Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Let’s say a salesperson comes up to you and says, “Here’s something you should know about.” If you don’t see this person as a trustworthy, knowledgeable source, you probably have no reason to listen.
Let’s replace the salesperson with your cousin Dave. The odds of you listening to what Dave has to say likely goes up, depending on your relationship with Dave and the topic he’s leaning into.
Now let’s replace Dave with an expert in the field who has done extensive research on the topic using a variety of credible sources. This expert also has the background to simplify and provide context to the topic. Now you have a reason to listen (and not just because you’re related).
Done well, an email newsletter is like the expert in the field of your email marketing efforts.

The curation serves to up-level the journalistic quality of your content, which results in two things:

Increases the value you provide
Improves your authority and credibility in your audience’s eyes

When people first start doing email marketing, they often assume they need an email newsletter. However, newsletters are only effective when done well.
“It’ll have everything our customers care about, all in one place,” they rationalize. “Our list will be different — people will actually look forward to getting our newsletter,” they argue. “Since we’re only sending it once a month, it’ll be a breeze to put together,” they say.
And while all of those things may become true for a few lucky individuals, lots of email newsletters flop. They become an uninteresting mush of content people automatically ignore, archive, delete, or straight up unsubscribe from. And this isn’t great for you, your metrics, or your company’s success.
So if you’re thinking about creating an email newsletter, keep on reading. In this post, we’ll cover:

Ideas to make your newsletter an effective one
Design tips that help ensure a great reading experience

Examples of newsletters that are crushing it (to draw inspiration from)

Email Newsletter Ideas
Email newsletters can include a weekly round-up of blog posts, case studies regarding your product or service, upcoming company events and webinars, or even a behind-the-scenes look at your company.
Of course, you don’t want to create a newsletter just for the sake of creating one — instead, you should do thorough research on what your audience might prefer, and what your company is well-suited to offer.
If you’re looking for general email newsletter inspiration, you’re in luck. Here’s a list of some of our favorite ideas for email newsletters:

Round-up of popular or recent blog posts or videos
New job openings at your company
New case studies or product launches
Membership/customer deals and promotions
New best practices or tips
Industry news
Quotes
Recent survey results related to your industry
Internal employee news, including anniversaries, promotions, and birthdays
Listicles (i.e. “10 Best Vacation Spots of 2020” if you work for a Travel publication)
A team spotlight with pictures and bios
Photos or stories customers have shared
Behind-the-scenes at your company, or interviews with company executives
Monthly business recap
New training opportunities
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and answers
Upcoming webinars, or recordings of past webinars

Next, let’s explore some newsletter designs to inspire the aesthetic of your newsletter.
Featured Guide: Email Newsletter Design Examples Lookbook

Learn how to build an email newsletter from scratch, and see dozens of email newsletter examples from real businesses with this free guide.

Email Newsletter Design
While you can get creative with the structure of your email newsletter, the general anatomy typically includes:

Your logo or masthead
A featured image and other eye-catching visuals
Top stories featured at the top
Additional content and promotions following
An email footer with social links and subscription information

From a design standpoint, your company’s newsletter should be a true reflection of your brand. For instance, if your website features minimalist design and clean, plain black-and-white text, then you don’t want to create a super colorful newsletter, which might confuse new subscribers.
There are a few best practices, however, you can employ to ensure your design is up-to-par regardless of your audience’s preferences:

Clean, crisp images (no blurry images)
Text (use same text throughout), company logo, and icons
Try filters, memes, or video
Make the CTA clear and obvious — and just have one (i.e. “Click here to shop” or “Click here to read”)
Create a hierarchy with CTA early-on
Mobile-responsive
Test the length of your newsletter to ensure it’s not too short or too long for your audience

Of course, the design of your newsletter will depend on your brand, as well as the message. For instance, you might want to create a colorful, attention-grabbing newsletter if it largely focuses on visuals of new products — alternatively, if it’s a round-up of recent blog posts, perhaps you try a more minimalist look to mimic the appearance of a letter.
Of course, you’ll want to A/B test whichever design(s) you choose, to ensure they resonate with your audience.
I’d also recommend looking into pre-made templates if you’re not familiar with designing emails. If you’re a HubSpot customer, you’ll have a bunch of pre-made templates in the email tool.
However, if you’re still unsure about your newsletter design, there’s nothing better than looking at examples for further inspiration.
Take a look at the following newsletters that knocked it out of the park, and consider using some of their design elements as inspiration for your own.

Each newsletter on this list is fabulous for different reasons. Some have exceptional design, some have exceptional copy, some have exceptional calls-to-action … but all are exceptional at solving for their subscribers’ needs.
1. The Hustle

The Hustle is a daily newsletter that promises “business and tech in 5 minutes or less.”
While there are a ton of business and tech newsletters out there, what makes The Hustle remarkable is its tone at the intersection of informational and hilarious.
Take two of their most notable headlines from 2020 as an example:

“The man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship”
“The economics of vending machines”

The Hustle also allows subscribers to customize the content they receive to fit their interests (see the “Snippets” section in the example below).
The formula of great content + unique tone + personalization works well for The Hustle’s audience as they’ve grown to more than 1.5 million subscribers.

