We recently sat down with Digioh CEO Rishi Shah to discuss some of the challenges faced by marketers and his advice to streamline your marketing efforts. We dive deep into the benefits of using Digioh over free alternatives before talking about how to grow your list, capture more data, and get more repeat customers. Read on for Rishi’s valuable insights on the importance of launching fast and iterating for success, the power of A/B testing, and more.
Jump ahead to read a summary of Rishi's tips:
- Launch Fast, Then Iterate
- Be Intentional
- Test and Refresh More Often
- Reasons eCommerce Businesses Struggle
Many ESPs offer their own email and SMS capture lightboxes. Why should brands use Digioh’s lightboxes over a default capture tool?
RS: So there's a bunch of things. The first thing is, most people do a 10% offer, right? And they kind of leave it and forget about it. And the pop-up captures so many emails and drives so much revenue. It's the first thing people see on your website, but some marketers never think about it. If that's the first experience on your website, shouldn't you be thinking 10x more about it?
If this pop-up is the first experience shoppers see, let's be careful about it. Let's be intentional about it, let's test it. Let's make sure it's converting. Let's tie it to your analytics system to see performance.
And let's A/B test that, right? Test 10% off versus 15% off. And sometimes it's not even about the offer—it's about the image, right? Use an on-brand image, use on-brand fonts. Many Digioh alternatives are natively built for email or SMS. They're not built for A/B testing, They're not built for pop-ups. They’re not built for optimization.
A lot of people just collect emails and say, “Hey, yeah, the pop-up is doing well!” But do you really know if it's doing well? Is it actually driving those goals in Google Analytics?
So the first question to ask yourself is “Are you being intentional about your email capture?”
The second thing is, “Are you A/B testing?”
Third, “How can you make it dynamic?”
Say you’re selling home appliances and your pop-up says “10% Off Sitewide!” But if your customer is looking at dishwashers, make it say 10% off all dishwashers. Let's be targeted about it. When you're capturing the email, you capture all of that data as well. So if I come to the dishwasher page and I enter my email in, why just pass the email? Let's pass the fact that they're into dishwashers, so that when they're in your email marketing series, let's talk about dishwashers, rather than other home appliances. Are you sending that metadata as well? So that's the other thing. You know, most free providers are only sending the email, or maybe the name and email, or they’re capturing the form. We pass over 15 to 20 different data points.
Capturing email addresses alone isn’t enough. What are you going to message them about?
RS: Exactly. What are you going to message them about?
One reason a lot of eCommerce businesses are struggling right now is they never thought about the full customer lifecycle. They just think about that first sale. It’s not about that first sale. It’s about that second and third. That's what's will make your ad dollars profitable, right? And you're not going to get that unless you get that metadata in there.
I would say, on a technical level, Digioh campaigns generally see an immediate 1% boost over other platforms. Because we're built for pop-ups, our modern JavaScript infrastructure is much better and so it fires more accurately. We also run it on your domain. So it's not a third-party domain. We take your subdomain and that JavaScript runs on your subdomain, so in general Digioh doesn't get blocked by ad blockers. And that's contributes to that 1% boost. Even if all we did was replace it and do nothing else.
In your opinion, what's the most popular Digioh feature or tool?
RS: The most popular tool is probably our quiz. You can ask a series of questions and recommend products, drive a ton of revenue, capture a ton of emails, and it’s super high-engaging.
The reason I think we're seeing a big rise in this is because every site in the world has a pop-up now. The conversion rate on pop-ups has gone down dramatically in the last five years.
Years ago, pop-ups were really new and extremely effective—that's why you see them on every website. But now the numbers have dropped because they think that 10% offer always exists—it’s a “phony offer.” That's the issue. People understand that the 10% off is not going away. If you Google coupons and the brand name, you'll probably find 10% off. So they're not entering email anymore. So now people need a different way to capture email. And that's why quizzes happen really huge.
Quizzes are really cool. You capture a ton of data on the user. You pass all their interests into your email marketing system, so you segment based on that data. And then you're also capturing the email because you offer personalized results in exchange for the email. We also tie all that data to revenue, so that’s huge. It's very exciting!
What new features or tools are you most excited about?
RS: What I'm most excited about is our AI generator. You can type in your company name, your website, a few keywords, and Digioh generates headlines for your pop-ups.
