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Personalizing the Customer Journey With Gen Furukawa of Prehook

Gen Furukawa 5:49

Yeah, great question. So now we’re talking Alright, after they’ve already opted in with their contact information, they’ve already gotten recommended or product, that what happens in the communication and I think that’s really where the value of zero party data comes in. Because all of a sudden, you know, how you can segment so no longer are you kind of going surface level of like, who this person is, you know, like, what zip they they live in, and what products they purchase, but you can get some of the psychographic information, the why they want to purchase or what they’re looking for. So it can actually appeal to their emotions. And I think, you know, makes me think of, we buy with emotion and justify it with logic. And so you’re appealing to their emotions, because you know, what it is that that you’re not able to gather via any other channel, except if they tell you directly. Now, what are the interesting ways that people are doing it? I think, if we speak with clay VO, in particular, it’s using a post quiz flow. And I think structurally, it can be very similar to an abandoned cart flow, where you would just clone your abandoned cart. And the benefit of cloning it is of course, you can have kind of like the same. This same structure for trigger, or filters, trigger filters, conditional filters, where you are having the trigger be that they took the quiz. And so prio, for example, we send a metric, so that’s a trigger, and then the recommended product, you might want to wait for an hour, make sure that they don’t purchase and if they did purchase then and the flow for them, but is to dynamically insert the recommended product. And so you do that with the event metrics. And so basically, you’re just building out one, one campaign or one email. And it can scale infinitely. So if it’s a skincare brand, for example, Josh has normal skin and wants a cleanser, a serum and moisturizer, like all those products can be dynamically inserted, but maybe say I have dry skin and have acne and looking for these things, those recommended products, even though it’s the same flow and same campaign, same email would be completely different because of the data that sent through as my custom property or my event metric. So I think that’s really one of the coolest things about a quiz, when you hook in the integration with clay, VO or Omni send a ton of postscript is that you’re basically able to personalize at scale.

Joshua Chin 8:25

Again, what’s the best way to initiate the quiz funnel? Where do we is it a pop up? Or is it a little selection on the menu bar? What’s the best way that you found?

Gen Furukawa 8:38

Yeah, I think probably in a hero image. We’re where there’s most visibility. So one brand, for example, that uses Prehook is called Teelixir. Was a which is an adaptogen brand mushrooms. And so they’ve they’re seeing a lot of success with a quiz because they have it across different entry points on their website. So they do have it in their head or nap they do have it in their hero image. They do have it as an exit intent pop up from Klaviyo. And they do have a dedicated landing page for paid an email traffic. And so depending on how important it is, you’d want to make it more prominent. And I think for teelixir, where the problem that they’re using the quizzes of is what product is right for me. And not many people necessarily know what a mushroom what mushroom tea is best for them based on what their health issues are or their taste preferences or whatever. So it simplifies the buying process. And so, because of that they want to make sure that as many customers as possible, go through the quiz. But then if you go to a subscription brand, let’s say wink or wink which is a wine brand Your Scentbird, which is fragrant or StitchFix? There, you have to take the quiz because all of those preferences are so important in, in knowing what to send on a monthly basis or quarterly basis. So that one’s a requisite and you can’t really go anywhere on the homepage without entering the quiz.

Joshua Chin 10:21

Have you seen? Have you seen quiz funnels affecting conversion rates at all? And what I mean by that is, when we think about conversion rates as a, as a, as a business as brand completely, versus the conversions that we get from, from from introducing a quiz funnel, it’s, it feels like a compromise, right? When I introduce additional friction to buying through a quiz that reduces the conversion rates for the entire site. But as long as the conversion rates of the conversions from the quiz outweigh the loss of conversions from the website, I’m good. That’s kind of like the biggest conversations that I’ve been having with merchants thinking about introducing a quiz funnel. Is there an Is there a way around that? Or is that the right way to think about it?