2. NextDraft

NextDraft is a daily email written by a man named Dave Pell, which is a curation of the best web content of the day. As Pell describes it, “Each morning I visit about fifty news sites and from that swirling nightmare of information quicksand, I pluck the top ten most fascinating items of the day, which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight.”
You can tell he’s a great writer. His copywriting is one of my favorite things about the newsletter. It starts with the subject line, which is usually a play on words or a clever one-liner on the top news of the day. It then extends to the body of the email itself, which is always descriptive, accurate, and clever. Finally, the minimalist design is fantastic.
Not only is content delivery is clear, organized, and digestible, but also the inclusion of social share buttons underneath each story is brilliant. Rather than assuming that the reader is going to make it to a social sharing option at the bottom of the newsletter, Pell provides them with multiple opportunities throughout. Social engagement can play a big role in growing your newsletter, as every share on social opens up a valuable opportunity to attract more subscribers.
For those who’d rather read news like this in a mobile app, the NextDraft app is free in Apple’s app store.
[Click here to see the entire email.]
3. REI

REI, the recreational sports outfitter, is a model of success in several areas of content marketing — and their membership email is no exception.
We included this email newsletter on our list because it does what many ecommerce and consumer product vendors find challenging: promote good products with good content. In the newsletter example below, you’ll see how REI delivers many different types of material to its subscribers, and each type relates to one another. Following the seasonal product offerings at the top of the email, the company offers trainings to help educate readers on its new products and blog posts for even more insight into the outdoor lifestyle.
Did you notice something else about this newsletter? It’s dedicated entirely to runners. Catering your email newsletter to a single audience — even if that audience belongs to an even bigger buyer persona — can help you tell a story in your email that resonates with the recipient from start to finish.
4. Austin Kleon

Not to play favorites, but this newsletter from Austin Kleon is one I really look forward to. First, I love the simplicity. It’s not flashy, nor is it overly promotional. That’s the hallmark of a successful email newsletter: The most effective newsletters aim to educate, not sell.
I also love the overall informal tone he takes, as it makes it feel as though you’re hearing from a friend. If you’re looking to lower the barrier between your company and your audience, consider using language that is friendly and inviting, not buttoned-up and jargony.
[Click here to see the entire email.]
5. FandangoNOW

FandangoNOW is a movie streaming app that allows you to build a library of purchased and rented movies around your interests. And it uses the below email newsletter as part of its customer retention strategy.
The email below offers movie suggestions for the weekend, making it a well-timed newsletter if it lands in your inbox on Friday afternoon. In addition, its design is easy to digest, despite being so graphic-intense. Using numbered icons and consistent “Buy” and “Rent” CTAs in corners of each movie tile, the email compartmentalizes a lot of content while still connecting each movie to the FandangoNOW brand.
6. InVision

InVision’s newsletter is a weekly digest of their best blog content, a roundup of their favorite design links from the week, and a new opportunity to win a free t-shirt.
Not only is their newsletter a great mix of content, but I also love the nice balance between images and text, making it easy to read and mobile-friendly. They make great use of animated GIFs in their emails. I also love the clever copy on their call-to-action buttons:

“Cat GIFs on Every Page”
“Set Your Sights”
“Why So Serious?”

In addition to classic CTA buttons, they engage their audience at the bottom of every newsletter with a “You tell us!” text CTA.
7. Community.is

Community.is is a handcrafted newsletter created for people who “put people at the center of their work.” This unique concept attracts a variety of readers from executives at ad agencies, to community managers at startups, to marketers and creatives of all shapes and sizes.
In an effort to cater to their melting pot of subscribers, Community.is adopted a three-tier format: Short, Mid, and Long. While an executive may only have time to skim the short stuff, a marketer might be looking for a more in-depth read to spark some inspiration for their next campaign. Organizing a newsletter in this way helps ensure that you’re serving the distinct needs of your audience without it being too confusing.
[Click here to see the entire email.]
8. Vox Sentences

Vox Sentences is a nightly email meant to quickly get its readers up to speed on the best stories from the day. The content ranges from the day’s top news to fun stories from all over the web. They do a great job balancing their own content with external sources, and the stories they choose are always really high quality.
You can read Vox’s entire newsletter from start to finish and get a great sense of the stories they’re covering — but you can also click through to any of the linked stories to get a more in-depth approach.
9. Fizzle

Fizzle’s newsletter is aimed at entrepreneurs who want weekly tips on building a business sent directly to their inbox and all in the email itself. Although they have a business blog and a podcast, what makes Fizzle’s newsletter unique is that the email content is independent from those other content assets. In other words, it’s written entirely for their subscribers.
The copywriting style makes the newsletter unique and appealing, too: It’s casual, honest, and written like the author is writing to a friend. The writing gives off the vibe of real, down-to-earth business advice — without the fluffy stuff. At the same time, it’s written with clear headers and sub-headers to break it up, and the important stuff is bolded, making for easy skimming.
10. TheSkimm

If you want to stay up on what’s happening in the world and have some delightful writing delivered to your inbox first thing in the morning, look no further than TheSkimm. It’s a daily roundup of what’s happened in the news in short, punchy paragraphs.
The best part? You don’t have to click out of the email to read the news if you don’t want to — although they do link to their sources if you want to read further.
For your own email marketing, TheSkimm is the place to go if you’re looking for writing inspiration or for emails without much visual content.
11. Medium

Medium is a blog-publishing platform that has been continuously building momentum since its launch in 2012. Publishing on the site has really picked up in the past few years, and nowadays, there are a ton of people publishing posts on the site every day.
Of course, that means there’s a lot of content for the average person to filter through. To help bring great content to the surface, Medium uses email newsletters. And after I open this newsletter every day, I end up going to visit several Medium posts without fail. (Mission accomplished for Medium, right?)
Here’s why: The newsletter feels pretty minimal. Because of the way that Medium uses colors and section dividers, they’re able to give you a ton of content in one email without it feeling overwhelming. Plus, they offer both a daily and a weekly version of the digest, allowing users to opt in for the email frequency they feel most comfortable with.
12. BrainPickings

BrainPickings is one of the most interesting newsletters out there. In fact, the folks who write it call it an “interestingness digest.” Every Sunday morning, subscribers get the past week’s most unmissable articles about creativity, psychology, art, science, design, and philosophy — topics that are really appealing to a wide audience. At its core, it explores what it means to live a good life.
This is one of the longest newsletters I’ve ever read, but what makes it still work well is how high quality and well packaged the content is.
(Bonus: Check out the delightful microcopy in the top right-hand corner.)
[Click here to see the entire email.]
13. Litmus