We just did this for a snowboard company. They were running a pop-up with 10% off for all new visitors. And that's a great offer, but our generator was able to do something like “Get 10% off on your first ride.” So the headline is a little bit more on-brand, and a little bit more fun.
And we're going to weave AI into everything we do. So every element of Digioh, there can be AI. You’re going to be able to run a quick A/B test with AI, and come up with quiz questions. That's really exciting! We just launched recently, so I'm excited to see what happens there.
What feature do you think is most underused?
RS: You know, people don't realize we have so many features. There's two underused features.
One is post-checkout quizzes and surveys. Right after a purchase, show a pop-up that asks, “How did you hear about us?” Analytics systems are no longer capturing the full cycle because cookies no longer refresh as much as they used to. Tracking has become a problem. So marketers are struggling to understand “Where should I spend my marketing dollars? What is effective?” If you put a short survey and find out if they found you through Google Ads, or through a friend, you can make your marketing decisions based on real customer data.
The second one is our ability to retarget based on clicks. We can send data to Google Ads and retarget based on it. The Google ad network is massive. So let's say someone clicks “Interested in a Dishwasher,” we can send that data to Google. And now everywhere they go, your audience will see ads like “Hey, for the best dishwashers, come back to our site.” I think that is one of the most underutilized features that you can just turn on in Digioh.
That's great. Because it's actually using the data. I think some people might come to Digioh thinking, “I need to gather more data because I don't have data.” But is there a discrepancy sometimes between collecting data and actually using data? Would you say marketers aren’t using their data enough?
RS: Yeah, no one is using the data. It's surprising. Everyone’s collecting all this data—or they think they're collecting a lot of data, but actually not. Or it's siloed and not actionable. And that's our big thing. We help you collect a lot of data and make it actionable. And then we're going to bring on a team to actually implement these solutions for you.
For example, with quizzes, we send data to your email marketing system, and then create a dynamic email template for you. So it's all personalized. And this can work with any email marketing system.
I went to a marketing conference, and they said the number one issue is most companies don't have manpower. In the last year, economic headwinds have slashed marketing teams in half. We have some customers where the CMO is doing the email marketing. So one thing we're seeing a big rise in is our team coming in and helping to do the work. Yes, they want all this stuff, but they don't have the manpower to actually do it. So automating more and having a team that can just do it is a big trend.
Does it save money for somebody to hire Digioh for lightboxes, rather than doing all of that in-house?
RS: It's going to be 10x cheaper and we're going to get it done within two weeks. So we're seeing that to be a huge advantage.
And you get an experienced team that's done it a million times for other customers, versus marketing teams learning about quizzes and pop-ups as they go.
RS: Yeah they’re learning as they go. And a lot of times, if you launch a quiz in-house and, say, have a ton of drop-off on the second question, it's really hard to make changes. You have to go to the dev team. With us, you can make a quick change pretty easily with our drag-and-drop builder. That's another big difference. We want to empower the marketing team to do things on their own without having to bug the dev team. So cheaper, faster, but it's also more ROI generating. After you launch something, it doesn't end there. You have to see the analytics, find where there’s drop-off, and then iterate on it constantly.
I especially like when customers use all of our tools together. So they're doing a pop up, right? Let’s say they’re doing an exit intent pop-up. Someone leaves the site without making a purchase, you do a pop up. But they don't opt in. Maybe on their next visit you show a pop-up that says, “Hey, take our quiz, right?” And if they take the quiz then and you know a little bit more about them, then show a banner that says “Free shipping on your recommended product.” Then, if they still haven't made a purchase, try a 30% offer on all shampoos if you know that that's the shampoo they want. Just continually iterating to get them to make that first purchase.
What percentage of Digioh customers are that level of involved in the customer journey?
RS: I think I would say about 30%, so not as much as I wish. And that's something that we're changing in our business as well. Now we're trying to get all these things built out for the customer on day one. “Hey, these are the three things I can get done in two days. These are things that we can do in seven days.” And then we bring on a design team, we bring on our project manager, we bring in an integration specialist. So we're just going to implement all these strategies for the customer on day one—with their fonts, colors, and integrations with their existing marketing stack.
So you can build everything—your quiz, your pop-ups, your exit-intent offers—and create a customer journey, instead of just showing the same offers over and over.
