Transcription

Ramin: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome back to episode 25 of the E-Commerce Revolution Podcast. 25 episodes in Not Bad, all right? I love it. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can, by the way, see, I. Plenty of all of 24 episodes that we're on previously. Lot of good information on there. And we're really here at the end of the day to help educate and entertain you on all things e-commerce and you know, we love e-commerce, everything about it.

And there's a lot to learn. I feel like e-commerce is, continues to be in its infancy. So let's get started with this wonderful topic today, and we'll jump in in just a second.

So recently my wife and I bought a mattress. We decided to go rather than going out to the mattress shops, we decided to do it online. You know, bed in the box is, is a hot thing. We took a look at a few different sites, but one site in particular really caught our attention. And the reason was it had a quiz and it pulled us in.

It started [00:01:00] asking us questions about, Height, weight, you know, what position do you sleep on? And I put in all the information for myself. Then I put the information in for my, for my wife, and there was a cross, you know, cross section between the two of us. And the system delivered a several different mattress types that would be perfect for our body type and the way we sleep, which I thought was a really, really good way.

To get me interested and excited about buying the mattress. Well, lo and behold, this is actually a really, really popular way to help grow your email list as well as grow your grow your revenues for e-commerce. I already knew this going into it, but it really gave me an, you know, opened my eyes even further to how important the quiz process is.

And, you know, we shouldn't look at. Quizzes as something like back in school we were given quizzes and maybe we rolled our eyes up in our head and like, oh my gosh, I don't want to answer your questions. [00:02:00] These are really, really helpful questions that brands are asking their consumers that will ultimately help to grow sales and grow something called zero party data, which we will talk about in just a moment.

So very slick process to ultimately get this and yes. We did buy the bed and yes, we are very happy with the bed. And I would say for the most part, the system selected the perfect bed for us. So it is, it is fantastic. So with that said, today's topic is going to be all about quizzes and how quizzes can help grow your email and SMS marketing list as well as grow your revenues.

Our guest today is an expert in the world of quizzes. He is the co-founder of Pre Hook and one of the, which is one of the leading quiz builders for Shopify brands with over 86. Five star reviews on the Shopify app store. Pre hook is delighting customers both big and small. So without any [00:03:00] further ado, please welcome again Fuka to the E-Commerce Revolution Podcast.

Again. It is awesome to have you here,

Gen Furukawa: Ramin. Thank you so much for the great intro. I'm, I'm curious to know, what brand was it that you bought?

Ramin: Heli? It was Helix, actually. One of the brands that you had mentioned in one of your webinars. Too and for sure turned out to be a great bet. I will say that I was turned onto them by the Smartless podcast because they did a lot of advertising on the Smartless podcast, but it was the quiz really that ultimately took me through the right process.

And I think you would agree that these the quizzes, they do work for many reasons. Right.

Gen Furukawa: Totally. That's really an interesting perspective to hear from you as a consumer, because I do know, of course, like you, they they definitely advertise their quiz as they're top of the funnel. They're lead gen. Yep.

But, Within that, it's almost a Trojan horse of a marketing strategy. It really is. Yeah, there's a lot of exchange of information as if you were going to walk into a mattress store, try out, speak with a sales associate, maybe lie on a few beds. But yeah, they're having that salesperson 24 [00:04:00] 7 at scale for however many visitors.

That's a great point. Mattresses. Yeah. Mattress are a very interesting niche because in some ways they're very commoditized now. Like whether it's Casper tough to needle purple, they all have a hundred day return policies, free shipping, and they're pretty much all beds in a box. But where. Helix might stand out is mm-hmm.

That they gave the information. So I kind of do know the questions off the top of my head, like, yeah, who's buying it? How tall are you? How much do you weigh? How many people are, and what size are you looking for? Where are the pain points in your body? How do you sleep? All these questions. And then they, they kind of like package that up and then give you a personalized recommendation.

And then also the, the follow up email flow. Yeah. And yeah, it, it is just really interesting because all of a sudden you are giving them enough information where they can mm-hmm. Position their product, differentiate their product and play exactly to what your needs are, which is far more compelling than just say like, oh, you know, here's why.

Right? He, here's why you need our brand.

Ramin: [00:05:00] Yeah. Here's why you need our mattress. And it's funny, I mean, as a marketer, I just fell right in. I, I, you know, I, I, I'm, you know, oftentimes evaluating marketing, you know, as I come across it or as I'm, it is presented to me on, on site, but I really just fell right into it as a consumer.

And, you know, the end result was, was a. Was good. And I didn't look at it as a scenario, but, oh man, I gotta, you know, I gotta answer questions. You know, I looked at it as like, I'm gonna get something on the end. I'm gonna get some good information on the end. So, yeah. No, it's great. It's great. Well, it's fantastic to have you on the show today.

Really appreciate you coming on. In the pre-show, we talked about, you know, you've got a lot of great content out there, both your podcast webinars, a lot of good information about the world of quizzes, the world of email and SMS marketing, how this zero party, you know, data is important. But before, before we jump into all that, I just wanna know where are you calling in

Gen Furukawa: from today?

From Austin, Texas. All right, good Fellow Austin Night. You know, I'm

Ramin: setting you up. We did talk about that earlier. I'm [00:06:00] also in Austin, Texas, so I love the fact that we've got two marketers sitting here in the world of Austin, Texas, and I look forward to meeting you in person maybe next week. We talked about pickleball being something that's happening here in, in Austin and everybody's getting together, so that's awesome.

So tell me just, you know, I, I, I took a look at took a look at your profile. You have a very interesting entrepreneurial journey that's led to Pre Hook. Could you just tell the audience a little bit about that? You know, talk about Jungle Scout you know, what that experience was like and, and that ultimately led you to where you are today.

Gen Furukawa: Yeah, sure. So, yeah, I mean, jungle Scout is an Amazon product research tool, helps Amazon sellers sell on Amazon. I had some previous experience in e-commerce, kind of like on the brand side or almost more. It was, I was part of a private equity firm that kind of like, Incubated and, and also invested in portfolio brands.