You’d hope that an email marketing testing company would have great emails … and Litmus definitely does. While the content of the emails is certainly interesting, I’m especially digging the design. The blocks of color help break up the newsletter into sections that are easy to differentiate.
I also like that the text calls-to-action at the end of each post’s description don’t just say something generic, like “Read this post.” Instead, they are matched with specific actions related to the post’s content, like “Get the checklist” and “Discover why you should test.”
14. General Assembly

There are a lot of creative things you can do with images in your emails, from designing your own custom graphics to creating animated GIFs. General Assembly, an organization that helps expand professionals’ skill sets, likes to employ tactics like these in their newsletter.
From their attractive and minimal layout to their concise copy and helpful information, this is a great example of a newsletter that gives subscribers quick information in an easily scannable format.
15. The Ringer

Remember Grantland, the sports and pop culture blog owned by ESPN that was started by sports journalist Bill Simmons? In October 2015, ESPN announced it would be ending the publication of Grantland. Shortly thereafter, Simmons formed Bill Simmon Media Group and recruited a whole bunch of former Grantland staffers to launch a brand new newsletter in March 2016 called The Ringer.
Although The Ringer is written and run by many former Grantland employees it’s a different project than Grantland was. Where Grantland focused on sports and pop culture, The Ringer branches out into other areas like tech and politics. Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, is among the contributors. I like how focused they are on experimentation: “We want to have fun, take chances, analyze, theorize, obsess, and try not to take ourselves too seriously,” said Editor-in-Chief Sean Fennessey.
Another differentiator? The Ringer’s website was developed in partnership with publishing platform Medium — which means the newsletter reflects that clean, minimal design.
[Click here to see the entire email.]
16. Hacker Newsletter

Many marketers don’t frequent Hacker News, but they should still check out this hand-picked curation of the social network’s top stories of the day.
Why? The newsletter is clean and minimal, but still sends a ton of really great content its subscribers’ way. The way it distills potentially overwhelming information is by bucketing content into sections. The newsletter also looks very similar to the site, so for those who love the site and how it’s laid out, the newsletter feels like a comforting, familiar way to consume content.
[Click here to see the entire email.]
17. Below the Fold

Below the Fold is a weekly newsletter (from Acciyo) that surfaces important and interesting stories that simply aren’t making headlines due to the crowded, never-ending news cycle we all experience day in and day out.
Acciyo’s editorial team handpicks great news stories that they believe deserve “front-page love” but are being beaten out by an “infinite scroll of breaking headlines” — stories that range from how investors are profiting from emergency room bills, to how one Mexican company turned prickly pear into sustainable fuel.What I love most about Below the Fold is not just that I get to read super interesting stories that would be hard to find on my own, but that the mission behind their newsletter is unique and creates new value for their readers. They’re not just curating content on a single topic; they’re appealing to an audience who’s tired of reading the same headlines across their feeds and want to know what else is happening in the world.
Some of their most engaged sends are weeks where one story dominates coverage, preventing other important stories from reaching people. It’s easy to get caught up in what’s trending and miss what else is happening in the world. They do a great job of communicating a mission that truly differentiates them and creates value readers won’t get anywhere else.

18. #SEOFOMO

Things can change quickly in the world of SEO, so fear of missing out (or, affectionately dubbed, FOMO) is a real mood among professionals immersed in the industry.
That’s why Aleyda Solis, an expert in the space, started the newsletter: “#SEOFOMO was born with the goal to share the type of newsletter I wished to receive myself as an SEO consultant.”
The newsletter itself is comprehensive, containing search- and algorithm-related news, curated articles, guides and resources, and open SEO jobs.

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Creating an Email Newsletter Your Subscribers Love
Even though newsletters are one of the most common types of emails to send, they are actually some of the hardest to do right. We hope these examples gave you some quality inspiration so you can create newsletters your subscribers love to get in their inboxes.

Grabbing — and keeping — your audience’s attention has never been harder. Nowadays, people are bombarded with marketing 24/7, and yet in the last five years, the average attention span has actually dropped — to a mere eight seconds.
Fortunately, there are fun and unique strategies you can implement to engage your audience — and one of those strategies is an online quiz maker.
Similar to the addictive nature of Jeopardy, online quizzes are a fun way for people to engage with your brand. Additionally, consistent online quizzes can help you stay top-of-mind when your consumer is finally ready to buy.
Online quizzes also help you gain a better understanding of your users, and help create stronger relationships with them.
But, whether you’re looking for a professional survey tool or a more lighthearted quiz maker, there’s a range of options to choose from — which one will help drive the best long-term results?
We’ll explore our favorite 18 quiz makers shortly, but first, let’s take a look at the key features of great quiz makers.

Online Quiz Makers: Key Features
Quiz makers come in all forms. Some are incredibly professional, while others are pretty casual. Some are intended for fun, and others are meant to drive real business growth.
Whatever your goal, you should always look for the following key features in your quiz maker.
Easy Promotion Options
You’re trying to gather as many responses as possible, right?
Choosing a service that has built-in sharing options should be a top priority, as it’ll help increase reach.
Data Collection / Analysis
How are you going to collect and use the data?
This is a huge issue. If the data that’s collected is difficult to sort through and doesn’t help you identify key trends, then it’s useless. Make sure the data you collect can be exported or analyzed in-app in a way that’s easy for you.
Lead Capture
In nine out of 10 instances, you’ll also want your quiz to capture lead data from the user.
Make sure there’s a built-in method to collect more than just respondent’s answers — and ensure it can integrate with your primary CRM or ESP.
Time Efficiency
Quiz makers speed up the process needed to put them together.
By using a quiz maker, you can choose from pre-existing layouts or templates, to make a clear and engaging quiz — without the fuss of starting from scratch. They also provide step-by-step guides on how to build them, so you don’t have to do any second guessing.
Now that we’ve covered that, let’s get into our favorite quiz making solutions.

