You already know why you should test an ad before spending media dollars. The harder question is the one that actually decides whether your test is worth running: what do you ask the people you show it to?
This is a working library of ad testing survey questions you can copy, adapt, and drop into your next test. They’re organized by what you’re trying to learn, not by question type, so you can pull exactly the ones your study needs. If you want the full step-by-step process for setting up a test, start with our guide on what ad testing is and how to do it and come back here for the questions.
Types of Ad Testing Survey Questions
A good ad test rarely uses more than 6–8 questions. Completion rates drop and data gets noisy past that point. So don’t use all of these. Pick the 2–3 dimensions that matter most for this ad, and choose a couple of questions from each.
Every ad test should answer four core things in roughly this order:
- Comprehension — did they understand it?
- Appeal & emotion — did they feel anything, and was it the right thing?
- Recall & standout — will they remember it and the brand?
- Intent & action — did it move them toward doing something?
Pair every closed question with at least one open-ended “why.” The numbers tell you what happened; the verbatims tell you why and the why is what your creative team can actually act on.
1. Comprehension and clarity questions
Before anything else, confirm the ad communicates what you think it communicates. If people don’t get the message, nothing downstream matters.
- In your own words, what was this ad trying to tell you?
- What do you think is being advertised here?
- How easy or hard was this ad to understand? (Very easy / Easy / Neutral / Hard / Very hard)
- Was there anything in the ad that confused you or felt unclear?
- What, if anything, did you have to read or watch twice to understand?
- After seeing this, what would you say this product or service actually does?
The first question is the single most valuable one in any ad test. An open “what was this telling you?” instantly exposes the gap between the message you intended and the message that landed.
2. Appeal and emotional response questions
A clear ad that triggers no feeling still won’t perform. These questions measure whether the ad earns attention and the right emotion.
- Overall, how much did you like this ad? (1–5 scale)
- Which word best describes how this ad made you feel? (e.g., Excited / Curious / Trusting / Indifferent / Annoyed / Confused)
- What was the first thing you noticed?
- Was there anything about this ad you disliked or found off-putting?
- How different does this feel from other ads you’ve seen for similar products? (Much more / Somewhat more / About the same / Less)
- What feeling do you think this ad was trying to create? Did it succeed?
Watch the gap between “did you like it” and “did it make you feel something.” Ads people like but feel nothing toward tend to be pleasant and forgettable. You’re looking for a defined emotion, not just approval.
3. Brand recall and standout questions
An ad can be loved and still fail if no one remembers who it was for. Ideally, ask these after a short delay or by hiding the brand on first exposure, then revealing it.
- Which brand or company do you think this ad was for?
- Without looking back, what stood out most to you?
- How strongly does this ad connect to [brand name] for you? (Very strongly → Not at all)
- If you saw this ad again tomorrow, how likely are you to remember it? (1–5)
- Could this ad belong to a competitor, or does it feel specific to this brand?
That last question catches a common and expensive failure: creative so generic it could carry any logo. If respondents can’t tell it apart from a competitor’s, your brand spend is leaking.
4. Relevance and audience-fit questions
A strong ad shown to the wrong person still flops. These check whether the message feels meant for them.
- How relevant is this ad to you personally? (Very → Not at all)
- Does this feel like it’s meant for someone like you? Why or why not?
- Is this something you’d expect to need or want? (Yes / Maybe / No)
- Who do you think this ad is trying to reach?
If your test audience says “this isn’t for me,” dig into whether that’s a creative problem or a targeting problem before you blame the ad. (This is also why who you recruit matters as much as what you ask — a mismatched sample produces confident, useless data.)
5. Purchase intent and action questions
The bottom line: did the ad move anyone closer to acting? Keep the framing neutral so you measure real intent, not politeness.
- After seeing this ad, how likely are you to find out more about this product? (1–5)
- What would you do next after seeing this ad, if anything?
- How likely would you be to consider this brand next time you’re buying in this category? (1–5)
- What, if anything, is stopping you from taking that next step?
- Was there enough information for you to act on, or were you left with questions?
Notice the phrasing: “how likely are you to find out more,” not “did this make you want to buy?” The second is a leading question — it tells the respondent the answer you’re hoping for. More on that trap below.
6. Head-to-head comparison questions (for A/B tests)
When you’re choosing between two or more variants, comparative questions force a decision and reveal why one wins.
- Which of these two ads do you prefer? (A / B)
- Which one is easier to understand?
- Which one makes you more likely to look into the product?
- What made the one you chose better than the other?
- Was there anything from the version you didn’t pick that you wish the winner had?
The final question is the secret weapon of A/B testing — it surfaces the best element of the losing variant so you can fold it into the winner instead of discarding it.
Free Survey Templates For All Industries
A Ready-To-Use Ad Testing Survey Template
Here’s a clean 7-question structure you can adapt for most pre-launch tests. It moves from open and unbiased to specific and measurable:
# | Question | What it measures |
1 | In your own words, what was this ad about? | Comprehension |
2 | What was the first thing you noticed? | Standout |
3 | Which word best describes how it made you feel? | Emotion |
4 | How relevant is this to you personally? (1–5) | Audience fit |
5 | Which brand do you think this was for? | Brand recall |
6 | After seeing this, how likely are you to find out more? (1–5) | Intent |
7 | Is there anything you’d change about this ad? | Diagnostic / verbatim |
Question mistakes that quietly ruin ad tests
Even a well-recruited test can produce garbage data if the questions are flawed. The four most common offenders:
Leading questions. “This ad makes you want to buy, right?” or “How great was this ad?” tell respondents the answer you want. Keep framing neutral and let them disagree freely.
Double-barreled questions. “Was the ad clear and persuasive?” asks two things at once — you won’t know which one a “no” refers to. Split them.
Too many scales, not enough words. A wall of 1–5 ratings tells you what but never why. Always leave room for at least one or two open-ended answers; the verbatims are where the actionable insight lives.
Asking before showing properly. If respondents skim the ad, every answer after is noise. Make sure exposure is real before you start measuring reaction.
Turning answers into decisions, faster
The bottleneck in ad testing is reading hundreds of open-ended responses and spotting the pattern before your campaign deadline passes.
That’s the part Merren is built to compress. You can run these questions as conversational interviews using Maya AI so you reach a real, matched audience instead of a generic panel. Then Maya AI reads every open-ended answer for you: clustering the language respondents used, flagging which elements caused confusion or excitement, and turning raw verbatim into a clear read on whether your ad is ready. What used to take days of manual coding lands in hours.
To get your sample size right before you launch, run the numbers through our sample size calculator. The right questions only work on the right number of the right people.
Start with the question, not the ad
The quality of an ad test is capped by the quality of its questions. A clear, neutral, well-ordered survey shown to a matched audience will tell you more than any amount of internal debate over the creative.
Pick the few dimensions that matter for your next ad, borrow the questions above, keep it short, and always ask why. That’s the difference between a test that flatters your creativity and one that actually de-risks your spending.