Treating Pop-ups As Part Of The Shopping Journey — Taras Talimonchuk | Why Pop-ups Need Strategy, Why Generic Offers Fail, What Drives Customer Retention, How Segmentation Improves Conversion, Why Gamification Adds User Engagement (#472)

In this episode, we explore how to turn website pop-ups into powerful tools for growth instead of annoying distractions. 

Taras Talimonchuk, CMO at Claspo.io, shares why treating every visitor the same with generic discount codes kills your conversion rates. 

We discuss the importance of aligning your pop-up strategy with the customer’s shopping journey, using behavioral segmentation to deliver the right message, and how gamification can boost engagement. 

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• How pop-ups improve the customer journey.
• Why generic discount codes hurt your brand.
• What drives better conversion rates with pop-ups.
• How segmentation creates relevant offers.
• Why behavior tracking increases revenue.
• What role gamification plays in engagement.
• How AI tools automate design alignment.
• Why long-term relationships boost profit.
• What metrics matter for pop-up success.
• How to test pop-ups for better results. 

Links & Resources 

Website: https://claspo.io/
Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/claspo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/79840464/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/claspo_io

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at https://tinyurl.com/38f6cvdf

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Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:30:10
Unknown
The mistake that managers do that they evaluate all existing tents at the one segment. But they are different. They can exist with food cart of goods, of the empty cart. They can leave scrolling categories and Pdp's are not doing that. So different segments and different frisk are suitable for these segments. Hello and welcome to another episode of the E-commerce Coffee Break podcast.

00:00:30:18 - 00:00:46:20
Unknown
Pop ups are everywhere and most feel like noise. The same 10% offer shown to everyone at the wrong time. It might grab emails, but it can hurt your margins and train customers to wait. So today we are looking at a smarter approach how to use pop ups as part of the shopping journey, not just as a quick fix.

00:00:46:23 - 00:01:02:29
Unknown
To break this down, I'm joined by Taras Talimonchuk , who is the CMO at Claspo.io., where he helps TTC brands join pop ups into real revenue drivers. He brings over 12 years of Sass and MarTech experience to our chat, and I'm looking forward to chat to him. Tara, welcome to the show. Hi, close. Thanks for having me.

00:01:03:01 - 00:01:39:06
Unknown
Happy to be here. Tara, Let's jump right in. Most brands choose pop ups as a quick hack to get emails or sales. You say they should be part of the shopping journey. What does that mean in simple terms? Oh, in simple terms is let's imagine an offline store and you're a seller In offline store, you see different people coming to your store and where you can observe that there is rain beginning outside and you see a few people came and it's obvious for you that they are going to buy.

00:01:39:07 - 00:02:17:01
Unknown
They will just they are just looking for a place to to meet until it's raining. So we are not even thinking about that when it's come to offline because it's very obvious we have advertisement and we have a demand of people that saw these ads and came from particular category, for example. And it's very simple, you know, seeing the same needs in online, the behavior and the clothes is why visitors came to our site.

00:02:17:01 - 00:02:51:12
Unknown
They are different and it depends of life cycle journey. It depends. So for traffic sources, many things, a cozy, so called shopping intent. So we are here to investigate these this story, to investigate shopping intent. How can we do it online? How can we define it? And interact with future customer in the proper way, in a reliable way to in the current moment, in real time?

00:02:51:14 - 00:03:16:24
Unknown
Mm hmm. Now, a lot of you merchants out there, small and medium enterprises, they're sort of trained to throw in discount coupons when that pop up comes. So they use 10% off for email or whatever. And that's obviously something very negative. But tell me, what's the problem there? There's no problem with 10% discount, actually, because this is a good mechanic, but not for all people.

00:03:16:26 - 00:03:51:08
Unknown
The problem is in targeting, well, merchants trying to show this one particular offer to all visitors. That's the problem. Very simple segmentation is returning visitors and new visitors. So that's a case where 10% of is good for new visitors, but not good for returning just to sample. Now, I think it's a good example of basically you hurt yourself when you're showing the wrong information at the wrong point in time.

00:03:51:10 - 00:04:16:25
Unknown
Let's talk about a perfect world scenario. So you have your online shop and you're getting traffic to your shop. How do you structure your pop ups that the right message comes at the right time? Yeah. Yeah. So the first thing that's the biggest segment is the first time visitors. Usually it is so. So I would say that's let's start our journey from this point because this is the biggest lever.