The 18 Best Online Quiz Makers in 2021
1. HubSpot Forms

Price: Free
Even though it’s one of the more advanced form builder tools, you don’t need any technical expertise when you use HubSpot’s free form builder. You can quickly create forms with the drag-and-drop form builder and convert anonymous website visitors into leads with unlimited forms, fields, submissions, and custom forms that all connect to your contact database. This flexibility and customization means it’s easy to create quizzes using the tool as well.
Once someone fills out your form, they’re automatically routed to HubSpot’s free CRM. Once they’re in your CRM, you can set reminder tasks, call them, and send them one-to-one personalized emails, letting you better manage and nurture relationships with your contacts.
HubSpot Forms is also available for WordPress via HubSpot’s WordPress plugin.

2. Survey Anyplace

Pricing: Basic Plan, $39/month per user; Professional Plan, $59/month per user; Enterprise Plan, contact for pricing
Survey Anyplace is one of the more advanced tools in the market, with skip logic, outcomes, and custom scoring that allow you to create quizzes with a high focus on personalization. Combine that with full customization to your branding and the ability for respondents to download a personalized feedback report at the end of the quiz, and you’ll see why this tool is so popular among HR companies.

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3. Typeform

Pricing: Basic Plan, $25/year per user; Plus Plan, $50/year per user; Business Plan, $83/year per user
Typeform takes quizzes and makes them intuitive for both the creator and the user. By offering one question at a time and delivering the quiz in an attractive, responsive interface, Typeform has become a leader in the world of online quizzes and surveys.
The platform is easy to use with its drag-and-drop editing tools. It’s also versatile, offering customer surveys, quizzes, lead generation tools, and more. There are numerous templates to choose from which can be customized to your individual needs.
Using Zapier, Typeform can be seamlessly integrated into CRM services like HubSpot. This way, all the data you collect is automatically added to your existing contacts.
However, it’s important to note some people might feel frustrated when receiving questions one at a time, since it can be more time-consuming. Additionally, the free version limits you to collecting only 100 responses per month.

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4. SurveyMonkey

Pricing: Team Advantage Plan, $25/month per user; Team Premiere Plan, $75/month per user; Enterprise Plan, contact for pricing
With Survey Monkey, you can create basic polls and questionnaires in minutes, and the basic version is free to use. The software features hundreds of templates and questions written by ‘survey methodologists,’ and are specifically designed to draw the right information out of respondents.
Although you can customize the design and layout of your quizzes and surveys, a common criticism is that you can’t fully brand the surveys because the Survey Monkey logo remains.

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5. ProProfs Quiz Maker

Pricing: Free Basic Plan; Essentials Plan, $25/month per user; Premium Plan, $50/month per user; Enterprise Plan, contact for pricing
ProProfs Quiz Maker is a useful tool for creating scored quizzes, public quizzes, personality quizzes, opinion surveys, polls, online tests, and exams. The tool offers 100+ quiz templates, 100,000+ ready-to-use questions, as well as 100+ configurations and an easy-to-use quiz editor.
ProProfs Quiz Maker allows for 10 different question types so you can easily build online quizzes, exams, tests, and surveys. The quizzes can be integrated with major marketing automation tools like ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, MailChimp, and more.
The tool offers three plans with an option to bill monthly or annually. However, some of its advanced features are confined to the enterprise plans.

6. Outgrow

Price: From $14 per month
Pricing: Freelancer Limited Plan, $14/month per user; Freelancer Plan, $25/month per user; Essentials Plan, $95/month per user; Business Plan, $600/month per user
Using Outgrow you can easily create interactive quizzes as well as calculation quizzes, contests quizzes, tests, recommendation quizzes, and chatbot-styled quizzes. Outgrow’s highly-intuitive drag-and-drop builder allows you to build from scratch or choose from more than 1000 templates.
These templates can include recommendation quizzes helpful for B2B, B2C, and eCommerce businesses. Outgrow allows users to embed their quizzes in 10 diverse ways including Email, Popup, Adverts, Sidebar, Floating Rectangle, Full page, Inpage, Chatbot, ExitIntent, and FacebookTab.

7. Qzzr

Pricing: Basic Plan, $25/month per user; Pro Plan, contact for pricing; Enterprise Plan, contact for pricing
Qzzr was built by inbound marketers with the specific goal of bringing in qualified leads. It creates fully customizable quizzes and surveys through its simple, elegant interface.
Users can also leverage its comprehensive data analysis of the responses, and use its social sharing integrations to reach a larger audience.
One of the most impressive features is the ability to target offers based on the users’ answers. For example, you can add a ‘Buy Now’ CTA on the results page for a product a user expressed interest in.
It’s one of the cheaper options on the list, but lacks the advanced logic features of some of its competitors.

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8. GetFeedback

Pricing: Pricing available upon request
GetFeedback prides itself on its aesthetically-pleasing interface — both customer-facing, and the back-end. It’s one of the more advanced options for quiz and survey creation but is still relatively easy to use for novices. It offers integration into Salesforce CRM software, and detailed analytics so you can put your newfound data to use.
Offering full customization to your branding and coming very highly-rated, GetFeedback is one of the premium options on the market, ideal for larger teams and companies that really want to drill down into their audience data.

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9. Google Forms

Price: Free
Google Forms is a free and easy-to-use form tool that runs within G Suite. The functionality is on the basic side and the interface isn’t very customizable, but you can make decent forms and create quizzes to capture customer data. Since Google Forms is part of G Suite, you can pull data straight into Google Sheets for analysis.

