QOTD: When Is Your Birthday?

Our latest Question Of The Day may be short and sweet on the surface, but the addition of follow-up questions and self-segmentation insights can turn it into a proprietary personalization powerhouse.

Question Architecture

Naturally, this question uses our Date Question Type format. What’s worth noting there is that we allow brands to omit the Year field if desired — and unless you’re reverse-engineering your brand’s age demographics from this birthday response, we’d suggest you opt for this version (and yes, this data format still works with all integrations).

User testing has revealed this format to produce slightly higher response rates, and regardless of performance, it’s always a positive reflection on your brand to ask only for the data you need.

If you’re planning to provide some specific benefit to the customer on their birthday, it’s also a good idea to say so in our Description field.

Use Cases: Personalization

The birthday use case is already ingrained in many a marketer’s brain, but what may not be immediately obvious is the benefit of combining this information with other direct-from-consumer data. You can do this independently of whatever data you currently collect, or you could pose the birthday question as a conditional follow-up to some particular response elsewhere in your Question Stream. Here are a few examples:

• Reason for buying . If your customer has already told you (or shown with their wallet) that they’re more interested in new & exclusive offers rather than discounts, why disrespect them and your margin by sending one? Instead, dream up an engaging experience that unlocks exclusively on someone’s birthday.
• Previous product purchased . You might have some product lines or categories which naturally complement each other, so the idea of a discount or gift that specifically expands the usefulness of your customer’s original purchase can turn a passive user into an advocate.
• Location . ‘Tis the season for the region: in keeping with the tactics above, your brand’s birthday gift/offer should aim to impact brand perception, not discount your value. If you already knew where your customers live, and now you know their birthday, then you’ve got a good idea what their environment is like on that day. A segment of U.S. customers with birthdays in Oct & Nov sounds like a great target for gifting your pumpkin spice flavored beverage, yes?

Any way you slice it, implementing a hyper-targeted birthday workflow like this one in Klaviyo will be a piece of cake. Yes, we saved the birthday puns for last.