Gen Furukawa 11:21

So I do understand what you’re saying I think is basically you want to minimize the hoops that somebody is going through on their path to purchase. Right? Exactly. But a one of the one of the benefits that offsets that challenge is that the quiz ultimately if done right will simplify the buying journey. Because I think if you look at a wine brand, or a coffee brand T trade coffee, another great example is if the, if the learning curve might be intimidating, or the anxiety from having to choose or make decisions as a buyer might be off putting a quiz can simplify that and wink for example, I really liked your quiz, because wine can be very esoteric and complicated, because people might not know what tannic structure they like, or, or what flavor profiles, but they do know, do they like citrus? Or do they like nuts? Or do they like coffee? Or do they like chocolate. And by by kind of making these like these questions that are more accessible and easier. Therefore, it makes the the end product that much more palatable, I think as a as a product to purchase. And that’s the exact benefit of say, a sommelier. If you go to a restaurant or a sales associate, if you go to a brick and mortar place, brick and mortar retail shop is that they know what their products are, and they know that their inventory, and then it’s their job to guide you based on what your needs are. And the quiz is the exact same thing just in a digital form and at scale.

Joshua Chin 12:57

Interesting now, what are some of the what are some of the examples of brands using information that you’ve collected through Prehook really well, and on the back end, whether it be through remarketing email, SMS? And I know that Prehook integrates with some of my personal favorite software? Like clay vo postscript attentive on the sand. What? What What kind of examples could you give us? Yeah.

Gen Furukawa 13:31

So I think the first is the dynamic personalization. So that, you know, in your, in your campaign builder, you’re you’re clicking Preview, and then you can see the metric. So Prehook sends data through as a metric. And then there’s all of the related metric events. So that’s like the title, the price, the product URL. So like I was saying, putting that all together to dynamically personalize, I think, is a really cool use case that some brands are using. And then it taking that one step back towards the segmentation. That’s where you can really get more granular in in how you’re targeting your different flows or campaigns. So one brand for example we’re working with is a fragrance brand. They’re doing really well it’s a high end fragrance brand. They’re doing really well with their quiz. But they they hadn’t really utilized the customer data as as well. So taking the custom properties, okay, do they like citrus or woodsy? Are they a man or woman? Are they using it for an everyday or special event? All of these are different data points that would that they use in their messaging and their campaigns to to highly target what the what the product that they’re including in the in the email is but then also what the messaging and the positioning of that fragrance is because as you might imagine, but the campaign would look completely different if it’s even just man versus woman. And then getting more granular, like what their use case is, what the aspirational images, what product they’re including to link back. So that’s, that’s an example of the data being used. And I think segmentation is critical. And then take that to a different channel, you know, even within CLEVEO, using that with SMS, so you’re interspersing, SMS messages, messages with email messages. And then it’s all highly targeted, based on the zero party data gathered in the quiz.

Joshua Chin 15:42

Again, have you seen anything done with lead generation? Using quizzes? What I’m talking about? Is the premise being customer acquisition being more and more expensive? iOS given us a peanut but now could we improve our our costs, or reduce our cost per acquisition? By funneling people through a simple quiz, and promising a reward at the end? And running Facebook ads or paid social ads true that funnel on site? Is that something you’ve explored? Because it’s it’s a it’s an idea that I’ve been toying around with. And, in theory, assuming that conversions are healthy, healthier than sending someone to a landing page, and especially for products that don’t necessarily command an impulse purchase? It should allow for either a, an immediate purchase or be retargeting super effectively, because of all the information that we’ve gathered. What do you think about that idea?