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10. Riddle’s Quizmaker

Pricing: Basic Plan, $29/month per user; Pro Plan, $49/month per user; Team Plan, $199/month per user
Riddle’s Quizmaker is another easy-to-use tool with a focus on capturing email addresses. You can collect data from leads and send it directly to your lists in MailChimp or other software. Riddle’s Quizmaker is particularly good value for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
The tool is available as a WordPress plugin, or quizzes can be embedded into your site via an embed code. The quizzes are fully customizable, so you can stamp your branding all over them.

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11. Playbuzz

Price: Free
Full of cheap-looking ads, but absolutely free, Playbuzz is a great option for those who want to jump in and have a go at creating quizzes without the outlay upfront. Try it out, and if it works for you, move onto a premium quiz maker with more features and a better, ad-free interface.
The tool is quick and easy to get started, so it’s a good beginner’s option. Additionally, it’s easy to share your pro-looking quizzes on social media once you’re done.

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12. Alchemer
Pricing: Collaborator Plan, $49/month per user; Professional Plan, $149/month per user; Full Access Plan, $249/month per user
Alchemer is a feature-rich quiz and survey creation tool with a user-friendly interface. There are two versions — one geared towards individuals and small businesses, and another for larger enterprises. The former focuses on ease-of-use, while the latter enables deeper analysis of data and focuses more on customer research.

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13. Wufoo

Pricing: Starter Plan, $14/month per user; Professional Plan, $29/month per user; Advanced Plan, $74/month per user; Ultimate Plan, $183/month per user
A versatile tool for form design, survey creation, and quiz making, Wufoo is a cloud-based platform used by some of the biggest names in the industry. Its most notable feature is the advanced form logic and the ease with which you can collect, store, and organize data.
Not as easy to use as some of the more basic tools out there, Wufoo takes a bit of getting used to if you’re using the more advanced features (basic coding may be required!), but for routine form creation, it’s still pretty intuitive.
The free version limits the number of responses, but above that there are a number of price points, so it’s a good option for businesses that are growing quickly.

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14. Ask Nicely

Pricing: Pricing available upon request
Ask Nicely is a form and survey creator with a focus on customer feedback and improving your Net Promoter Score (NPS). The software integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, or Slack and allows you to automate customer follow-up to improve ratings and reviews on sites like Google.
Ask Nicely is more than just a quiz maker — it’s an advanced marketing tool suitable for medium to large companies who really value customer engagement. Pricing is based on your needs, but $375 is a rough idea of how much it will cost you. (It’s not cheap.)

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15. Brandquiz

Pricing: Free Limited Plan; Starter Plan, $25/month per user; Professional Plan, $75/month per user; Business Plan, $195/month per user
Brandquiz is a good option for quickly and easily creating fun branded quizzes with a range of templates available. The platform enables integration with major marketing tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, or MailChimp, to make the most of the data collected.
The free version extends to up to 100 participants per month, while a range of paid plans offer value for growing companies.

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16. Microsoft Forms

Pricing: Free
Microsoft Forms, similar to Google forms, is a great tool for those who are proficient in Microsoft Office as it has seamless integration with other Microsoft Office software. With easy step-by-step guides for creating basic forms and quizzes, Microsoft Forms keeps it simple.

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17. Form Crafts

Pricing: Free Limited Plan; Standard Plan, $29/month per user; Plus Plan, $79/month per user; Enterprise Plan, $179/month per user
Although designed for creating simple questionnaires, newsletter sign-ups, and the like, Form Crafts supports multi-page forms so it can also be used to make quizzes. With real-time analytics, conditional logic, and easy integration with WordPress via a plugin, it offers a good alternative to the mainstream options.
Pricing is competitive with a range of options to suit any growing business.

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18. ClassMarker

Pricing: Professional 1 Plan, $39.95/month per user; Professional 2 Plan, $79.95/month per user
ClassMarker is a quiz maker designed for education professionals with custom plans for business users, too. You can create tests and exams that are accessible to as many users as you like. The test can be customized to your branding and can even include branded certificates. A sophisticated results platform allows you to easily analyze the data and draw conclusions.
This is a good option for large businesses that need to survey a lot of users. Pricing plans are pretty competitive for the level of functionality and customization available.

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Now I know there are a lot of quiz makers to choose from this list, so let’s figure out which quiz makers are right for you.
Which quiz maker is right for me?
Different quiz makers can serve different purposes — it all depends on what you’re looking for. Figure out your intentions for the quiz, what you hope to gain from it, and then start your search for the best one.
Best Online Quiz Software for Marketers

Interact

Marketers focus on how their content can generate leads, segment their audience, and drive traffic to their websites — and Interact is the quiz maker just for that.
With built-in analytics, marketers can take real-time data from their quizzes and integrate them with email marketing and automation systems to capture and segment leads.
Best Online Quiz Maker for Teachers

Typeform

This quiz maker engages students, but also goes a step further with more functionality. For example, if you’re teaching a topic that involves math, Typeform offers a calculator function during quizzes. It also offers subgrouping of answers and questions to divide the types of questions offered, too.
Best Online Quiz Creator for Fun

Kahoot

To engage quiz takers both young and old, Kahoot is a fun and interactive quiz maker because it makes quizzes into a game.
Boost Your Engagement with Engaging Quizzes
Sharing engaging quizzes is a solid way to capture more leads. With the help of a great quiz maker, you can make the great ones that showcase your company goals and appeal to your audience.
Check out our comprehensive guide if you want to find out the best ways to capture more leads with quizzes — and good luck in your quest for the best quizzer on the market.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 

As Econsultancy reminds us, 93% of companies saw a rise in conversion rates after implementing personalization. It’s little wonder then that companies are looking for different and cutting-edge ways to deliver website content. Personal Shopping Inbox is an innovative solution that allows you to achieve the level of personalization and shopping experience in your online store that has never been seen before. Find out what Personal Shopping Inbox is and what it does.