RS: Yeah and what we can also do for existing customers is we can re-engage. You know, we're happy to come in and help and become that marketing team for them.
So we're excited about everything that's happening. I think we can move faster as well. We're automating a lot of our platform with AI as well. There's a lot coming up there.
What advice would you give to a new customer to get the most out of Digioh?
RS: The one piece of advice I would offer is to launch fast and then iterate. People get hung up on every detail. People should be detail-oriented, but we have some quizzes where the customer spent months debating very specific things. Then they launch it and they have a massive drop-off on question three, for example. You're going to have to change it up anyway.
So I like to launch things, learn, and just quickly change it up. So don't get held back on the details. Launch quickly. That's the point of our tool: launch quickly, then iterate on it.
I think with pop-ups, people don't A/B test enough. Just a simple image change, not even an offer. You know, 10% versus 20% off—that sometimes doesn't move the needle. But an on-brand image, a different image with someone looking at you or like a dessert instead of a dinner item—you could see 50, 60, 70% incremental lift. The average eCommerce email address is worth about $300. So just think about that, 50% of incremental lift, that's a massive longtail headwind of what you could do. So I think people do a set-it-and-forget strategy, which I don't think is the right thing to do. You gotta change it up.
Why do you think people set it and forget it?
RS: People are busy. I mean, no one's got time, right? Modern marketers aren't just doing email. They're not just doing SMS. They’re not just doing on-site. They're wearing so many hats. They're doing SEO. They're doing paid acquisition. We're just one of 15 tools they have to think about. And they have other fires to tame.
And I understand, you know? Just think about our own marketing team, right? We have so much going on. And so once something's working, it's kind of like “Hey, let’s move on to the next one” That's where I think our AI tools will really help.
How often should a customer make an iterative change or refresh something?
RS: I would say every three months, at a minimum. Just email us and be like, “Hey, what do you recommend?” And our team is so good that they'll look at your site and recommend some stuff. Or just go into Digioh, click on our headline generator and just like get some ideas.
We also launch new products all the time. So, for example, if you think about the last 12 months, we've launched like four new features that 90% of our customers don’t even know about, but definitely should use. We have a lot of customers that when they sign up, they're actually removing 6 or 7 tools and Digoh is going to replace all of that. So you can think of Digioh almost like a super app. You can replace your survey tool, your quiz tool, your abandonment technology, your pop-ups, your contact forms. So we could replace 6 or 7 tools to make it worthwhile.
That's awesome. This was super helpful!
RS: Thank you. This is awesome. This was so fun!
Rishi’s Tips
Here are some key takeaways from Rishi about how to get the most out of your marketing efforts and optimize your campaigns.
Launch Fast, Then Iterate
- You can discover more opportunities to improve when you launch quickly and test.
- Don’t worry about tiny details that delay launch for weeks or months.
- Check in every 3 months to see how you can improve.
- Customers who switch to Digioh see an immediate 1% boost, so don’t hesitate to make the switch.
Be Intentional
- Email and SMS capture pop-ups are the first experience a visitor sees—test it, update it, and make sure it’s converting.
- Capturing metadata is just as important as getting the email address.
- Display specific products and categories based on what your visitors are browsing.
- Capture more than just a name and email address—collect and pass 15 or 20 points of data that you can use to target and personalize.
- Think about the full life cycle of the customer journey.
Test and Refresh More Often
- A/B testing increases conversions.
- Test more than just offers—refresh your images and run tests to see how they perform.
- An eCommerce email address is worth about $300. Any incremental boost in conversions is very valuable.
- Use the Digioh AI Headline Generator to create more engaging headlines and run multivariate tests to determine the best one.
- Make updates regularly and reach out to our team for optimization strategies and advice.
Reasons eCommerce Businesses Struggle
- Pop-up conversions have gone down because shoppers assume the welcome discount can be found on any coupon site.
- ECommerce businesses that don’t consider the full lifecycle of the customer are struggling right now.
- In-house teams have been slashed and marketers have a lot on their plate.
- They use a set-it-and-forget-it approach and miss opportunities to improve conversions
Whether you’re a new or existing customer with Digioh, reach out if you’d like to discuss some ideas on how to refresh your existing pop-ups, forms and quizzes.
