Six hacks to grow your email list by optimising your quiz

Executive overview

Quizzes can generate thousands of leads, but most underperform because they are poorly optimised. Six concrete hacks — from quiz type selection to title writing to promotion — dramatically improve completion, sharing, and conversion rates.

Personality quizzes get shared more than any other type because they make people feel seen — start there.

Start with your goal

• General lead gen? Keep quiz broad and topic-wide.
• Launching a course or product? Narrow the quiz to segment precisely for that offer.
• Melissa Griffin's quiz segmented email-list learners ahead of her Email List Academy launch.

Use a personality quiz format

• Personality quizzes get shared the most — people care about themselves first.
• Base results on archetypes: Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, 16 personalities, or horoscopes.
• Works even for expertise segmentation: ask questions, then route by answers.
• Last question should leave respondents warm, proud, and ready to share.
• Even dry topics convert — Tarzan Kay's "80s pricing persona" quiz drove leads cheaply.

Make it fun and easy

• Never make respondents work hard; easy questions keep completion rates high.
• Sandwich less-fun questions between two enjoyable ones.
• Open with a question about the respondent — not their business pain or revenue.
• Describe answer options in plain language so respondents can choose without needing pop-culture knowledge.
• Zafira's first question ("What's your favourite way to ground yourself?") set a calm tone and seeded a future offer simultaneously.

Rewrite your quiz title like a headline

• Treat the title as ad copy: benefit-driven, attention-grabbing, visceral.
• Add a subheading that tells respondents how long the quiz takes and what they'll receive.
• Use the subhead to begin establishing authority.
• "How lit is your marriage?" outperformed "Are you married roommates or is your marriage on fire?" — visceral language drives clicks.
• Scan your quiz copy for a single emotional word (e.g. "headache") and build the title around it.

Use future pacing in questions

• Future pacing = getting respondents to imagine life with your solution before the offer appears.
• Zafira's fairy godmother question ("What kind of marketing magic are you looking for?") revealed audience desires and primed respondents for her offer.
• Beth's "Jeannie in the house — you get one wish" question surfaced priorities for her coaching offer.
• Avoid aspiration questions tied to current events (e.g. vacation questions during a pandemic).

Promote the quiz everywhere

• Send to your email list on launch.
• Use as your Instagram bio link; post results in Stories regularly.
• Share on personal and business Facebook pages.
• Repost what quiz-takers share publicly — it creates a resharing loop (Melissa Griffin's approach).
• Pin it on Pinterest; post to Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Add it to your website as a primary lead magnet.
• Run paid ads: quiz ad spend ROI is high. One client generated leads at $0.24 each on Facebook.
• Amy's quiz (new to online business, one month of ads) reached 120,000 views and 164 shares — uncommon for any lead magnet.