 

Online Store experience is more important than you think

 

User Experience is everything if it comes to Online Store stickiness. To make your customers come back, you must make them feel comfortable and leave all improvements at their fingertips. Making the shopping experience personal, easy and rewarding may bring you more benefits than just finalized transactions. There are some mechanisms that lift the Online Store experience to a higher level. There is a non-intrusive communication, easing buying process, meeting customer’s needs and proper balancing between quantity and quality of recommended products.

 

Especially, that greater choice for the customer doesn’t always translate into higher conversions. Hick’s Law states that decision time increases with the number and complexity of choices. And with increased decision time, the user experience deteriorates. That is why one should try to present to the recipient an offer that is as concise and close to their needs as possible.

 

40% of shoppers think their shopping experience would be better if retailers offered a wishlist where they can save items they’re interested in (Google) and  58% of people stop buying with a company because of poor customer experience. (Microsoft)
Helping people to find what they want quickly by showing them products based on their interests and past behavior makes them more likely to buy. Using personalization on the homepage can increase sales by 7%. (FreshRelevance)
Implementing a wishlist in an online store increases sales by 19.3% on average (Metrilo)
75% of customers are most likely to buy from a retailer that recognizes them by name and recommends products based on previous purchases. After implementing personalization, 93% of companies see a rise in conversion rates. (Econsultancy)
Not all visitors convert into buyers in their first session – for apparel e-tailers, this number reaches an average of 32 pages in one session. (Statista) 42% of users save items in cart and 31% use a wishlist to purchase later. (Baymard)

 

So it’s crystal clear that it’s about time we got serious about eCommerce personalization, proper communication and recommendation mechanisms, whether it seems sexy or not. And Personal Shopping Inbox might be a solution you are looking for. 

 

Deliver value through Personal Shopping Inbox

 

Personal Shopping Inbox is a website widget that grants individual space for all visitors and brings their shopping experience to a whole new level. 

 

Increase your Online Store conversion rate by showing customers products based on their transactions, interests and past behaviors in a dedicated personal space on your online store. 
Make your identified and anonymous customers return more frequently to your Online Store by sending to Personal Shopping Inboxes special individually crafted offers, discounts, and product recommendations
Enhance your Online Store stickiness by allowing customers to create wish lists and look up for the products they previously visited.
Easily create and instantly deploy a fully customer data platform driven communication center which will become a new revenue stream. To do that use our fully customizable, easy to use and intuitive wizard. 
Use the first- and zero-party data the customers leave during interaction with Personal Shopping Inbox to enhance your recommendation and personalization strategy.
Allow customers to directly access the data about Loyalty Program points and available rewards in their Personal Shopping Inbox.

How to harness flawless personalization and communication of Personal Shopping Inbox?

 

Here are just a few ideas on how to use Personal Shopping Inbox to redefine your Online Store experience:

 

Set separate communication for both anonymous and identified users. Ask anonymous users to subscribe to your newsletter and invite identified users to leave more details in exchange for some benefits.
Use wish list data to prepare email campaigns with personalized recommendations.
Increase Customer Lifetime Value by sending personalized notifications with special offers that will be stored in the personal inbox.
Motivate customers to make regular purchases by informing them about Loyalty Program points gathered and required to achieve the next tier.
Enrich customer profiles with zero- and first-party data generated through interaction with Personal Shopping Inbox and use it in multiple targeted campaigns.

 

What’s the difference between other available tools and SALESmanago Personal Shopping Inbox?

 

 

Personal Shopping Inbox – Wrap Up

 

Personal Shopping Inbox is a revolutionary website widget that combines One to One Messaging, Wish Lists, Special Offers and Recommendations in one, fully customizable personal space. Such a tool is like gold for those who care about their revenue and want to augment the experience of their online store.

 

For all those who want to check how Personal Shopping Inbox can boost their eCommerce KPIs, we recommend a 1-to-1 demo webinar.

The quality of your CRM data impacts your entire organization, bottom to top.
Your marketing teams rely on quality data to segment contacts, personalize messaging, and create targeted campaigns.
Your sales teams require accurate data to speak to your prospects’ biggest concerns.
Your customer support team needs accurate data for context in conversations with customers. Finance teams need accurate customer data for forecasting. Even your executive team relies on accurate CRM data for strategic decision-making.
Most organizations know this. Yet, bad data costs U.S. companies as much as $3 trillion per year, and up to 60% of organizations do not calculate the true cost of their bad data.
That signals that there is a lot of room for improvement in data maintenance in many companies. Companies of any size would be impacted by that much inaccurate data in their customer database, although they may be unaware of just how painful the impact may be, with many of the day-to-day issues flying under the radar.
That much “bad” data represents a huge problem for your marketing teams in particular. How do you speak to your customers’ biggest concerns if you can’t be sure that you know exactly who they are and what they care about? You need accurate, reliable data to be confident in your assertions.
Today, companies often lean too heavily on manual work to fix data issues, which can be extremely time-consuming and draining for your teams. Relying on your employees to export data, fix it in Excel using complicated formulas, and import it back into your CRM issue-free is a big ask.
Let’s consider how poor data quality impacts your marketing teams, slowing them down and giving them less creative options when launching new campaigns.