So that's how I kind of cut my teeth in e-commerce, working on the brand side doing the marketing. And yeah, so I, I started at Jungle Scout in 2015, fall of 2015. [00:07:00] As it was a, a Chrome extension that founder, c e o Greg me had had built and then was building out a software tool a software as a service.

Basically a similar product to help people find products, to validate products and, and launch their, their product or, or brand on Amazon. And yeah, so this is relevant to where I'm at now because not only was it more experienced, I was leading the marketing team. I started as the only marketer working alongside Greg.

Learned a lot from Greg. I think Greg is an incredible marketer and, and has a vision, but also the educational chops to help people because Amazon. Seems maybe it's relatively straightforward, you're gonna buy a widget from China, slap a private label on it, and then sell it on Amazon. But there really are so many different potential pitfalls or challenges or questions that people have.

And, and Greg did a great job of educating and so I kind of like, I, I learned a lot from watching him do it. And it was also an in an instrumental point for me because part of the founding team were [00:08:00] two developers as, and Dietrich, who who I worked really well with, got along well with, became great friends.

And we also also wanted to build our own software tool in, you know, in the future. And so in 2020 we, we were. No longer a Jungle Scout, we're doing our own thing and realized that we did want to build a product a software tool in the e-commerce space, but not. In Amazon. So after thinking about what some ideas are, where some needs are speaking with merchants we did realize that there was a gap in terms of helping brands ask a few questions.

And this is where selling on Amazon is very different than selling on Shopify. Because Amazon's listings are built around a specific keyword, so it's very SEO focused. So you know that you are going to be selling a, a, a blue shirt for boys four to seven, and you can build your listing around that. But if you are, say, selling t-shirts and you're selling to It could be a boy, it could be a girl, it could be a man or woman.

You don't necessarily know these things [00:09:00] until you maybe ask a few questions. Right? And with those few data points, hmm, it can unlock so much information on how you want to position your brand and the product. You understand what problems your, your customers are facing and what they consider their, their ideal endpoint or goal is.

And so yeah, we, we started launching in we built in 2020 and, and launched in early 2021. Wow. Yeah.

Ramin: Seems very, it seems very fast. That's a fast turnaround.

Gen Furukawa: Yeah, yeah. You know, well, it is, it is and it isn't. But in that time, I mean, things in e-commerce go so fast, and this was like the pandemic, like e-commerce sales.

Everybody was buying online. And you remember like e-commerce sales fast forwarded basically 10 years in the course of a few months. In terms of e-commerce penetration but also there were tailwinds for us in terms of these changes in data privacy, consumer privacy, iOS 14.5 rolled out. So all of a sudden merchants who were so reliant on these ad platforms to run profitable [00:10:00] campaigns mm-hmm.

Could no longer target or run ads as well as they were previously. So all of a sudden there was an urgency to build a direct relationship with customers, capture their contact information, whether a phone number or sms, and then. This notion of zero part zero party data became far more important. So maybe we can just actually clarify, define what zero party data is.

You got

Ramin: my first question right there. All I would love to, don't clarify for our audience what zero party data is. Sure. So zero

Gen Furukawa: party data is, is, I think Forrester defined it as, Data that a consumer willingly and proactively shares with you the brand. And contrast that with first party data, which is data that a, a brand is capturing, but capturing passively the, their, the consumer does not necessarily know that the brand is capturing their transaction history, their, their lifetime value, their pages, they visited their actions on the screen.[00:11:00]

Or on a page. And, but from where this, from this data brands can be proactive and, and say, okay, like Ramin bought this product. Let's assume that he has dry skin because he bought 'em moisturized. And then so they're building campaigns around this, but we don't know that Ramin could be right.

What Is Zero-Party Data?

Giving it to his friend or his wife as a, as a gift. Mm-hmm. But if there's zero party data where Ramin is telling us what challenges he has, what type of skin or what is interests. Or preferences with buying a mattress or then all of a sudden we, we do know with certainty that these are things that we can share with Ramin.

And so the outcome of that is that you're able to level up the the relevancy and the engagement and improve the, your ability to personalize the campaign to. We're sending you. That's great.

Ramin: But that's one of the best explanations by the way, just using real world examples, cuz you're right, somebody could be buying as it a gift and we're making assumptions the other way around.

And why make assumptions when we can literally ask the question, right? Just get it [00:12:00] out there. And. That's obviously where something like a quiz comes into play. So just tell me, you know, in terms of capturing the zero party data and the world of quizzes, you may just walk us through a process. I mean, you know, we reference Helix and how they do it how they build a quiz and you know, there's this very interactive and, you know, it's got, you know, images and things like that.

What is right? What's the process on building a quiz? And especially if I come to pre hook, what am I doing? How am I getting this thing started?

Gen Furukawa: Yeah. So I mean, we won't make it specific about our, our product and, you know, there, there are other quiz platforms, but yeah, like who would it be for? I think that a quiz would be a helpful tool mm-hmm.

For any brand that, that frankly like might have just more than one SKU, I say like a quiz isn't always helpful for a single SKU brands cuz it's more about, you know, you know, the one product and, and you can just kind of like, right. The quiz might be overkill in that sense, but if you can sell your product better, With a sales associate, or if you, if you had the ability to speak with a person and could improve your chances of conversion right then [00:13:00] a, a quiz might be a good fit for you.

Okay. So and apologies for the, the sales in the background. That's, that is fine. So how would you start building a quiz? I think most helpful would be what data points do you need? Right? What would be helpful to. Help you improve your segmentation to help you improve your dynamic personalization, right?

Or to help you improve, like, even in product research to help you gather data points in a structured way so you're not like having to sift through support tickets or sales calls. Mm-hmm. What, what would be helpful for for a brand to work with? Right. So once you have that, then you can kind of like build quiz around.

Yeah. This is, this is evolved skateboards, mm-hmm. Electric skateboard brand. That's a, a Preo customer. So that's a preo quiz that we're looking at. Nice. And I, I really like it because they have a, a wide range of inventory. Mm-hmm. And they're, they're boards are very different whether you're commuting or whether you're doing it for for fun, whether you're going on-road or off-road, whether you're like based on your, your price point or what you're hoping to get out of it.