Gen Furukawa 16:53

Yeah, yeah, totally. We have seen brands do it. And I often go through the Facebook ads library just to see like, okay, what are different brands using as a hook because ultimately, you want to go to hook in order to get people to stop their thumb dump, scrolling, and then click through on the ad. So there’s one brand, it’s a, it’s a kind of like a high end bag brand that uses a Facebook ad. And it’s like, what, what bag is best for you. And I think the premise there, and this is kind of applicable to all Facebook ads is very interesting, because it’s appealing to our human emotion or human need to learn more about ourselves. And that’s a curiosity gap. So that’s where it is, can can really add a lot of intrigue. And if you met imagine, maybe like five years ago, or so like all these BuzzFeed in New York Times, quizzes were highly viral. Because you take the quiz, you can maybe like categorize yourself in one way, and then you share it with your friends. Okay, I’m this What are you? But it takes that twisted a little bit for what bag? Are you or what, what beardsmen? Are you you know, beer brand has a quiz that they plaster the top for, for Scentbird? What, you know, what’s your ideal scent? But these are all questions that we don’t know. But that’s the fun of the quiz. And I think that’s where you can see some some great landing pages in hooks for Facebook ads, then you drive them to the landing page. Ideally, this is where we can get into the mechanics of quiz best practices. And ideally, it’s kind of like, to the point and short not a lot of superfluous questions, get an opt in, we see you know, like 70 80 90% completion rate of people who started the quiz to finish. And then they, after they enter their contact info, then they recommend a product. But because the quiz platform is integrated with say, Clay, VO, you get all that data sent through immediately. So compare that, you know, that quiz experience to if it were, you know, like, hey, check out a 15% off discount on all sense or something. You get an email cool, then you send your your coupon. So you’re getting brand dilution in terms of like cheapening the brand with a discount upfront profit margin dilution, because that 15% is coming from the bottom line, and then you don’t necessarily know anything about them. So you don’t even know is it a man or woman that I’m sending these fragrances to? Yeah, is to bring it back full circle on paid ads. I think one of the really cool things is that you can actually kind of like create a more unified omni channel experience in that the segments that you’re creating in clay vo can be ported over to say your Facebook Ads Manager So, so that you know what, you know that. For example, this is somebody who a man who likes woodsy scent for special events. But then that that segment can be created in, you know, in your different ads platform. So there’s some unity in terms of the experience and the products that you’re advertising and so that the ad drives a lead to your capture that lead and then that lead and the information that you’re gathering back would inform a more targeted paid ad experience.

Joshua Chin 20:27

For, for people looking for inspirations and kind of diving deeper into it Gen has share, you guys can go to prehook.com. Go to under the learning tab, and click on use cases, scroll all the way to the end, you’ll see this massive table error table of companies that have used quizzes in various forms, and how they are then filtered kind of people through that funnel, and redirect the people into different products and product categories that they have on their site is incredible. I think you guys have like 100 over, let’s see 120 Different companies, categories, goals and URLs. This is such a lifesaver and such a time saver for someone who is a marketer trying to build a quiz funnel, and try and get some ideas and inspiration. This is something that I would 100% use. I’m glad you gave us a shadow.

Gen Furukawa 21:31

Yeah, thank you. It is a little buried, I need to bring it a little bit, like easier to find. Yes. But yeah, you know, as we’re building the product, okay, how are people using quizzes? What are what are the use cases? What are the niches where could it be of most value? And so yeah, it’s like, putting it together. And so there’s no opt in, by the way, you can just like, go and look up

Joshua Chin 21:55

right there. It’s, it’s basically, sort of like a blog post, you scroll all the way to the end, you see this massive list of companies and links, it’s gonna save you a ton of time. It’s so good, thank you. And I see a couple of familiar company names out here as well. 100%, Pure Ric Kostick to the founder, because he was actually on the show. A while back as a guest, definitely go listen to his episode, guys, if you’re listening, and they have a product recommendation quiz on your site. And now from my conversation with with Ric, one of the one of the things that makes 100% Pure, real unique, besides the fact that they use all natural ingredients, which is incredible, is the fact that they have hundreds and hundreds of SKUs. And it’s incredibly difficult to keep track of every single one of them. And they have loyal customers who have been purchasing the same products for years and years and years and then from them. So it’s really difficult for that one of the difficulties that we talked about in the show was that it’s difficult for them to phase out products as you would with a typical retail business with product like product life cycles, and everything. They chose to keep products on store for that select few customers. So it’s really difficult to kind of keep things I would presume profitable when you’re only producing a small amount of everything. So finding the right skincare, self care routine and set of products that work for you is incredibly, incredibly important. And the product finder quiz is exactly what you’re trying to do with with what we’ve just talked about. So I hope you’re using Prehook or