Impact of Data Quality On Your Marketing Efforts
While the impact of poor customer data quality is felt throughout your organization, it has an especially volatile impact on your marketing teams.
Everything that a marketing team does — every strategy employed, campaign launched, messaging delivered, & creative produced — is influenced by customer data. Or at least it should be.
That’s what great marketing teams do — understand their customers deeply and speak directly to them in a way that resonates. You can’t do that if you don’t know them, and you can’t be sure that you know them if you can’t rely on your data.
Let’s look at some of the specific ways that data issues and low-quality data can impact your marketing teams.
Segmentation
A big piece of any marketer’s job is segmentation. Or, the practice of analyzing long lists of customers and breaking them down into smaller lists so that you can more reliably speak to each segment’s concerns.
You wouldn’t market your B2B software product in the same way to both CEOs and Marketing Managers, even though both might be targeted buyer personas for your product. They have different needs and concerns. If you try, the language that you use will never fully resonate with both.
So you break things down. You make the list of people that you are speaking to smaller and more manageable. Then, you can use specific language that will resonate with that segment. But if your data isn’t reliable, you can’t effectively segment it down into those smaller groups.
Marketers cannot properly segment contacts with inconsistent data. With inconsistencies, creating even basic campaigns becomes a complicated analysis effort that requires experts on hand that understand all of the nuances. As a result, it prevents marketers from creating effective campaigns and impedes their ability to execute quickly.
Let’s consider an example. Let’s say you’re a B2B software company, and you want to send out an email campaign to CEOs in your HubSpot CRM.
If you aren’t regularly standardizing and formatting your job title field data, you’ll find that CEOs are listed in your database in many different ways:

CEO
C.E.O.
Chief Executive Officer
Founder/CEO
Founder & CEO
Owner and CEO
Etc.

And there are likely to be many other variations as well.
To run a thorough campaign, you need to bring all of these different job titles together, as they are all effectively the same title. To do this, you’ll need to either run some creative Excel formulas, create complicated search filters to “catch” all the relevant titles, or enlist the help of a developer. Either way, you are still unlikely to catch every single error in the field.
This doesn’t even include typos and other errors in your data, either. Some people might be listed as “CEOn” or have job titles listed that include other data issues. And these standardization and data quality issues can potentially impact your entire database.
For instance, this standardization problem wouldn’t only affect CEOs, but every job title in your database. Or, what if you wanted to segment your CRM contacts by city, country, area code, or years of experience? Data issues are present in every field.
Every data point in your database has a host of potential issues that could impact your ability to segment your contacts and deliver effective campaigns that meet your KPI goals.
Data issues make your segmentation efforts complicated and unreliable. Ultimately your marketing teams will be forced to segment less often and less creatively until the issues are rectified.
Personalization
Data issues will also impact your ability to personalize your messaging as well. And personalized messages are critical for successful campaigns.
80% of consumers are more likely to purchase a brand that provides personalized experiences. 72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized messaging.
Your ability to personalize messaging is critical and relies on high-quality, consistent data in your CRM. Have you ever received an email and had your name uncapitalized, or been mistakenly referred to by your last name?
Inherently, you probably know that this is a simple data oversight. They didn’t mean to refer to you by your last name. But it does still impact your feelings about the company in question, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s not intentionally rude, but it’s unprofessional to keep your customer data in disarray.
And it’s not just about {FirstName} or {JobTitle} either, although those are important. True, deep personalization may not reference the data so directly, but use conclusions drawn from that data to guide your messaging.
For example, one common personalization issue that arises out of CRM data problems comes from associations. In HubSpot CRM, your B2B contacts are associated with companies.
If that association was missing and a portion of your contacts were free-floating, that would make it impossible to execute account-based marketing strategies. Additionally, personalizing the message based on account engagement becomes difficult when you are missing data.
Inconsistent associations also contribute to inaccurate lead scores in account-based marketing. Because scores are applied on the account level, based on variables for the independent contacts within the account, missing contacts will impact the account scores. Ultimately, the difference in lead scoring could affect the lifecycle stage of the entire account, slowing its movement through your pipeline and potentially derailing a deal.  
Customer Experience
Issues with segmentation and personalization ultimately impact the experience that customers have during their customer journey. With less specific marketing messaging that is less likely to resonate, their experiences and opinion of your brand will suffer.
92% of marketing professionals see personalization as a “crucial” element of the customer experience. And personalization often relies on your ability to segment customer data effectively to deliver relevant messaging. All of these impacts are interconnected, hurting your entire marketing operation.
Duplicate data, for instance, presents a customer experience issue that can potentially harm your brand reputation. If you don’t regularly merge duplicates, many of your customers will receive your messaging multiple times. This drives up the costs of your campaigns, harms your brand reputation, and makes your reporting less reliable.
Deduplication helps achieve a single customer view, which is when your data on your contacts and accounts can all be reliably found in one system. Having one single ‘record of truth’ means that your marketing teams can effectively segment and personalize communications. A single customer view provides your teams with faith in your data, allowing them to focus their attention on other areas.
The quality of your data impacts customers every step of the way. Without reliable data, each of those touchpoints is cheapened. Less data, or less reliable data, limits what can be used and what your teams know about each contact. Across months and dozens of touchpoints, that adds up.  
The only way for companies to fix these issues is to recognize and embrace data management strategy and regular CRM data maintenance.
What is CRM data maintenance?
CRM data maintenance is the ongoing process of auditing your CRM data, identifying issues, and fixing those issues within your database.
The larger process of maintaining your CRM data can be broken down into numerous focus areas, including:

Data Quality
Data Cleansing
Data Operations
Data Deduplication
Data Purging
Data Monitoring and KPIs

Data Quality
Data quality refers to data that is accessible, consistent, and relevant. Your entire organization is impacted by the quality of your data — from individual campaigns through larger strategic decisions.
Accessible means not only that the data is accurate, but that the right people within your organization can access it when they need it. Siloed data creates bureaucratic redundancies that slow your organization down.
Data consistency largely refers to how consistently data is formatted and standardized in your database. Are your phone numbers formatted uniformly? Are your job titles standardized? Are your contact names appropriately capitalized? Consistency allows you to slice and dice data in interesting ways.
Then there is relevance. It doesn’t matter if you have a million perfectly accurate records in your CRM if none of them are in your target market. The data that you collect must be relevant to be useful.
Data quality is achieved through other data maintenance processes like data cleansing.
Data Cleansing
Data cleansing is the process of fixing or removing incorrect, improperly formatted, duplicate, or incomplete data within your CRM.