And so, [00:14:00] You know, I, I think the, the key to an effective quiz is to ensure that you are asking questions that are helpful to you as a merchant Sure. But that are also helpful to the consumer to get to their end point. Yeah. Because ultimately, you know, a, a quiz is this exchange of value. Sure. Where I'm gonna ask you a few questions and in return you're gonna tell me some things that will, that will ensure that it's a better.

Customer experience and shopping experience. Where there, there was an interesting center, I think it was from Accenture on personalization. And I think it's like 70 or 80% of consumers are willing to share personal data with the expectation that they're going to receive a personalized experience.

In return. Yeah. And, and for those brands that can execute on that promise of delivering a personalized experience, they will see higher average order value, higher re conversion rate, and ultimately a higher repurchase rate, and therefore higher lifetime value. Mm-hmm. So there's a lot of like, The, the table stakes are [00:15:00] very real in terms of revenue lift, as you were saying in your introduction.

Sure. Yeah. So you

Ramin: tell, you know, so you know, you think with the end in mind, you know what data you ultimately need to capture and then ultimately also how that data is going to translate maybe into giving customers. Information, product recommendations, things like that, because you're asking for something you know, from them and you're, you know, you're giving them something in return.

And then the other part of the puzzle is what you do with that data, right? When that data comes in, when you pull that data in and you guys, you guys connect with with Klaviyo, attentive Postscript to, to name a few when that data comes in from the quiz, What's happening to it? What is it doing?

What is it triggering? You know, what are my options with it ultimately?

Gen Furukawa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great question. So we can, we can work with Klaviyo as an example, and, and Omnis send is the other key one that Right. That you didn't mention. But the data is sent through as a, a custom property. So basically like for remains profile of a mattress lead we, we [00:16:00] know.

That he's shopping for two people. We know that he wants this size, that it's, you know, him and he, he weighs this much and his wife weighs this much and, and whatever, like all that is in your profile, right? And therefore, how can you use it? Okay. So you can create segments of mm-hmm. Based on your recommended product that comes through as a data point in Klaviyo.

So we know what your recommended product is, which means that we're setting a post quiz, you can set up a post quiz flow. Mm-hmm. And in that you know, you might. Said a weight condition of 20 minutes did Ramin by yes or no. And if he did not buy, then let's send him an email with his recommended product and here's why.

And so then you can also dynamically include blocks. So Ramin sleeps on his back and has neck pain, so we can send educational content about why this makes sense. How, how our product can directly address his pain points, his literal pain points. So it's, it's a dynamic personalization. It says segmentation, and then in Klaviyo as well, you [00:17:00] can, you can create conditional splits based on these custom properties.

So that means you know, if we go through with this mattress example if, if they're a back sleeper, then mm-hmm let's go down, send 'em more information about. Back sleeping or, or something. Or if he's side, and that's not necessarily a great example, but just to show that you can have different content based on the quiz responses.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So generally you can, you know, especially for Klaviyo or Omnis, send brands. Mm-hmm. You're having a post quiz flow. In the, in the quiz, you're capturing their email and or their phone number. Mm-hmm. And then so you can intersperse emails and phone numbers, and of course, you know, and I'm sure you're setting up flows for your brands.

Mm-hmm. They're, they're very kind of like specific to the actions that you are. Your, your customers or leads are looking for?

Ramin: Yeah. Or doing, yeah. It's interesting. I, you know, I, I'm still wondering why, you know, I have not heard from Helix since I made the purchase. Oh, really? Yeah, it's very interesting.

I mean, I did get, you [00:18:00] know, in the beginning, yes. You know, they reminded me, you know, quite often that I had taken the quiz and these were the recommendations. So they did all of that. But I always thought that, you know, and then maybe they haven't launched and if they launched a side sleeper specific pillow, they have that data for me already, right?

Mm-hmm. They know that I'm a side sleeper, that I should be. I, you know, again, it could be a scenario where they don't have that product yet necessarily, or maybe they do, and maybe somehow I've been lost in the funnel somewhere, but I would do that. Right. You know, take that data and it should be a long term, you know, mattresses, people aren't buying mattresses, you know, too often.

Right. There's a, there's a long. Of time, but to do something with that data is really important. Don't just capture it, work with it. Continue to educate and continue to send product recommendations, especially if you're a brand where product is, you know. Purchased more often than let's say a mattress would be.

So I I I, I was struck by something, you know, on your your, your, you know, pre to, to the Web on-demand webinar that you have on the site. You had a, you [00:19:00] know, pre, pre-conversation with the audience and, you know, you were, you were very adamant, and I, I love this, that, you know, Popups as we know them.

Email capture popups, you know, they are margin, you know, they're, they're stealing, stealing margin basically cuz you're giving away 10%, 2025. Percent, whatever it is. And really all you're getting out of it is an email address. You're not getting that, that data you need and that quizzes are really a better way to go.

And, you know, it's funny, we're in this big, we're in this business and we rely heavily on, you know, we do, we do quizzes and we rely heavily on the pop-up as well. But for, for a moment it was like, yeah, you know what? You don't have to give away margin. You can Yeah. Just get information and give recommendation and that's really much more effective at the end of the day.

Can you just talk to us a little bit about that and, and why brands should, you know, you know, maybe they do both, maybe there's an AB test going on, but just talk to us a little bit more about, you know, replacing your popup with now using a quiz. [00:20:00]

Gen Furukawa: Yeah, absolutely. So it, it reminds me of this Andrew Chen, who's a VC at Andreessen Horowitz.

He says, mm-hmm. There's a law of shitty clickthroughs, and it, it, it kind of like relates to banner ads from the late nineties where, yeah, the cost per clicks were super cheap and it was kind of novelty, so everybody would. Would be clicking on ads and it became easy. Same thing with Optins. Like, oh, I can, you know, I have an email address now I can get more emails, so I'll just add my email address.