Gen Furukawa 23:54

I don’t think so because this I started putting it before we even had pre hook but yeah, I think have some mutual clients or customers Pup Next for example. Yeah, they are great for and Prehook dog beds. And so I think with any quiz you can kind of plot out okay, what is the strategy that they are using and like Pup Next, for example. There are different sized dogs of course there are different maybe health needs of the dog as it relates to the dog bed. There are different styles, levels of comfort and then there are different tiers I think, maybe have like the like how plush the the pillow is. And so it’s one way to just guide them through simple, simple, quick questions to capture the lead and then recommend the product and I haven’t looked at their quiz on how they’re doing performance wise but I It’s a bit of a large brand, they have a great product. And they’re still using Prehook. So

Joshua Chin 25:07

it’s awesome. Again, what can we expect from Prehook in the next couple of months? Quarters years? What’s what’s the future for you?

Gen Furukawa 25:14

Yeah, great question. So we are trying to stay as close as possible to the, to the customers and customers needs are changing. Couple of things that we’re focusing on product wise, is design, trying to make it you know, like the, some of the nuances of what a brand has, you know, in their user experience, user interface, those are critical. And so we’re trying to make those as plug and play as possible, as well as some of the analytics. And so you’re gathering the data. Now, how do you pull insights from it, because gathering it just doesn’t mean anything if you’re not if it’s not actionable. So I think those are areas that we, we can make strides forward on. But I think, you know, we launched live a little less than a year ago, and we’ve made great traction so far. And so we’re trying to continue to learn from what customer’s needs are and build towards that. So if we talk a few years out, you have to ask your customers, and maybe they can tell me what we should be doing then.

Joshua Chin 26:19

That’s awesome. I love that. And you’re basically taking your own advice, listen to your customers, and you, you’ll be fine. You do way better than most brands, I totally, I think that’s what people are kind of missing out on building without talking to customers, and kind of making assumptions without listening to what the market wants. That’s, that’s a really difficult way of building. So I really love your approach there. Again, for people listening, interested, learn more about what Prehook does and find out whether it’s right for your for your business, where should you go to totally? What’s the best way to connect with you? Yeah.

Gen Furukawa 27:01

Thanks, Josh. So you can go to the website, prehook.com prehook.com. And then it reached out to me directly, Gen@prehook.com. It’s my direct email. We’d love to help just brainstorm what a quiz might look like how you could use it, how you can tie it in with your email service providers. And then yeah, how ultimately, it would contribute to driving more sales, because that’s the main goal, I think, is accelerating LIS growth, when you know, like you’re seeing brands with 30% or more from email revenue, capture zero party data and improve conversion rate. So I personally would love to help and can build out the quiz, share some ideas, share how you use the data. So please feel free to reach out to me and we have a free 14 day trial. So it’s plenty of time to get it up and running and gather some initial data.

Joshua Chin 27:57

Awesome. Gen, thank you so much for being on the show. And as usual, guys, links will be in the show notes down below. You can go to chronos.agency/podcast to check out latest episodes. And thank you. So you guys, listen in on the next one very soon. And oh, before we go again, what’s the best way to contact you?

Gen Furukawa 28:20

Oh, yeah. So gen@prehook.com Is my email or on Twitter is just @genfurukawa and I can send it to Josh, because maybe it’s easier to click on it. But yeah, on Twitter, if

Joshua Chin 28:35

you’re on LinkedIn, as well as LinkedIn again, through

Gen Furukawa 28:38

Facebook, this thing of not a whole lot of people have the names.

Joshua Chin 28:43

You’re definitely a unique name for sure. percent. Yeah, thank you so much for being on the show.

Gen Furukawa 28:48

Thanks, Josh.

Outro 28:52

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