78 marketing questions to ask (and how to test them)

Spectacular marketers are the ones who are always asking the right marketing questions. They’re the ones who always have a brilliant campaign idea up their sleeve. The ones who are constantly looking for new and exciting ways to create great experiences for their customers. The ones who use human insights to make sure their messaging hits the mark. So what’s their secret sauce? What separates a spectacular marketer from an average one? At UserTesting, our experience has shown that:

The most successful marketers are the ones who question and test everything.

Great marketers are the ones who ask questions and they talk to their customers to find the answers. They invest in optimization and care about the experiences they leave their customers with. According to VentureBeat, the top 20% of marketers are more likely to base their decisions on test results and data. If you’re ready to make a real impact with your marketing efforts, ask these 78 marketing questions—and then test them.

Marketing questions to ask to:

• Improve your customer experience
• Measure overall brand impression
• Compare your company to a competitor
• Get a complete understanding of your analytics data
• Track performance over time
• Evaluate the omnichannel customer experience
• Improve your social media marketing
• Find out if your copy is effective
• Learn what customers think of your ads
• Optimize your email marketing
• Build high-converting landing pages
• Optimize your forms
• Find out how users discover your company through organic search
• Improve your content marketing
• Run better A/B tests
• Improve customer retention

Improve your customer experience

1. How can you measure your customer experience?
2. Are your customers aware of all of the features, products, and services that you offer?
3. How likely would they be to recommend your company to a friend?
4. What, if anything, would make them stop doing business with you?
5. If they had a magic wand, what would your customers change about their experiences with your product?
6. How can you gather human insight quickly?
7. How can you bridge the empathy gap with your customers?

Measure overall brand impression

8. How do users perceive your company?
9. What words would they use to describe you?
10. Do those words match the way you want to be perceived?
11. Does your brand appear trustworthy?
12. Would they recommend you?
13. What do they like and dislike about the way you present your product or service?

Compare your company to a competitor

14. If users are already familiar with both companies, which do they prefer?
15. Why do they prefer one company over the other?
16. Who does a better job of explaining the product or offering clearly?
17. Who does a better job of convincing the customer to convert?
18. What do people like and dislike about your top competitor’s newest feature or product?
19. What would convince them to switch to your company?
20. What might convince your current customers to switch to one of your competitors?

Get a complete understanding of your analytics data

21. Why do certain pages have high bounce and exit rates?
22. What’s really causing users to leave your site at those points?
23. Why are conversions lower on mobile than desktop (or vice versa)?
24. Why do certain demographics behave differently than other demographics on your site?
25. Why does one webpage have such a high average time on page?

Track performance over time

26. How has your customer experience changed since your last test?
27. Are you improving compared to the competition?
28. Are the changes because of something you changed on your site, something different about your product, or something in the market?

Evaluate the omnichannel customer experience

29. How do users interact with your company on their smartphone, desktop, tablet, and in person?
30. Is the experience consistent across all channels?
31. If they need to complete a process that spans multiple devices, can they do it smoothly?
32. What do your users consider their primary channel of choice?

Improve your social media marketing

33. What are your users talking about on social media?
34. What types of support requests or complaints are coming in?
35. How are you utilizing the feedback you receive on social media to shape the product?
36. What type of content performs best on each social channel?
37. How can you continue to replicate your best performing content?

Find out if your copy is effective

38. Does your target market understand what you’re offering when they land on your homepage for the first time?
39. Is your language clear and free of jargon?
40. Do you speak like your audience speaks?
41. Are you catching their attention with your CTAs?
42. Could a first-time visitor describe your unique value proposition using their own words?

Learn what users think of your ads

43. What’s the mindset of someone who’s encountering your ads for the first time?
44. What do people notice, like, and dislike about your ads?
45. Do they seem helpful, or do they seem spammy?
46. What phrases or design elements catch users’ eyes?
47. What entices your target user to click a Google Ads (formerly AdWords) ad?

Optimize your email marketing

48. Why are users opening some of your emails more than others?
49. Will your target market understand and engage with your next email campaign?
50. What would users change about your emails if they could?
51. Do your users receive emails from other companies in your industry?
52. If so, which companies?
53. What do the users like and dislike about those emails?

Build higher-converting landing pages

54. Can your target customer understand what’s being offered?
55. Does it meet their expectations?
56. Can they easily sign up for it using the forms you’ve provided?
57. Do they become distracted by anything?
58. Do they think your offer has value, and are they willing to pay money or enter their contact information in exchange for it?
59. Is there any other information they would need to see before clicking on that CTA?

Optimize your forms

60. Do you have the right number of fields on your form?
61. Are all of your forms fully accessible to people who use a keyboard or switch input device rather than a mouse?
62. Do the forms work correctly and smoothly on all devices and all screen sizes?
63. If a user makes a mistake when filling out a form, do your error messages help them correct the mistake right away?
64. Is there anything about your forms that would make a user give up?

Find out how users discover your company through organic search

65. What do users notice first when they search for your keywords: your website, your competitors, or your ads?
66. What words stand out to them on the Google search results page?
67. If and when they click on your link, what are they expecting to find?
68. Does your landing page meet those expectations?

Improve your content marketing

69. Do users find your blog/whitepapers/infographics/webinars helpful and relevant?
70. When a user lands on your blog or resource center, what do they want to read first?
71. Why did that piece of content catch their eye first?
72. Do your users enjoy reading similar content from other companies? (If so, which ones?)
73. What topics would they like to see you cover next?
74. Where do users generally go to discover content related to their interests, their job, and their industry?

Run better A/B tests

75. How can you come up with an A/B test idea that will actually move the needle?
76. Why do you think your last A/B test result turned out the way it did?
77. What did users prefer about the winning version?
78. What, if anything, did they prefer about the losing version?

Now, it’s time to run tests and get your answers

To get the answers to your digital marketing questions, you’re going to need to go to the source: your customers. By gathering human insight, you can find out what’s working so you create great experiences across all your channels.

Want to learn more?

If you’d like to learn how UserTesting can help you understand your customers through on-demand human insight, contact us here.