But the novelty wears off. It becomes oversaturation and ultimately you're seeing, you know, where Optins might have been 50% couple decades ago now. Mm-hmm. Per sumo and is like an opt-in. Tool. Mm-hmm. And they're seeing over millions of, of impressions that it's a 2% opt-in rate. So Wow. Every hundred people that visit your site, two people will add their email address and it's probably going to go down because every single site, you know, the, the.

Your email list is your evergreen asset. Mm-hmm. It's, it's critical, of course. But everybody is doing their pop-up and so to incentivize that, to get [00:21:00] more people to do it, you know, just, Hey, join our v i p club or join our community, that's not enough anymore. Mm-hmm. There needs to be a little more of a carrot that might be your 10, 15, 20% discount.

Why You Don't Need To Discount Your Brand With Popups

But as you say that, that not only has direct margin drain where that that 15% discount comes directly from the profit that would've happened on a, a sale. But it, it. Dilutes the brand equity where, you know, on the first visit somebody is getting offered a a 15% discount. And then also it's, it's just, it's like almost an email in a vacuum where there is no context to that.

So if it, if it's, let's say a a fragrance brand like so what, okay, what, what do we send them now? Is it gonna be perfume for women or colom for men? Is it gonna be fruity or is it gonna be woodsy? Like you have no idea of what, what this person is looking for. All you have is an email address. And so therefore the brands that that have that are.

Are left in a little bit of a disadvantage, like how to actually segment or use any data associated with that to, to inform what to send [00:22:00] them. So a quiz is is a great option. And I'm not saying just outright like, use a quiz instead of an opt-in. It's definitely worth a test. But you are giving the, the shopper an engaging experience where you're, you're having almost the conversation as you would if you were an in, in-person sales associate.

Right, you're capturing an email, so that lead in the, your Klaviyo. E s p or, or CRM has a lot of information around what that person's looking for. Mm-hmm. And then you're able to recommend a product and then build a flow around that recommended product. And so those are kind of like the three pillars that we're focusing on offering to merchants is to accelerate list growth, to improve conversion rate by simplifying the buying process and then capturing zero party data so that you know what this person is looking for.

And so our, our quizzes, you might see And you can do the back of the envelope math on this. A like an opt-in rate of say 60, 70, 80% of people who start a quiz would complete it. Wow. And [00:23:00] often in that quiz is a, a lead, a a lead capture, yeah. Email, sms, or both. And so if you're running paid ads, for example mm-hmm.

To a, a product description page or something in your. Capturing an email address there, let's say generously it would be 5% or you're sending them to a, a page where they take the quiz and it might be it's gonna be multiples of that. All of a sudden your cost per lead is, is being reduced by yeah.

A lot. And you're getting a lot more data associated with that. So that's kind of like the, how we think about. A quiz as a way to build your list and, and that's kinda like the topic of this conversation now. Sure.

Ramin: No, no. That, that's, that's ama I mean, those numbers are, are very impressive. And you know, I I, I, I love, you know, well, I don't love that this happens, but this is, this is the, this is, comes naturally.

We, we as marketers when we see something as working, we do it a lot. Right. And, you know, You mentioned banner ads in, in the early days[00:24:00] popups now, you know, and people, the consumer gets inundated with this and they have fatigue over this. And then we, we find another element.

3 Pillars Pre Hook Targets

But what I love about quizzes is that, I don't think it's one of those things that's gonna ultimately, you know, go through that, you know, evolution because you are asking questions that ultimately lead to a piece of information being given to you.

So there's, there's, I guess, a prize, if you will, at the end of the, at the end of the quiz. And what I would love to know is, You know, the, the completion. So we talked about, you know, most people, I think you get the percentage, most people are completing the quiz, but what happens if they don't, let's say they get halfway through it.

Is any data getting passed or can any, any of that data? Cuz the first step is they're putting their email address in. Correct. So we have that right. And we go through It depends.

Gen Furukawa: Okay. I mean, it, it's totally up to the discretion of the brand, but, right. So that you cannot ask upfront often. I, I, in my opinion, it's best to ask easier questions [00:25:00] upfront.

Mm-hmm. So that it's almost like a micro conversion. Get them warmed up, have them answer questions that are easy to answer. Yeah. What's your name? Where you, where are you living? What's your, you know, age maybe? Sure. But yeah, to answer your question, there is no. Data attach until there is an email or phone number in which to attach it

Ramin: to.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. No, that's good. That's good to know. And you know, I guess it really, in, when you're mapping your questions, this, this here, you know, herein lies the the goal is to keep them engaged enough and, and not over ask too. Right. You don't, you know, you don't want a quiz that is so long that people are just.

You know, that's when the fatigue sets in, I guess. They're like, I'm done. I'm not gonna answer any more questions. Exactly Right. From this brand what, what have you seen out there that, you know, let, let's point to brands that are doing quizzes really well. You know, who, who have you seen I mean, you, we, we've mentioned, you know, helix and you've got a few examples of Warby Parker and a few others, but just gimme some, yeah.

Maybe just one off the top of your head. They're doing [00:26:00] really well, why they're doing it so well.

What Happens When A User Starts A Quiz But Doesn't Complete It?

Gen Furukawa: Yeah, of course. So, just to clarify, Warby Parker, that's a custom brand, custom quiz that's not ours. One that, that is ours. That, that I do know cause I've worked with the founder on the quiz. Mm-hmm. Is Tli.

So Tix is an adaptogen brand. They sell, you know, adaptogens are basically ancient mushrooms used for medicinal purposes. So, yeah. You know, even though it has been around for a very long time, the modern consumer isn't necessarily familiar with re REI or, or Lions Maid or, or the different Ts how they're used.

So they come like, they have different benefits. Mm-hmm. And so it's, it's this idea, there's almost like a customer education that's necessary and then the, the product recommendation that's necessary. So there's a little bit of a, like the That is a challenge that the brand was facing. So this Daniel White Church who is the co-founder of Tlix.

So he had this, these health issues. He was a touring musician and he realized that [00:27:00] this adaptogen was actually a very healing. Option for him in terms of his anxiety, his sleeplessness, his achy joints, but each, because each product had different benefits, it was harder for merchants or for customers to know which product was best.

