Pop-ups are an invaluable tool for any marketer looking to increase their subscribers and overall sales for their business. We examine the best pop-up practices for your business.
Pop-ups.
The mere mention of the word raises concern for a lot of businesses owners.
“They’re annoying”, is the most common concern we hear.
But are they really annoying your customer or is that just your perception?
Pop-ups for Lead Generation
Well, the stats are in, and the results are clear: pop-ups work.
Pop-ups work so well, in fact, that Pop-Up Software Sumo found that users collected 23,645,948 email addresses in less than two years.
Those email addresses represent an invaluable source of data for marketers to scale their businesses, given that 59% of marketers say email marketing provides the highest ROI for their businesses.
And it’s not just emails that you can collect with pop-ups, it can be phone numbers, company data, etc. They’re incredibly versatile and can be quite personal when used effectively.
Forget what you think about pop-ups and go with what you now know: they’re incredibly effective at generating leads and revenue for your business.
Failure to use them strategically is sheer neglect of your businesses potential.
Here are 7 ways to use pop-ups for lead generation and build a strategy that generates massive amounts leads and revenue.
1: Exit-Intent Pop-Ups
It’s well documented that roughly 97% of users don’t convert the first time they’re visiting your website.
And roughly 2/3rds will never return.
Just think of how much potential revenue you’re leaving on the table every time they navigate to leave your website.
The best way to tackle this problem is with exit-intent pop-ups to generate leads.
Here’s an example of how Optin Monster uses exit-intent pop-ups effectively on their website:
This is presented when the user hovers over the ‘cross’ button and is an attempt to salvage their details for future retargeting efforts.
Here’s another example of exit-intent pop-ups from online advertising website Wordstream:
They use a Lead Magnet to tempt you to part with your data, offering high-value content in return for your personal contact details.
Here’s what happens when you click on the ‘Download Now’ button:
Just think of how valuable that data is to WordStream. They’ll now know you’re interested in Google Ads and can target you with specific products/services related to that.
An intelligently designed Lead Magnet can also then upsell the potential customer to your products/services, gradually introducing them throughout the content while providing you with a rich source of information for free. A win-win for the company and customer.
2: Slide-in Scroll Box
The slide-in scroll box pop-up is a non-invasive way of capturing leads without affecting the user experience of your website.
Here’s an example using the Lead Magnet we designed for our friends at OMBucha:
The slider also follows the user down the page as they scroll, catching their eye and incentivising them to register.
See how the slide-in pop-up works here with Optin Monster’s demo video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dj0cUA4ZZM
The content you provide can vary based on location, the number of times a visitor has come to your website and more.
3: Inline Forms
Inline pop-up forms work fantastic when integrated into your blog posts or content.
They can be custom-designed and seamlessly insert into the text wherever you want them to appear.
We usually recommend clients to place them at the end of blog posts or somewhere in the middle when they’re engaged with a piece of content to maximise sign-ups.
Here are a few examples of Inline Forms to register conversions:
Our suggestion with Inline Forms is to use them to deliver your Lead Magnet or some other form of exciting content that provides value to your readers.
Since they’ll mainly see these forms when reading content, it’s not necessary to entice them with discounts to sign-up - it devalues your product/service when done excessively and is unnecessary.
Instead, use premium content that engages them further, before funneling the customer through to your pre-purchase automation sequence.
4: Fullscreen Takeover
An extremely powerful way of capturing leads is the Fullscreen Takeover pop-up, also known as “Welcome gates” or “Welcome mats”.
These usually present themselves within the first minute a prospect lands on your site, although you can place them on specific pages in a more targeted manner.
Here’s a couple of great examples:
For fullscreen takeover pop-ins can even reduce your bounce rate. It’s pretty hard to ignore a full-screen immersion that welcomes you with such a juicy offer!
5: Quiz or Custom Survey
A quiz or custom survey is another powerful way of engaging your potential customers.
The beauty of a survey-style pop-up is that the information it collects is extremely personal and invaluable to marketers for retargeting purposes.
Neil Patel uses this to effect on his own website to collect extremely warm leads on his blog section:
Once you start the quiz, you’re presented with a series of questions about your business.
The kicker, of course, is that you have to add your email to find out how much traffic you actually should be getting.
While the conversion rate may drop slightly on these types of pop-ups, if you program them correctly, the data is extremely granular and allows you to proposition in an irresistible way given you’ll have a solid understanding of your prospects exact marketing needs.
6: Coupon Wheels
Also known as ‘gamification pop-ups’, coupon wheels are a fantastic method for Ecommerce sites to skyrocket conversions through the roof.
These pre-programmed coupon wheels are particularly engaging for Ecommerce style businesses where the goal is to use discount incentives to encourage people to part with their emails.
Not only are Coupon Wheel pop-ups effective for generating leads, but they can also encourage sales by encouraging utilisation of the discount incentive people receive when they ‘spin the wheel’.
If you're in the Ecommerce space, coupon wheels are one of the highest converting pop-ups for lead generation you can use.
7: Content Locker
Content Locker’s are an excellent way for blogs and news-based websites to encourage users to subscribe for more content.
Eminent websites such as The Economist and The Times use content locker’s in a similar manner to Inline Forms to pave the way to unlocking their full journalism.
In this example, The Economist provides a snippet of an engaging article before using a paid subscription to entice users.
The Spectator provides both a free and subscription gateway to filter people through their funnel.
You can even use Content Locker pop-ups on high-value blog content on your website to encourage users to subscribe to read the full article.
Conclusion: Pop-Ups Work
Despite what the naysayers say, pop-ups have never been more in demand and effective at increasing conversions for your online business.
At Magnet Monster, we’ve seen from our own eCommerce email marketing case studies just how powerful implementing these pop-ups can be.
Contact us today for a free consultation on the most effective way to generate leads for your own website and stop leaking potential customers.
Have you tried pop-ups for your online business? Share examples in the comments below!
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