00:04:16:27 - 00:04:47:23
Unknown
The first segmentation here is traffic. So you have ads, you have many ads, maybe different channels. For example, you have influencers and you have paid ads in tik-tok or meta ads and different offers are there and depending of what was promised. Yes, in advertising message, you can align it to messaging in a welcome pop up sequence. That's the first point.

00:04:47:25 - 00:05:19:12
Unknown
Another point of segmentation is behavioral. So since we got this new is it we we can observe what actions is following actions that we to do in our website and we can make the segments those who are hesitating, for instance, they're hesitating and we probably will will last them at this time as customers, but we can establish a connection with that.

00:05:19:15 - 00:05:58:21
Unknown
We can play with their engage in subscription game and it can be it can be not too interruptive to present discount offer. It can be interesting quiz, it can be a game. So such kind of interaction that will help us to establish a connection with brand. The exit intent is probably the most popular when it comes to pop ups because it is obvious that you don't interrupt anything because exit intent triggers when someone want to leave shop.

00:05:58:24 - 00:06:39:03
Unknown
But again, the mistake that merchants do that, they evaluate all existing tense and the one segment, but they are different. They're different. They can exist with food cart of goods or with an empty cart. They can leave scrolling categories and pdp's or not doing that. So different segments and different frisk are suitable for this happens. Mm hmm. So what you're basically saying is you try to guide the customers through their customer journey and you're not really pushing messages wildly into their face.

00:06:39:03 - 00:06:58:12
Unknown
So everything you do has an intent and there's a reasoning behind it. Now, was the old apps that were out there were basically very, very static. Now, from what I hear and what you just told us is this is a very dynamic process. So there is a lot of data points there. There's a lot of interaction there. Talk me through it.

00:06:58:12 - 00:07:27:27
Unknown
How does it work? How do you set up a system that reacts with the right message at the right time? We have specific features for defining the traffic source. So the most simple one, and I think that most marketers understand UTM get parameters in the URL address. So it requires, of course, not only classical efforts but marketers effort to it.

00:07:27:29 - 00:08:18:03
Unknown
Most of marketers are marking with utmost channel sources. So it's it's clear when it comes to defining the behavior onsite, our script tracking events. So we see visitor we see what what actions he or she completed. And depending of these action we have, we have built the segment for showing these. So that message and another point is that what our users can do, they can do it by themselves because we allow to play with target things, to play with personalization, to play with this logistics, and then any content.

00:08:18:05 - 00:08:56:23
Unknown
But they also can just ask us as classical to make autopilot a B testing, which means that our engine will define the segments, will play with different messages and leave the best performing one. So it's will work like, like, like Google ads, where you start with a good template, which is good enough to start. But then you continue to improving every stage, improving targeting, improving messaging and your conversion group.

00:08:56:25 - 00:09:28:00
Unknown
And another point here, also what we do differently from other tools, we are we tracking conversion rate to optimize conversion rate to click or protocol actuation. It is important, but which what is most meaningful is to track revenue per visitor because from first sight you can see that okay, this offer converts so many subscribers, but most of them are disconnected hunters.

00:09:28:02 - 00:09:49:27
Unknown
They just use your coupon once and say goodbye. But business want to build a long term relationship. That's why now they have popups and other messages will win in this term. In terms of long term revenue, it already shows there is a lot of things going on in the background with classical, which I love and you mentioned briefly.

00:09:50:03 - 00:10:31:04
Unknown
It's also a way to get more gamified user experience to basically bring in games into the conversation. How does that work? Actually, yes, The game is something that helped to to turn regular, dull scrolling into another sort of interaction. So in in the perspective of psychology, when we are playing, the doesn't mean level exceeds. So yes it is like a but it is yeah, it looks like manipulation, but it is normal manipulation to spell manipulation between business and customer, between people.

00:10:31:06 - 00:11:17:12
Unknown
You're playing games. So this is a good point for experimentation. But also the to be to be honest, you have to be careful with games. Not all segments, not all, no, not all phases of customer journey are good for offering a game for a welcome bonus, for instance. It's very good for exit intent vs empty cart. It's also good, but it's not good for cart abandonment recovery because if you have customers that for some reason leaving your site with food cart of goods and this is not a good place for playing roulette or any other game memory card scratchcards, does it matter?

00:11:17:15 - 00:11:56:24
Unknown
This is another case. So yes, we are. We are sick about games, to be honest. We see how it performs. We see our customers like fashion brands. Man, stay. It was so it was so big pleasure to hear that we sold 50 to 50% of our collection until it's a period on the store. So using the pre-sale gamification pop up, I was happy to hear because it's a it was like good a realization of gamification.