Brands That Are Doing Quizzes Really Well

So he tested a quiz. It's done very well for him. And the reason why it's done well is I think it's relatively straightforward. So it's not that hard for a customer to answer any of the questions and it simplifies the decision making and the buying. So there's always kind of like, whether it's below the surface or, or subconscious, a little bit of anxiety of, okay, I need this, but like, which product is right for me?

Mm-hmm. It becomes a far more pleasant, streamlined experience if I'd answer questions that are easy for me to answer. Mm-hmm. And then just be told, okay, this makes sense. And if you think of going to any. Any store, like even a sommelier in a restaurant where they're, they're learning a little bit about.

What your [00:28:00] challenges or goals are, what will help you? Price point, and then, Hey, this will be great for you, here's why. Mm-hmm. And that they're recreating that. And quantitatively what it's amounted to is I think they've doubled their, their opt-in rate. Wow. In terms of leads their revenue per customer, I think they have five x.

Those who take the quiz versus those who have not. So they're able to squeeze more juice or revenue out of the leads that they're gathering because it, they're capturing that. And so once they've, they've tested it, they've validated that it works, then they've kind of gone full throttle with it in terms of.

Emailing their existing list or any email that, that they're sending their existing list. They also have a take, take the quiz option or link because even if somebody has opted in, there's always room to enrich the, the profile in Klaviyo. And, you know, on the backend, they've, they've created segments, they've created flows, so, Those, once those custom properties are filled in, they [00:29:00] might get dropped into a segment of mm-hmm.

You know, somebody who's dealing with or wants to solve their anxiety or wants to help their sleeplessness. So that's been great. Also, in terms of merchandising the quiz on the site, they've, they have it in their header nav, they have it on their homepage. They have a landing page for it. They have exit intent popups to take the quiz.

Hey, like, haven't found what you're looking for. So they're, they're able to use it to get a lot more people in at the top of the funnel. Which makes sense. If you're getting two x the the opt-in rate, why not use that as opposed to sending them to you know, a normal email opt-in page. Yeah.

Ramin: So you, when you worked with the founder, did you make recommendations on, you know, D don't ask more than this many questions or, you know, you know, cap it at this.

Is, is there a rule out there on how many you should ask and how many is too

Gen Furukawa: many? I, I think the rule is it depends and, and ask as few as possible while still gathering as much valuable information as possible. Okay. Because you know, of course you can ask, you can [00:30:00] ask everything under the sun, you know, what, what your favorite cocktail is or what your favorite season is, or if you're an animal, what would it be?

That doesn't matter. That's not gonna help their marketing. And, and all you're gonna do, Typeform has some great data on this because it, the, the curve, there's with every question, the likelihood of completion declines. Mm-hmm. Or decreases. Yeah. So, You're, especially if you're running paid traffic to it, you're losing money or you're losing the opportunity to capture the lead if you're asking questions that are irrelevant or, or just too much and the experience becomes kind of like fruitless.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Depending on the type of brand, you know, of course it depends, but. Five. Five or so five seven might make sense. If it's more of like, you know, a brand like hymns or hers or Romans that are more like health based and it's a lead qualification, then more might make sense. Mm-hmm.

Or if it's about something that's almost like a, a patient intake form, then more questions certainly make sense. But yeah, I, I think five to seven is a [00:31:00] good number to max out at.

How Many Questions Should You Ask In a Quiz?

Ramin: Okay. No, that's great. It is funny, I I, I always like to point to, you know, in the world of email marketing and, and SMS marketing as well, that the two possibly, you know, in my opinion, the two most important things are capture of some kind email capture of some kind and segmentation, right?

The, the more powerful and quizzes solved both of those. Right away, right? I mean, you, you're going to capture, assuming they finish and you're going to be able to segment based on the data that they put in at the end of the day. So you solve both of those and not, this is not to take anything away from.

Everything in the middle of email, sms actually writing the content and creating the emails and SMS messages. But these are the, the pillars, if you will, of email, sms. If you don't capture, you've got nothing. Mm-hmm. If you can't segment, you can't leverage the power of Klaviyo to, to get your message out to the right people at the right time.

So this is why I love quizzes. I love I love the idea. Idea. I love the execution [00:32:00] and you know, pointing to brands that are doing it very well. Have you ever seen a quiz not done well? Maybe not necessarily anybody who's using pre hook, but maybe some outside of the world. And you don't need to ma name any names.

It may be something that they did that you didn't think was a good idea.

Gen Furukawa: Yeah, I, I definitely have seen quizzes that, that do ask the superfluous questions. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That, that aren't really related. And I maybe it, it's inspired by some of these Buzzfeed or New York, New York Times type quizzes that have gone viral of like, you know, if you're a princess, what type of princess would you be in, in or Prince?

Right. But yeah, tho those that, that are asking questions, almost like for the sake of it. Mm-hmm. Or maybe go a little bit too far in, in being whimsical or, or witty. I think in some ways it's very similar to copywriting, like straight into the point. Easy to understand. Sure. Because, you know, ultimately I think just like conversion rate optimization, you're just trying to like reduce the number of clicks to get Yeah.

People to, to. Take your desired action. And when you're right. Asking too many questions, silly [00:33:00] questions you're, you're not doing that. Yeah. So you're, you're doing yourself a disservice. Yeah.

Ramin: Well, tell me this, I don't know if you've ever come across this question with brands out there, but maybe certain industries that maybe are a little bit behind.

The, the e-commerce times, you know, they're, they're just getting into that world. Have you ever heard anybody say, I'm worried about adding a quiz to my site. I'm worried that it's going to annoy my potential customers or even my existing customers. Have you ever heard that before? And if so, what's your response to that?

I, I

Gen Furukawa: actually, I haven't heard that. Okay, good. Good. But if, if, if I were first of all, it's not. There, there are some brands where a quiz is a requisite part of the onboarding experience, and this is brands like recurring e-commerce brands, like say Stitch Fix or Scentbird, where you're getting something.

Part of the the buying process is let us know what, what type of stuff you're looking for, and we'll send you a package every month or every quarter or whatever, right? And then you have to take a risk. Otherwise it's, it's completely optional. So [00:34:00] that's where I would say, you know, it's, it's an option in the same way like.

