How Zero-Party Data Transformed JRB

Happy Thursday!

Gosh, it’s been a hectic week!

Working towards some new product launches, customer education, direct mail, and our upcoming new store in NYC. It’s at times like this where I love working at a high-growth startup like JRB.

Excited to be cuddled in a warm corner writing this newsletter, drinking some Bimble, and catching a vibe.

This week’s newsie explores the exciting world of zero-party data marketing and how it can help you deliver a truly personalized customer experience.

• Unlocking Customer Data: The Power of Customer Quizzes

• Enhancing the Shopping Experience: How Quizzes Help Drive Sales

• Boosting Customer Loyalty: The Benefits of Personalized Quizzes with Octane AI

• Maximizing Results with Octane AI: How JRB Does things

This newsletter is brought to you by Octane AI, the zero-party data marketing platform for e-commerce.​​

With Octane AI, you can create custom quizzes that are designed to help customers make the perfect product selection. The quizzes incorporate a blend of logic and customer data to provide customers with the best product recommendations.

Octane AI quizzes are an excellent way to deliver a personalized experience, grow sales, and develop customer loyalty in all verticals.

Jones Road sends 100% of paid traffic to our Octane quiz funnel to collect zero-party data and market smarter. We’ve seen an increase in AOV, LTV, and even NPS scores when customers go through our Octane quiz.

Check out Octane AI here.

Unlocking Customer Data: The Power of Customer Quizzes

When I started at JRB a year ago, I learned that we were using a customer quiz to help steer customers toward the shades best suited for them. That made sense to me.

But I still remember the conversation with Cody when I learned that we were driving every single paid ad to the quiz. That baffled me.

Wasn’t that adding unnecessary friction?
Shouldn’t we give customers the ability to purchase right off the landing page without going through a quiz?

I then learned that all these points were considered and tested. I then took a seat and listened. 🤣

Before we dive into the pros and cons of having a quiz for your website, let’s talk about the use of customer data in ecommerce.

Have you ever visited a website and encountered a pesky popup asking for your details?

What starts with “give us your email for a discount” slowly descends into “give us your email, phone number, your shopping preferences, and your first-born child.”

As a test, I often add the info and wait for the follow-up email.

9/10 times, the subsequent emails are not at all related to the specific category I chose as a preference.

For example, If I sign up for the Saks Fifth Avenue email list and select that I prefer shopping for men's clothing, would it not make sense to tailor my emails accordingly?

Yet, as a connoisseur of post-popup email, I can tell you that rarely happens.

This is where thoughtful quizzes come in.

Enhancing the Shopping Experience: How Quizzes Help Drive Sales

As I learned more about the world of quizzes and watched the quiz legend Joanne meticulously build them, I began to take notes. Here are some of my learnings:

• When customers visit your site, especially if you have more than 1 SKU, the #1 question is, “will this work for me”

• By addressing that concern early in the customer journey, you can market intentionally, enhance their customer journey, answer the most commonly asked questions, and replace some noise with signal

• Quizzes help you learn more about customers: who they are, what they need, and what their shopping preferences are

• Quizzes serve as a way to engage customers and educate them about the products, leading to increased AOV, LTV, customer satisfaction, and a higher NPS score (we track all of this)

The way I see it, the pros of a quiz can be split into a few sections:

1. Personalization: By asking customers specific questions, a quiz can help tailor product recommendations to their individual needs and preferences, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Education: A quiz can educate customers about the products, helping to build trust and credibility and increasing their likelihood of purchasing.

3. Customer engagement: A quiz can be a fun and interactive way for customers to engage with a brand, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
   

4. Data collection: A quiz can be used to collect valuable information about customers, such as their preferences, interests, and buying behavior, which can then be used to improve the overall customer experience and sell more effectively.

5. Increased conversion rates: By effectively filtering out customers who are less likely to make a purchase, a quiz can help to increase conversion rates, leading to higher average order values and lifetime values.

Boosting Customer Loyalty: The Benefits of Personalized Quizzes with Octane AI

In an effort to keep this more practical and tactical, here are some tips:

Keep it simple: Keep the quiz short and focused, with only a few key questions that will provide the most valuable information about customers. Avoid asking for too much information, as this can increase friction and discourage customers from completing the quiz.

Make it relevant: The questions in the quiz should be relevant to the customer's needs and interests. By doing so, the customer will feel that the quiz is worth their time and that they will receive personalized recommendations as a result.

Provide value: Quizzes should be designed to provide value to the customer. For example, you can offer a discount or a free sample to customers who complete the quiz. This will incentivize customers to take the quiz and provide valuable information about their preferences.

Make it fun: Quizzes should be designed to be engaging and fun for customers. For example, you can include fun animations or graphics, or use gamification elements like progress bars to keep customers motivated.

Use the data: Once you have collected information from the quiz, it's important to use that data to improve the customer experience and drive sales. For example, you can use the data to personalize product recommendations, tailor email marketing campaigns, and improve the overall customer journey.

Just about every metric across the board has been better for customers that have gone through our quiz, which is why we direct all paid traffic through the quiz, as well as send customers there via email and sms.

When customers feel great about their choices, it gives us a better chance of ensuring they will:

A: Like the product they’ve purchased because it matches their skin type/skin needs
B: Return and purchase again, as well as potentially share with a friend

Maximizing Results with Octane AI: How JRB Does things

First things first, if you are interested in seeing more about the way JRB sets up our quizzes, here is our quiz landing page so you can take a gander.

As you can see, we’ve got quite a bit going on, as we are giving folks the ability to get the perfect shade across quite a few products, and each product has custom quiz logic set up to ensure people choose correctly and have a stellar brand experience.

Here is our Miracle Balm quiz:

We start off with a wider shade range.

Then narrow down based on choice (I chose medium).

We then continue to collect information about skin conditions to better target marketing.

And some more questions for current + future targeting and messaging,

And a question about usage to give the perfect product suggestion.

And one last question to get a better idea of our customer demographic.

We then collect responses via email.

Here is what a response page would look like. Your ideal shade, reviews, social proof, education, and a thoughtful upsell.

Most of our customers have gone through a quiz at some point in their customer journey, and the data we have is nothing short of otherworldly. Using this data, we not only can target better on future launches based on their shade and skin tone, but have a really rich customer profile that we can continue to build.

That's it for this week!

P.S. Octane also has another AI app coming out soon that we have tested which is pretty insane. I can’t share much on that given that it is still in closed alpha, but feel free to apply to join the Octane Collective if you’d like to get early access (as well as part ownership in Octane):

Any topics you'd like to see me cover in the future?

Just shoot me a DM or an email!

See you next week,

Eli 💛