00:11:56:27 - 00:12:15:09
Unknown
Now I like this approach and what I want to know is obviously and you mentioned this a little bit is like for different brands, for different industries, you need to think about different tools when it comes to pop up. Can you give some examples what works like in a fashion industry, what works well there and what might not work in a B2B shop?

00:12:15:14 - 00:12:57:21
Unknown
I heard from from marketers, from B2B and from fashion. DTC also I heard the phrase is gamification. It is too cheap. It is not so serious for us. We are serious brand It's very interesting objection about gamification I would share with you and the I always saying that let's experiment, let's let's look at it from different point of view because gamification is not something that I did not even banks, financial serious institutions are using gamification.

00:12:57:24 - 00:13:31:03
Unknown
Of course it is shouldn't be like inappropriate. Yes. In the B2B, for example, when you have a deal, you are looking for supply. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. You're looking for full partner and partner telling you, okay, we have a price for all but for you, let's play a game that you will win another price. What it is, I can't imagine that, but the different cases.

00:13:31:06 - 00:14:06:15
Unknown
So the design of game matters, the design of game so you can have a bright pillar will pop up, which is regular and serious B2B brand or fashion brand luxury. But fashion brand will tell that is not ours. So we are offering usually Mystery box is stylish. Mystery box is that aligned properly aligned Every step, every element of the design aligned with the brand boom of this luxury fashion brand.

00:14:06:18 - 00:14:31:28
Unknown
And they see that and until well, okay, let's test it. Let's test. It's interesting. So, yes, two things. It is a it should be right place and should be a good design. Which brings me to my next question, because we touched on the different features that you offer. We touched on what I like a lot AB testing to find out what is the best performing message.

00:14:32:01 - 00:15:05:03
Unknown
Now one question I'm a marketer always comes to mind is like, how can I adjust your solution to my branding, to my look and feel, to my store, to my website? How does that work? Okay, I will share with you what what is already released on approach. We have a you can pick them when you really choose so you can change all the colors to your your brand in one click and also we are preparing for release.

00:15:05:03 - 00:15:46:28
Unknown
It's going to be next months that you will share the euro of Europe site classical will read all the fonts, lines, colors everything and will adopt all our template library. Can you imagine that all our Southern plus templates will be remastered for you to your brand book to your website, but currently you can test it. Just send out to Glasgow and see that it will offer you a different temps that you can choose and choose the best that fits your website.

00:15:47:03 - 00:16:06:26
Unknown
It's another good example on how I can make your life easier. Instead of copying pasting Cullercoats into a dashboard, I does it for you. That is a perfect thing. Taras, can you share some success stories or case studies of business that you have worked with and what kind of results they saw after they have implemented a good pop up strategy?

00:16:06:28 - 00:16:41:15
Unknown
As I mentioned, the one success story is about this 50% sold out of new collection. It was a preorder. Give me five pop up another more complex strategy. It is a fashion brand men's set. It's called men's set. It's DTC Local, DTC in Eastern Europe. And they implemented a complex strategy. So welcome messages, exit content for returning visitors for existing customers.

00:16:41:15 - 00:17:19:27
Unknown
So all the like set and in all months they measured and seen 10% revenue growth in email channel which is very good because you know this is men's underwear like this is the kind of business that were independent from retention channel. And to grow retention channel revenue by 10%. It's good good result now definitely you know it shows the power of pop ups to have them as part of the customer journey.

00:17:20:00 - 00:17:43:24
Unknown
And retention, as you said, is the most important thing. It's so much easier to have a returning customer than to convince a new visitor to your website. On that note, it's like, who's your perfect customer? What kind of brands do you work? Was almost half of our customers. eCommerce and eCommerce are mostly DTC and small and medium plus size.

00:17:43:26 - 00:18:41:01
Unknown
So starting from 50,000 traffic monthly, it became like more evident to see the revenue impact of pop ups starting from these traffic signs. But smaller brands can also just using the best practices that we would do on slow traffic. It's it's normal. Our plans, they allow small brands to to use classical for free. And I would add to our ideal customer profile that a daily it's ecommerce is that a value retention channel that's aimed to build long term relationships with the customers and build the LTV.

00:18:41:03 - 00:19:03:01
Unknown
So in this case, our pop ups, it is a first step and to its point, to long term relationships. Yeah, I think that should be on everyone's list to have returning customers. So to have a good lifetime revenue from them. Of Walk me through the typical onboarding process of a new user. What steps are involved and how long does it take to get up and running?