What Shouldn't You Ask In A Quiz?

That you would have a a, a blog. You don't need to have a blog, but you could have it there. And, and yeah, people can take it or, or read through it and help inform themselves. Right. A quiz, ideally you're positioning it with a, with a hook or with some value offer that's compelling enough that somebody would want to take it.

And if. If it's more of like, it'll be an annoyance. It's either how you're positioning the quiz, you know, with, with your copywriting and your hook. Yeah. Or, you know, maybe you're forcing people unnecessarily to take it. But the, the ideal scenario is that it's there as a tool to help improve the customer experience.

Sure, sure. And

Ramin: you know, And then beyond the, you know, improving the customer experience, creating personalization, you know, it helps with the, with you know, capture email and SMS capture. It helps with segmentation. It also helps grow revenue, right? And, and I think, you know, really, you know, many will point to all of those other elements being very [00:35:00] important.

Merchants Worried About Adding Quizzes To Their Site

But we are in, you know, if we're an e-commerce brand, we're in business to make money grow, business, profit continue on. What, what kind of numbers should we expect? You know, from. You know, quizzes in terms of revenue creation and revenue

Gen Furukawa: generation? Yeah, that's a good question. And I don't think it's fair necessarily to expect a revenue, but you can, you can like use the, your current numbers and, and I think in a, we are doing a side by side segment in Google Analytics, which is actually like, I like the the most recent integration where we integrate with Google Analytics.

Your how, your quiz people. Taking the quiz perform. Mm-hmm. Those who have not taken the quiz perform. And by and large, what, what I've heard from merchants that have done this analysis is that people who take the quiz convert at a higher rate and have a higher average order value And so this is, this is encouraging to know.

But I, I think you might [00:36:00] say, okay, what's my benchmark? Because every brand, every niche, every vertical has a different different kind of like standard, mm-hmm. Or benchmark of what success looks like. But I think it's, it's hard to say. Universally, this is what you should expect. But I think it's at least worth testing and getting a, a, you know, validate that with a data-driven analysis.

Mm-hmm. And I think you might see that those that take the quiz have performed better or move towards the ideal in terms of customer persona and behavior on the site. That's great. That's great.

Ramin: What is just tell me, you know, I'm a ma. Maybe I'm a merchant right now listening. I've not done quizzes on my site.

I've been doing things old fashioned way using email popup. But I'm, I, I like what I hear. I'm ready to do this. How long can it, would it take me to install pre hook get the Klaviyo integration in place and create my first quiz up and running on my site? What's, what's your, you know, yeah. Start to

Gen Furukawa: finish.

What Revenue Should Merchants Expect From Quizzes

Start to finish. Well, first of all, I [00:37:00] happy to offer my services to help you again, gn pre.com. So happy to help. But our goal in building this was to make it as like a very simple, easy to use product as in elegant Like no technical coding required. So the snippet is easy as copying, pasting, the integration's as easy as copying your public API key six digit code, paste it in and then like kind of plug and play templates to give an idea of what type of questions or, or data points would be helpful for you're a pet brand or if you're a fragrance band or if you're a a coffee brand.

And, and so we have a library of templates that are, are designed and. To answer your question, I would say start to finish probably under. 45 minutes under 30 minutes. Like if you know what questions you are asking and, and and you, you wanna just like, kind of spin it up and of course you can get far more detailed with conditional logic and, and the recommendation logic and, and personalizing the, the different paths based on quiz responses.

That's all [00:38:00] possible with our platform. But if you wanna just get it. Up and running quickly, just to kind of like, see how it, how it feels and, and how people are doing it. Free 14 day trial too. Yeah. So yeah, with, with, in light of holidays, black Friday, Saturday, Monday coming up it, it is a, a good opportunity to test as lead gen tool.

So, you know, throw it up on a landing page, send page traffic to it, put it in your, in your header. And it's not like you necessarily need to shift everything towards it, but at least like, okay, you know, our current cost per lead is X dollars. What is it if we're sending into a quiz page instead of a product description page or a collections page?

Right. And so that's one way. To, to validate like, okay, a quiz is good. Then you'd be looking at kinda like the conversion metrics. What's the conversion rate, what's the order value, what's the repeat purchase rate? And all, all these things. So like you can get started in many different ways and, and levels of sophistication in your data analysis.

But We have a free Fortune Day trial, so it's quick and easy to get set up. Yeah, I [00:39:00] would say it's

How Long To Setup A Quiz?

Ramin: no-brainer, especially when the co-founder is willing to take a call and, and help walk you through how to build a quiz. So anybody listening, take advantage of that. That's you know, that, and, and you know, really at the end of the day, you know, I think, you know, 45, I mean, that's, that's nothing in our 45 minutes.

I mean, it's, you know very little time to get there. But I, I think, you know, you're pointing to something interesting here is that. Don't just set and forget it. Don't just put it up there. Analyze the data. Look at the data. Tweak it. Mm-hmm. You know, adjust your questions. You know, if you're not seeing a great adoption rate, you know, with the quiz, if you're not seeing a good completion rate, make some changes, cut down, some cut down on your questions.

Adjust. But then do something with the data. Work the data. Get the data to work for you. This is your zero party data. This is what is going to, you know, we talk about the cookie list future and all this, this is happening to us right now. This is. You need this data as an e-commerce brand. So you should have been doing this yesterday.

Right. You should start, start, get it up and running quickly because you will be so much [00:40:00] further ahead when that time comes, when you are really, really gonna need it. Are you gonna need that data? Tell me just real quickly what, what Any industries out there that you have seen that aren't, that really haven't adopted quizzes, you know, e-commerce industries that you really wish they would, is there anybody out there that pot comes to mind?

Or is everybody, is it very sporadic and just all over the place? A lot of different industries are already using it. Yeah, I

Gen Furukawa: think a lot of. Industries are. So those that are, are beauty. So it's like kind of like skincare or found skincare foundation finder type stuff. Mm-hmm. Haircare pet brands, food and beverage, apparel, outdoor.

