Learn how this premium travel backpack brand uses a product recommendation quiz to guide shoppers to the perfect bag, capture emails, and gather zero-party data for personalized marketing.

Founded by childhood friends Fred and Jeremy after a challenging backpacking trip in 2009, Tortuga was born out of the need for the perfect travel backpack. The duo experienced firsthand the perils of traveling with ill-suited gear, inspiring them to craft a solution.
Today, Tortuga not only offers top-tier travel backpacks but also supports youth travel through scholarships and partnerships. The brand is a pure DTC play, doing all of their sales via their online store.
As a premium travel backpack brand in a crowded market, Tortuga struggled to help customers find the right bag for their needs amongst 20+ similar looking products. Shoppers were overwhelmed and reluctant to purchase the pricier Tortuga bags without guidance.
Tortuga realized the need to help guide shoppers through a product recommendation. A quiz was the solution they needed. The quiz asks travelers about their specific needs and recommends the ideal Tortuga backpack based on the customer's travel style.
The primary focus of Tortuga's quiz is three-fold: Guide shoppers to the most appropriate product and improve the shopping experience. Capture emails to build direct relationships with customers. And gather zero-party data about shoppers—their travel needs, demographics, and preferences.

By answering a few simple questions, customers determine the right bag for their needs. The recommendation includes appropriate upsells to increase Average Order Value—suggesting complementary products like packing cubes and tech organizers.

Questions about trip duration, airline preferences, and packing habits
20% opt-in rate despite being optional—higher than any other lead magnet
Collect insights on travel needs, demographics, and preferences
Recommend complementary products like packing cubes and organizers
See what Octane AI can do for your brand
Founded by childhood friends Fred and Jeremy after a challenging backpacking trip in 2009, Tortuga was born out of the need for the perfect travel backpack. The duo experienced firsthand the perils of traveling with ill-suited gear, inspiring them to craft a solution.

Today, Tortuga not only offers top-tier travel backpacks but also supports youth travel through scholarships and partnerships. The brand is a pure DTC play, doing all of their sales via their online store.
As a premium travel backpack brand in a crowded market, Tortuga struggled to help customers find the right bag for their needs amongst 20+ similar looking products. Shoppers were overwhelmed and reluctant to purchase the pricier Tortuga bags without guidance.

Especially as an online shopping experience, it was hard for customers to understand the difference between the bags as they looked similar on a screen. Tortuga realized the need to help guide shoppers through a product recommendation.
A quiz was the solution they needed.
The quiz would ask travelers about their specific needs, and recommend the ideal Tortuga backpack based on the customer's needs.
“The quiz is extremely helpful to help them find what products best fit their travel style, their needs. And regulations, if they're flying international or more of like a budget carrier where they charge you for a carry on versus a personal item.”
–Ben Beck, Director of Marketing, Tortuga Backpacks
The primary focus of Tortuga's quiz is three-fold:
This information turns out to be invaluable in the email communication with leads and customers. Having a quiz pop up on these types of blog posts helps Tortuga to identify potential customer's travel habits and pain points to personalize content to increase products purchased.
The Bag Finder Quiz delivered the personalized guidance travelers needed while capturing zero-party data to fuel Tortuga's automated emails and product development.
Depending on the specific use case, customers would get different content. For example, Tortuga could identify the different type of travel use case based on a question like this:

The interactive approach immediately solved both customer confusion and provided a boost across Tortuga's business. By answering a few simple questions, customers were able to determine the right bag for their needs.
And the recommendation includes appropriate upsells, to increase Average Order Value:

Here are some stats shared by Benjamin Beck, Director of Marketing at Tortuga:
Quiz data allows for personalized marketing messages based on travel style.
“We have about a 20% opt in rate, which is better than any other lead magnet or any other offer that we've been testing even though it's not required to add an email. And about 91 percent of store visitors who start the quiz complete it.”
–Ben Beck, Director of Marketing, Tortuga Backpacks
Furthermore, the quiz results revealed opportunities where Tortuga's product offering was not meeting customer needs, allowing product improvements. This is the often unseen benefit of quizzes—how it contributes to product insights and developments, shared directly by customers.
The quiz collects zero-party data on customer travel preferences and needs. Tortuga uses this data to improve their marketing.
Specifically, segmenting their email list becomes far more precise with the data captured in the quiz, with nurture campaigns personalized based on traveler type.
This has a downstream impact on how Tortuga runs its marketing automations, and integrations with their Customer Relationship Management systems. And lastly, they have expanded their product line with data-driven insights from thousands of customers and potential customers.
“We've seen a really high correlation between quiz completions and purchases.”
–Ben Beck, Director of Marketing, Tortuga Backpacks
Here is a recap video where Ben explains how he has improved conversion rates and opt in rates with the Octane quiz:
The Bag Finder Quiz delivered exceptional results across engagement, lead generation, and conversion metrics.
A vast majority of users who started the quiz completed it, indicating exceptionally high engagement
Even though email is optional, one in five users provided their email—surpassing all other lead generation methods
Users who completed the quiz converted at a rate much higher than the overall site average
Quiz data reveals unmet customer needs, informing product roadmap and new SKU development
"The quiz is extremely helpful to help them find what products best fit their travel style, their needs. And regulations, if they're flying international or more of like a budget carrier where they charge you for a carry on versus a personal item."
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