00:19:03:03 - 00:19:39:04
Unknown
It is minutes. What if you took about how long and the steps are simple, just sign up, then pick a marketing goal. You know, result. And then when you're picking a goal, your template library will advise you just to place that for your marketing goals, not for others. For example, you need to collect feedback. You will not see all these subscription pop ups yet, so it will save your time for a moment.

00:19:39:04 - 00:20:17:14
Unknown
For onboarding, Then you design. So you're you're picking the templates you like and you can ask II to tweak it to to your situation. It means that to your brand, to your marketing campaign goals and so on, or you can do it manually. Wizz Air It will take about a minute manually, probably a few minutes more to change everything, colors, copy, maybe some elements, composition of these components and then setup, targeting and triggering.

00:20:17:14 - 00:20:53:24
Unknown
It can be a few seconds because we give the presets that are like most likely to work good enough based on millions of pop up. Use these presets. I like that. That's something that we imagined hits that are baked presets. But if you if you have a specific idea, so let's add a few minutes to tweak segmentation, triggering rules and so on, and then connect with seamless.

00:20:53:27 - 00:21:31:16
Unknown
If it's Shopify just to install Shopify app, if it's WordPress or WooCommerce to install plugin or just to put script through GTM. So it's a few minutes, I believe so. And then the setup is be into connection. If it's if this pop up is about lead generation or subscription connection, if if you need just to pop up like wisdom timer and coupon without any form, you don't need integration.

00:21:31:16 - 00:22:01:11
Unknown
Easiest be so yes that's pretty much it. The final step that I would say the aha moment is in the analytics dashboard where you can see in real time page views, pop up impressions, clicks, subscriptions and target action that you picked before. Okay, that sounds very straightforward. And for our listeners to do on Shopify, it's literally just assaulting the Shopify app on your up and running.

00:22:01:14 - 00:22:35:03
Unknown
Tell me about your pricing structure. How does how do you charge for your services? As I mentioned before, we are free until three. So then page use monthly and setting. We're searching for 3000. We charge in 29 monthly internet use D monthly. It's pro 5G plan. So it allows you to to have 50,000 pages monthly, all features available in all plans.

00:22:35:03 - 00:23:12:24
Unknown
So we are not limiting by features only by pages. This is the value metric that we use. And if if you're bigger and you need more page use to test to understand where the clear score fits your needs, you can use a free trial. So four weeks free trial can be used. I believe that in four weeks our customers success will help to set up all flows that needed all a bit test that will be useful.

00:23:12:27 - 00:23:38:12
Unknown
So we are helping to generate hypotheses for testing. We are helping to set out these AB tests. So yes, that's this. That's how onboarding works. Yeah, that's very straightforward. And with the free plan, it's basically a no brainer to test it out first before our coffee break comes to an end today. Is there anything you want to share with all our business that we haven't covered yet?

00:23:38:14 - 00:24:19:18
Unknown
I would like to share the some thoughts about the trends in e-commerce that I see and, um, this visionary stuff, you know, it's about the hyper personalization that's boosted with AI and it is very, I find is very interesting because many apps, many interesting technologies in initial search engines occurring charts that are helping to choose the right, the right product chance that's helping even to shop.

00:24:19:21 - 00:24:54:10
Unknown
So many interesting ecommerce trends that we are observing and Crisco being part of that's mostly focused in using AI for right triggering and for hyper personalization. Mm hmm. It's definitely in every corner of the business right now, and I think it's a huge help and lots of motion. See, definitely a revenue increase by by using AI. Where can people go and find out more about classical classical dot IO our website you're welcome to to go to learn more.

00:24:54:12 - 00:25:21:03
Unknown
And also if you are Shopify user, find us from App Store. Clay spoke and if you run store on WordPress or WooCommerce us some plugin category, I will put the links in the show notes. Then you're just one click away. Tara, thanks so much for giving us an overview of what's happening in the world of pop ups. For our listeners who have a bit of a negative side on pop ups.

00:25:21:09 - 00:25:37:20
Unknown
Try it out. Pops up Facebook. I used them for years and years in my own shop and they make a huge difference. So try pop ups tried last fall. You will see that there will be definitely a uptick in sales in your business. Tara, thanks so much for your time today. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your time.

00:25:37:21 - 00:25:48:10
Unknown
Bye bye.