These are all kind of like brands that, that see a lot of value in quizzes. Mm-hmm. Those that don't, that should. Off the top of my head, I, I don't know, maybe like b2b E-commerce. Yeah. Although, yeah, I, I don't see a lot of those, but like, that's almost like a, a lead qualification or sales form, which would be helpful Agency.

You as an agency [00:41:00] probably do

Ramin: have that. I was just, I was just thinking, you know, we just, we, we rack our brains always for the lead generation approach, asking some questions and then we get to know. That prospect that's coming in the door, we're gonna know more about that. We're gonna get the zero party data from

Gen Furukawa: them, right?

Yeah, exactly. If they're, you know, under your threshold of, of a, a revenue brand that, that makes sense for you. Mm-hmm. And maybe you just refer them to an ebook or, but if, if they're doing more than that, then maybe you want to jump and, and invest the time to take a call. Mm-hmm. And so yeah, same would apply to if you're selling like rims of paper or if you're selling like right.

Yeah, cabinets or whatever online. But yeah, I think that lead qualification for quizzes, I don't see that often. Yeah.

Ramin: That's very interesting. Well, let, let's, let's jump out of quizzes for a second and let's, let's take you back to your alma mater, Cornell, SC Johnson, right. School of Business. And they invite you to come back.

They want you to speak. Maybe this has already happened by the way, they invite you to come back and speak to an e-commerce e-commerce entrepreneurship class.

Which Industries Haven't Adopted Quizzes?

[00:42:00] These are, these are group of students that are getting ready to build their empire, get out there in the world. What, what piece of advice would you give them in this day and age that will prepare them for, you know, really making a difference in, in e-commerce and really growing a successful business?

Gen Furukawa: Yeah. I mean, so I, that was 10 years ago where I graduated from, from business school. And I think the, kind of like what you touched on in the beginning mm-hmm. I think I'm seeing a shift in a lot of these crater founded brands where whether it's like, you know, Chamberlain Coffee for example, or skims, you know, these are like Yeah.

People that have built a huge audience. On social media and then layering in merchandising a product or selling a product on the back end of that. Mm-hmm. But I think it's this notion of building an audience and constantly putting out content. Choose one channel or two channels that feel right for you, that feel right for your target audience.

And if you can almost build a media brand around [00:43:00] it first, then you're making your likelihood of success or you're on road towards launching. That much easier. Yeah. And so I've seen that with, with Brandon. And, you know, these days if you're maybe, you know, like, like I was saying in the beginning, like there's, there's been a blueprint of running paid ads.

You're spinning up, you're raising some money, you're, you're launching with beautiful packaging. It fits in the, the kind of the ethos of what people are looking for, and then you launch it 10 years ago, you could like run a lot of paid ads and succeed and get in front of the right people. Now with iOS 14.5 and, and some of the targeting options that aren't as available, there's more of a reliance on brands that kind of like, Maybe they're, they're running ads less profitably.

Mm-hmm. But if they can create their, their moat and create an audience on organic social mm-hmm. Whatever that might be for their niche that would be a huge advantage. So that's what I would recommend is kind of like creating, creating a, a content strategy from the start [00:44:00] and then really focusing on executing that.

Yeah, there's that book. It

What Advice Would You Give Someone New To Ecommerce?

Ramin: reminds me of content Marketing Inc. Or Content Inc. That was written actually 10 years ago, really talking about that. Don't be afraid of putting that content out there. We always tend to keep our ideas, you know, quiet. Yeah. And and they're more, you know, get it out there, start talking cuz you'll build that first 1000 you know, loyal customers before you even launch a brand.

And then when you do. They're there, they're already there waiting for you. Excited to see what you have. That's great advice. And You know, the space is, is evolving rapidly. But I still think it's in its infancy. Yeah. There's so much, so much to do. I could sit here and talk to you all day about this again.

I mean, I, I, you know, the world of e-commerce, the world of, you know, You know, email and SMS marketing and how quizzes fit into this. I, I'm very passionate about you know, where, where things are going, and you've got a, your wealth of knowledge and been fantastic to have on the show. I'm really glad that you guys reached out to [00:45:00] us.

And maybe we'll do it over pickleball, right? Let's do it November 1st. November 1st, inland. Before we wrap everything up, I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions just to Yeah, yeah. Bring a little, you know, bring a little fun into the world. Not that, I mean, I think you and I could probably talk about this and have fun all day, but let's get just what, what gets you excited to wake up and tackle the day?

Gen Furukawa: Pick up basketball. Oh, nice. If you play, I, yeah, I have a I wake up at five o'clock on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and, and have a game. Wow. So I get to the gym at five 30 and play till about eight. And I love it. That's like, oh my God. That's my thing. That's fantastic.

Ramin: Wow. I love that. That's

Gen Furukawa: but huge basketball course like this to school.

Yes. Well, yes. On those days, I'm not doing that to be, to be able

Ramin: to do, take your kids to school. That's awesome. And that's you know, it's, you know, you're an entrepreneur and carving that time out and your day is great. And I'm a huge basketball fan, so I'd love to hear that you're getting up every morning and playing basketball.

Who's your favorite basketball team? Not, not a, not, not a rapid fire question. Well, I mean, I, I lived

Gen Furukawa: in San Francisco during the glory days, you know? Got it. 2013 and 2016, [00:46:00] so, yeah. I was definitely on the Warriors bandwagon, but actually more so about the players. I love Stephan Clay. Yeah. Steph Curry, clay Thompson.

And yeah, there's just a, a young crop of guys coming up that are really fun to watch. Yeah. But yeah, I, I watch a lot of like, individual highlights.

Ramin: Yeah. That's great. No, that's awesome. What so when you get up in the morning you go play basketball Monday, Wednesday, Friday, the days, I guess when you come back, what's your drink of

Gen Furukawa: choice?

Oh, black coffee. Okay. Black coffee. Yep. Greater goods. I. I think

Ramin: 25 episodes in, I, if I had to guess correctly, 22 have said black coffee. So yeah. If you weren't doing the job that you're doing today, what else would you be doing?