Fixing first and last name capitalization issues (jane vs. Jane)
Standardizing addresses and phone numbers (1234567890 vs 123-456-7890)
Standardizing Job titles (CEO vs. C.E.O vs. Chief Executive Officer)
Removing redundant data
Removing incorrect and fake data
Removing special characters
Identifying and fixing outlying issues

The process of cleansing data can be time-consuming. Often it involves breaking out chunks of your database and assigning fixes and tasks to members of your team. Then, they will load the data into Excel and use VLOOKUP and complicated formulas to identify and fix errors in your data. Once complete, the data has to be reimported back into your CRM.
It’s a non-exact process. Unless you have a true Excel wizard on your team, you’re likely to miss many issues and still require ongoing help from developers to update data in bulk.
Data Deduplication
All companies deal with duplicate data. Duplicate contact or company records might be created through manual entry, either by your customers into forms or by your team through your backend CRM. Or, they may be created through data imports or integrations with other software.
No matter how duplicate records are created, they can be a thorn in the side of your marketing team.
Duplicate data leads to increased campaign costs and lost productivity. As your teams spend time ironing out data issues instead of focusing on other areas, leading to missed opportunities. Every second they spend sifting through records to identify the “correct” or most complete record is wasted time. Duplicate data shatters your single customer view, as there is no single ‘source of truth’ that can be relied on.
When you have high duplication rates, your marketing teams will always be aware of that fact. They know that they will have to deduplicate any list of prospects or customers before new campaigns go out, adding a new task to every campaign launch.
Most critically, duplicate data harms the customer experience. Not just because they are likely to receive mixed messages and redundant messaging. But because your ability to understand them will be halved throughout the customer lifecycle, leading to less fulfilling interactions over and over again.
Data Operations
Data operations encompasses the ongoing day-to-day tasks that are required to maintain your CRM data and ensure the usability of that data across your organization.
Data operations tasks include day-to-day bulk updating of data, consolidating fields and redundant data, migrating free-text fields to picklists, importing data (from events or third-party sources), and other tasks.
These tasks are a necessity for high-quality data, and for putting your data in a position where data cleansing can be as effective as possible.
Data Purging
Data purging encompasses the removal of garbage data, outdated data, redundant data, and low-quality data that will only serve to clutter up your database and negatively impact your reputation and email open rates.
There are many types of data issues that could potentially make records a good candidate for purging. Examples include:

Undelivered emails
Clearly fake data
Outdated records
Unqualified prospects
Bad records from integrations
Incomplete Contact Data
Free and role-based email addresses
Unengaged contacts
Unqualified contacts
Duplicate contacts

Purging this data is critical for improving the usability of your CRM data as a whole. Without having to continually sift through and remove garbage data for campaigns, your productivity will improve.
Without clutter, you’ll be able to keep costs down on data storage and contact-based CRM fees, along with the time that your teams would usually spend dealing with the purged records.
Without low-quality data dragging down your email delivery and open rates, you’ll avoid being penalized and enjoy an improved sender reputation.
Data Monitoring and KPIs
To fix issues in your CRM database, you’ll need to be able to identify where those issues lie. Between the different data issues that you’ll find in your database, understanding what those issues are and what kind of issues there are helps you to prioritize fixing the most impactful problems.
Of course, you could monitor your KPIs and generate reports manually. But that involves running reports or exporting data to Excel and analyzing it. However, some tools can automate diagnostics and collections KPIs.
For example, the CRM Data Grader is a tool that connects directly to HubSpot, analyzes the CRM database, and surfaces specific issues that you need to fix. This ensures you have visibility into the quality of your data and actionable insights for dealing with those issues.  
Having a clear key performance indicator, such as the percentage of clean records in your database, allows you to track your progress and quickly assess the overall health of your customer data.
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Differences Data Maintenance and Standard Cleanup Projects
Standard data cleanup projects are short-term and tactical. You find a fire, you put it out. Data cleanup projects are reactive because they have to be. Sometimes unexpected data issues can grind things to a halt and need to be fixed immediately. Those needs will always be there, but less often with a data maintenance strategy.
Unlike one-off cleanup projects, data maintenance is an ongoing strategy. It requires consistent investment and attention, but with the help of modern data management tools you can automate a majority of your data maintenance tasks, improving operations across your teams.
As your customer data grows, management of that data becomes more complicated. It requires more focus and planning to ensure your data is accessible, consistent, and relevant.
As this happens, companies tend to move through several stages on their way toward true data maintenance optimization:

Undefined and chaotic. No understanding of issues and no processes in place to deal with them.

Visibility. Aware of data-related problems have visibility into the specific problems in their database, with reporting generated automatically regularly.

Standardization. Established data quality standards and alignment among cross-functional teams about data expectations and goals. To execute effectively, standards need to be enforced automatically.

Optimization. Employ automation to proactively cleanse and maintain data, avoid repetitive manual work, streamline data corrections and collaboration, alert about exceptions.

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Data maintenance isn’t something that you do once and then never again. This process is something that you’ll need to do over and over again. You need accurate documentation and processes in place to minimize your time investment.
New data is always flowing into your CRM database, and with that data will come a range of issues and errors that have the potential to slow down nearly every team in your organization. Tools like Insycle help you to audit your existing data, identify common data issues, and fix them on an automated set schedule.
Improving your CRM data maintenance processes enable your marketing teams to produce more marketing qualified leads through improved segmentation, personalization, and nurturing.
Quality data means that you can represent your brand professionally in all communications with customers while improving their experience throughout the customer lifecycle.