Quick Answer
When paid clicks land and almost nobody opens the quiz, the pre-quiz page is doing too much work. Confirm engaged sessions first, then start the quiz on that same URL with a low-stakes opener people can answer without scrolling away.
The handoff nobody audits
You pointed Google Ads at a quiz funnel. Clicks look fine. Completions among people who start look fine. Then GA4 shows an ugly gap between the landing page path and the quiz path, and it feels like the quiz broke.
Usually the quiz is fine. The step before it asks for a second commitment the visitor did not agree to yet.
Paid traffic shows up with a short attention window. Your ad made a promise. The landing page asks them to read a pitch, then click again to begin. That extra click is where a lot of intent dies. The quiz never gets a fair shot.
Check the number before you redesign anything
A raw pageview drop from the home path to /quiz can lie. Bots, accidental taps, slow loads, and people who never meant to convert all pad the landing page count. In GA4, pull engaged sessions for that page and compare those to quiz starts. You may still see a real leak. You want the real one, not a phantom gap from a late pixel or a PageView that counted an empty load.
Split mobile out. Quiz builders often look clean on a laptop and feel sticky on a phone. Healthy desktop starts with a mobile collapse point at tap targets, load speed, or a hero that never finished rendering.
Put question one on the landing page
The fix that moves volume is structural. Stop shipping a sales page and a quiz as two URLs. Lead with an opener question people can answer in one tap. Two or three choices is enough. Skip contact fields at the start.
After the first answer, they are already inside the flow. That second hop to /quiz was the costly gate. Cutting the hop usually beats rewriting later questions.
If compliance needs a little copy up top, keep it short and keep the opener visible on first paint. Defer the long pitch. The opener and primary action have to load without waiting on below-fold assets.
Rewrite the CTA so the payoff is obvious
"Start the quiz" sounds like unpaid labor. Name the outcome and how long it takes. "See your fit in under a minute." "Find the plan that matches your goal." When you can, show a sample outcome on the page... a mock score, a range, a plan type. People begin when the payoff looks worth the effort.
Keep the ad promise intact too. If the Google Ads headline sold pricing, the first screen cannot feel like a generic lead screen. That mismatch reads as a switch, and paid clicks punish it fast.
Fix friction before you A/B the paint
Palette tests can wait. Fix the big levers first.
Step 1: Confirm measurement
Compare engaged sessions to quiz starts. If GTM or extra scripts delay the useful paint, fix that before you rewrite copy. Do not optimize a fake collapse.
Step 2: Collapse the first step
Host the opener on the paid landing URL and keep it visible on load. One tap. Hold contact fields until after a useful answer or result.
Step 3: Clarify the next outcome
Rewrite the CTA and hero so the result is obvious. Mirror the Google Ads promise that won the click.
Step 4: Watch real sessions on mobile
Open a session tool and watch ten phones. Note where people hesitate, rage tap, or leave before question two. Speed and thumb reach beat clever lines here.
If you want a structured pass across speed, above-the-fold layout, message match, form friction, and trust signals, grab the free Landing Page Audit Checklist. It is built for Google Ads pages that get traffic and still fail to convert.
When the quiz itself is still the problem
Sometimes the sales page is fine and the quiz is the wall. Contact fields too soon. Opener feels like an application. Result is vague. Mobile load falls apart after start. Those are quiz design issues. Fix them after you remove the extra hop. Otherwise you polish a flow half your paid traffic never reaches.