set up and streamline the conditional logic. At this step, decide when you will ask for the customer’s details, including name and email, and whether you will send results to the email or show them directly on the existing page.
  3. Set up email-capturing software and store emails for further convenient use. Remember that it’s basic politeness and often a legal obligation to provide customers with an opt-out feature. So they are not afraid to share emails to get one personalized recommendation.
  4. Embed the quiz into your ecommerce and run a test to see if it works as expected.  

Benefits of Product Recommendation Quizzes

Definitely, not all ecommerces will benefit from such quizzes because not all problems or needs can be tackled with the help of a simple questionnaire. However, in many cases, when the choice of goods or services for sale is huge and decision-making is hard, a little friendly nudge can help a lot. Many shoppers start browsing for items not knowing for sure what they need. A proper piece of advice based on their individual experience is an excellent way to seal a deal.

Let’s look at some real-life changes and numbers in terms of tangible benefits: 

  • Around 80% of people who see a quiz offer click on it and take a quiz.
  • People are 30% more likely to share their names and emails in exchange for something useful, personalized shopping recommendations in quizzes included.
  • Up to 70% of carts with items are abandoned and sales are lost. When clients engage in quizzes and get custom offers tailored to their needs, they are twice as likely to complete the purchase. 
  • Small business owners who use quizzes consistently and creatively report growth in sales from 30% to 40% and mention the lower level of abandoned carts.
  • Customers leave positive feedback on quizzes remarking on the improved shopping experience and on feeling heard and seen – and cared for.

 Nowadays shopping is about cool experiences, personalization, and tailored offers. Why not include a quiz in your ecommerce if it can do it all – and more?

Cases When Quizzes Are Indispensable For Enhancing Customer Experience 

So, when do people benefit from your quiz, and when is it particularly reasonable to use one?

  •  When people don’t have a clear idea what to buy and need a hint together with the opportunity to buy it on the spot (like with gifts, trendy home décor, etc.)
  •  When the choice is huge and it’s hard to browse through all options or use filters to find something specific 
  •  When people want to buy something fast and more or less accurately without spending much time on selection
  •  When people don’t know what’s new on the market or how products can be put together into coordinated bundles or fit into existing routines or collections (think about buying new glasses that will match your existing tableware collection and you get what we mean).

So, if you own or manage an ecommerce that operates in the following product area, product recommendation quizzes are your best friends in selling matters:

  • Vitamins, supplements, healthy nutrition
  • Skincare, beauty and wellness
  • Clothing, jewelry, accessories
  • Thematic gifts
  • Homewares and home décor
  • Sports and sport equipment

It’s interesting to notice, that with the right approach even intangible purchases can be advertised and targeted through these quizzes. Custom nutrition plans, at-home fitness packages, styling services, classes – anything can be sold in a customized and personalized way if you have the patience to develop and fine-tune quizzes for your business niche. 

Quiz Integration Into Your Ecommerce (And CRM System)

We mentioned the ethical collecting of users’ emails, now let’s explore how you can store and use them for marketing purposes (with consideration of legal aspects, of course).

When customers enter their details in the quiz and get the personal recommendations to their inboxes, it’s not the end of the story. Emails need to be stored securely and conveniently for fast and accurate extraction and use. 

You can connect a quiz to your preferred CRM, or to Google Drive which has become an efficient tool for running a small business. The advantage of Google Drive is that it supports easy integration with plenty of convenient apps and services that facilitate your workflow even more. 

Product Recommendation Quiz Example

Now the fun part: let’s build an example quiz to get you on the right track. Think about buying new drinking glasses. Glasses tend to break, get scratched and chipped, or just go out of fashion, or owners want to refresh their table styling a bit. Hence, glasses are regularly shopped for and sometimes the assortment alone can be intimidating or puzzling. Or a client just cannot figure out if these new glasses will match their existing tableware set. 

 So, when a shopper filters the goods by the ‘glasses’ filter or clicks Tableware category in the Products tab, a pretty styled pop-up should appear on the page, inviting them to take a quiz and find the perfect set of glasses tailored to the customer’s vision and needs.  

The initial invitation to take a quiz should include both your and your customer’s viewpoints: 

‘Hey, wanna find glasses that will hit all trend boxes and will go well with your favorite plates and table linens? Take a quiz and find the perfect match! Let’s go!’

In the same way, you can configure the launching question like ‘Hey, wanna find glasses that will hit all trend boxes and will fit into any tableware collection?’ This claim is more generic and inclusive, but the former example is more sustainable and environment-friendly, so to speak.

Now the focused questions that build conditioning logic begin. A set of 5 to 7 questions is enough to find a point to appeal to and not to bore your client to death. Below is a generic example of such questions with answer prompts and suggestions of glass styles that you sell (all style names are purely imaginary, just because why not).

  1. You need drinking glasses for:
  • Water
  • Wine
  • Cocktails
  • Juice 
  1. Your preferred tableware style is: 
  • Classic
  • Rustic
  • Contemporary 
  • You buy items that you like and enjoy them all together
  1.  The main color(s) of your plates and table linens is(are):
  • White, off-white, soft pastels
  • Earthy and warm, sandy, reddish, black
  • Jewel tones and bold, rich colors, bright complex patterns
  • A happy mismatching fusion of everything
  1.  Your preferred glass style is:
  • Transparent glass
  • Colored glass
  • Rich detailing, carving, décor
  • Minimalism
  1. You like to have your tableware:
  • Perfectly matched 
  • Adhering to the same style but with a bit of variation
  • Eclectic is your second name 
  • Fashionable, but also convenient and nice to use.

You should preprogram combinations of three or four key answers to trigger a confirmation action that leads a buyer to one of four glass sets available on your site. Yes, the questions sequence should specifically match what you have to offer, not just randomly ask a user about their favorite colors and shapes.

In a nutshell, you put together key conditional points, like transparent or colored, minimalist or decorated – and connect them to a specific set. Wine, water, or juice marker serves here as a fine-tuning condition.

Say, you sell glasses in designs named Uno, Breezie, Fuglio, and Pamola. Uno is a minimalistic, colorless glass set, sparkling cylinders, the basics, as they say. Breezie is minimalistic but colorful, fit for juice and wine alike. Fuglio is made of high-grade clear glass in a tulip shape, cool wine glasses, probably with a tiny twist or something. Pamola is a gorgeous set of carved glass in jewel tones, fit for formal events or stylish dining occasions worthy of Instagram.

 You can see how answers to the questions above converge to nudge customers to buy one specific set. These are just a few examples of how to match answer conditions and results, and the list can go on until all key condition combinations are wired into the quiz and matched with a glass style: 

  • Water + Classic + White, off-white, soft pastels + Transparent = Uno (with Fuglio as a ‘You may also like’ suggestion)
  • Wine + Classic + White, off-white, soft pastels + Transparent = Fuglio
  • Cocktails + Rustic + Earthy and warm, sandy, reddish, black + Colored glass = Breezie
  • Wine + You buy items that you like and enjoy them all together + Jewel tones and bold, rich colors, bright complex patterns + Colored glass = Pamola

Some questions may work solely as pampering tools while carrying little practical sense in the inner logic of the quiz. But for customers, they create the effect of an individual shopping experience and being served by a very polite and professional assistant, like in big luxurious malls and boutiques. 

All the customer has to do at the end of this quiz is to appreciate the stylish look of the recommended set and hit the ‘Buy’ button happily.  

Design a cool product quiz for your webpage and enjoy increased conversions and boosted sales! 

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