Gen Furukawa: I love youth sports. Hmm. So sports were really kinda an integral part of my childhood.

Playing sports. I, I focused a lot on tennis from maybe like 10 years old and, and got to the point of like, On the team at a varsity level in college. Nice. For a year. But it was, it was so important in a, in, in many ways in terms of [00:47:00] discipline and work ethic and, and interacting with others and having goals and trying to meet them.

So yeah, I would, I've coached my daughter's basketball team a couple times. Have a son who, who shows early interest in at least playing with balls. So that would be something that I would, I would certainly. Enjoy doing. All right.

Ramin: Great. What what's your, what's your go-to SaaS or, or app that you just won?

You can't live with that. You look at it every single day, multiple times

Gen Furukawa: a day. Work-wise, I, I really like loom. Yeah, loom are, are just like quick recording videos, so like, if people are having challenges with their product or, or it's really just like, Hey, here's some quick ideas on how you might want to build out a flow or how the data comes through and how you trigger a flow, you know, whatever it is.

I find it helps to put a face in the name. I can get a lot more. Across in just a five minute video. Yeah. Than, you know, writing it out and it's far more consumable and it's one way to build an asynchronous, asynchronous personal relationship. Yeah. No, it's beautiful.

Ramin: We are big [00:48:00] fans of Loom. More can be said in the video.

They can be and, and less typing. Yeah. Right. If you could give yourself one talent that you don't currently have, what would it be?

Gen Furukawa: I, I. I wanna say something in the creative space, whether it's like dancing it's not fun to be at a, a wedding and you're like friends pushing you into the middle of the dance.

Right. Please don't do that. Yeah. So, so dancing or playing a musical instrument Okay. Would be great. And, and I, I can do it if I just put the time in. I'm not talented per se, but like there's no reason why I can do it. Sure. But I just

Ramin: haven't. Yeah. No, that's great. And last question for you. What's your favorite online store and why?

Gen Furukawa: Favorite online store? Nike.com actually has they have some great deals every once in a while, like right now, or, you know, they have LeBron's for 50% off the LeBron nineteens. Really? Yeah. LeBron 19. Oh, there, it's yeah, cause he just released his, his twenties LeBron twenties. And so the nineteens are on sales.

So I got mine for. Hundred [00:49:00] bucks. Which Wow, that's amazing. 50% off. That's

Ramin: a great deal. I will, I I, funny, I, I never think of Nike as on nike.com or of giving deals out, you know, because they're Nike, they don't need

Gen Furukawa: to, that's, they still to liquidate their

Ramin: inventory. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Yeah. Well, this has been again, I mean, amazing information. I've wanted to cover this topic of quizzes for a long time. I'm so happy that your team reached out. And it's great to meet you and, and be able to talk. And I look forward again to seeing you. Next week. We're a little pickleball. Now, I know that you actually played varsity tennis, so I'm gonna be a little careful if I play, if we end up playing against each other.

Gen Furukawa: And I'm gonna know

Ramin: you have an

Gen Furukawa: advantage on, on

Ramin: the, on the pickleball court. Although, who knows if, how, you know, how pickleball and. Tennis, you know how totally, I know, I know this. You know, there's similarities definitely. But very

Gen Furukawa: different too at the same time. You told me you played in high school.

I did. I did. I, yeah.

Ramin: Yes. Well, very good. Well, again, just fantastic information. Thank you so much for being a [00:50:00] part of the show, coming on, sharing your, your information. Just take a moment if you could, and share with the audience where they can find out about Pre hook and you, your stuff on your podcast.

Which is Incredible you know, cart overflow. Great name by the way. Love it. Oh, thanks. So yeah, tell everybody how they can find

Gen Furukawa: out about you. Yeah, so our website is pre hook P r e h o k.com. And from there, yeah, I, I've tried to put it as much resources as possible in terms of like zero party data or quizzes and, and I send a newsletter out every week with some of the last stuff I've found.

So feel free to drop in your email or email me directly, again, g e n pre hook.com. And like I said, yeah, absolutely setting offer to to help anybody build out their quiz or. You know, ask questions. But here to help, and especially now, you know, like with Black Friday, cyber Monday coming up, there are ways you don't necessarily need to, like, revamp your strategy, but it just could be something small to capture more leads and more information.

And then get my cart overflow. So cart overflow.com.[00:51:00] Weekly emails on or weekly episodes on NICE e-commerce marketing. Beautiful.

Ramin: Beautiful. Fantastic. Well, thank you again for coming on today. I hope you have a great weekend. And we'll see you on the pickleball courts. Fantastic. Shortly. Okay, Ramin.

Gen Furukawa: Thank you so much.

Ramin: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Have a great day. All right. That brings us to the end of another episode of the E-Commerce Revolution Podcast. And when I say that I can stay on for another hour or two and talk about this particular topic and many of the other topics, I'm not kidding e-commerce is, is just exploding all around you.

Email and SMS is really strong. If you're not using quizzes jump on board. Test them out. Start to see what that does and for your zero party data. Now that we all know what zero party data is, great example from our guest today. Again, just really shared, you know, a really, you know, clear understanding of zero party data.

So if you need help with your email and s m s marketing and you also need a quiz installed, absolutely reach out to us. At hello H e l l o at. SKU [00:52:00] Agency dot com. Mention this podcast and we'll take a look at your email and SMS current email and SMS strategy and give you a review and an audit on how you can do it better, which is validated $850.

It has been a pleasure to be with everybody today. Enjoy yourself. Be safe out there. See ya.

Conclusion

As you embark on your journey to leverage online quizzes for list growth and sales generation, remember to continually analyze and optimize your strategies. Monitor the performance of your quizzes, test different approaches, and adapt based on the insights gained. With a data-driven mindset, you can continuously refine your quizzes and drive even better results over time.

Online quizzes have the potential to revolutionize your email marketing efforts and propel your sales to new heights. Embrace the power of interactive quizzes, and unlock the door to a larger email list, more engaged customers, and increased revenue. Start implementing these strategies today and witness the transformative impact of online quizzes on your business.