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Today, I’m diving into a little bit of a controversial email marketing topic: pop up forms.
Now, if you’re cringing at the thought of adding a pop up form to your website. I hear you. We’ve all had a negative experience with a pop up before.
I’m sure you can recall a time when you were pinned down by an inescapable pop up or asked to sign up to something completely irrelevant to what you were on the website for.
But pop ups can also be extremely effective and quite frictionless when they’re done well.
I’ve worked with brands that have seen pop up conversion rates of upwards of 75% – which is huge. Imagine 75% of the people seeing your pop up form and converting to your mailing list. That’s some awesome growth.
Wondering how big your mailing list needs to be? Read this blog to find out.
If your current opinion of pop ups is that they’re annoying, spammy and a little bit cringey, then you’re not alone.
But, if I had a dollar for every time I went to a brand or business’s website to sign up for their emails and was physically unable to, I’d be very rich.
As an email marketer, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. But the research actually supports me in this. 72% of people join brand mailing lists because:
- They want to know more about a specific topic, or
- They want to stay up to date with a brands content
So, I know I’ve said this before, but I just want to say it again to really drive it home.
People want to hear from you.
Email marketing is not inherently spammy or inherently annoying and neither are pop ups.
So, how can you do a pop up experience well?
Making your pop up relevant
When you think about a pop up your mind might go immediately to design.
- The visuals
- The copy
- The call to action
But first and foremost, I want you to be thinking about the relevance of that pop up.
When I say relevance, I mean where you’re placing the pop up on your website, how you’re timing it and how frequently it “pops” up.
1. Pop up placement
The first question I want you to answer is this: does your pop up need to sit on every page of your website?
Consider if your pop up is relevant to every person that’s visiting your site.
For example, if you offer a suite of services or products that are targeting different customer segments, then you’re probably not going to want to include the same pop up on every single page.
2. Pop up timing
How quickly, or slowly, is your pop up going to appear when someone lands on your site?
Like I mentioned before, we’ve all had that terrible experience of being immediately punched in the face by a pop up as soon as you land on a website.
That’s probably not an experience you want to emulate. So I’d encourage you to set your pop ups on a delay. Or make them behavior-based.
For example, this could be an exit pop up. So, if someone is going to leave your website, you could have a pop up that has a discount or offer.
3. Pop up frequency
If someone submits your pop up form, they should ideally never see it again. Nothing is worse than signing up for something and then continually seeing it, even though you’ve already accepted what is being advertised.
But equally, if someone isn’t interested in your pop up, don’t hammer them over the head with it again and again and again.
Make sure you’re setting up frequency caps and delays between how frequently your pop up can be shown.
The ideal number of times someone sees your pop up is going to depend on what you’re offering and who your audience is. I recommend you play around with this and find what works for you.
If you’re looking for a platform to help you conduct some experimentation, I would highly recommend Optimonk. This platform has both free and paid versions of its service.
In summary
- Think about what pages your pop ups should sit on
- Think about when your pop up should appear
- Think about how frequently someone should see your pop up
Designing your pop up form
When you’re thinking about designing your pop up, there are a handful of important elements to consider.
1. Make your copy clear and to-the-point
Copy is a huge one. I would encourage you to use as few words as possible.
Research shows that 80% of people who see a piece of content will only read the headline. And with pop ups, I’d say we’re even worse. So use your words wisely, get to the point quickly and remove any and all fluff.
2. Have an obvious CTA
Just like your pop up copy should be to-the-point, so should your CTA. But I would add that it should be extremely prominent.
Make sure your CTA button is clear, is obvious and is in contrast with the rest of the form. This makes it super easy to submit.
And on the note of being easy to submit, keep in mind that the fewer fields you include in your form, the less you’re trying to capture from your customer and the more likely they are to submit.
If you’re only asking for an email address and a first name, your form is much more likely to convert than a form asking for their full name, date of birth, company name, address and job description.
3. Use bold visuals
Something that’s extremely overlooked when it comes to pop up design is the visuals. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text and 90% of information that is transmitted to the brain is visual.
So, the visuals of your form matter. And the more visual you can get without being too distracting or overwhelming, the better.
4. Optimise for mobile
On the note of visuals, it’s really important to think about your mobile experience as well as your desktop experience.
Coming back to the point of placement, think about if your pop up form is going to show on mobile or tablet devices. Because so much website traffic these days comes from a mobile device, I would highly recommend you opt to show it there, too.
Keep in mind, you may need to amend your design to be suitable for these types of devices.
5. Make it easy to exit your pop up
There are two really big pop up design mistakes I want to help you avoid. The first is making your pop up difficult to escape from.
If someone isn’t interested in a pop up, or it simply isn’t the right time for them to be entertaining the message you’re showing them, then they shouldn’t be struggling to find the “X” button.
Closing a pop up should take less than a second. If it takes longer than that, your would-be customer is going to get annoyed.
6. Avoid using shame tactics
The last thing I’d really encourage you to avoid is shaming your website visitor into taking an action.
For instance, when someone tries to exit a pop up form, they might have to click a button that says “No, thanks. I don’t like making money” or “No, thanks. I love paying full price”.
While I can understand the psychology behind this tactic, I think more often than not, it comes across as patronising and creates a negative experience for your customers.
