How We Increased Subscribers By 141% With A Website Pop-Up

Website pop-ups work.

There is no way around this reality no matter how much you may despise them.

When Sumo aggregated the data on almost 2 billion website pop-ups, they found that the average pop-up converted at 3.09% and the best ones converted at around 9.28%.

Imagine what your email list (and business) would look like if you converted 9 of every 100 visitors.

Case in point is a client that onboarded with us recently who had a small email list and little strategy when it came to growing their audience.

While I can’t provide specifics with respect to the client or their audience (confidentiality), I can tell you that we grew their email list by a whopping 141% in just 30 days with a generic website pop-up.

Our conversion rate was 8.39%.

It’s imperative, as a marketer or a business owner, that you understand how wild that statistic is. A pop-up can shoot your business through the roof.

How do you create a pop-up that converts?

For the purposes of this post, I am going to keep your pop-up strategies simple. What matters out of the gate isn’t having a pop-up for top, middle, and bottom of the funnel visitors…it’s just getting your pop-up working and converting.

Welcome Pop-up

1-5 seconds after someone visits your website, you should hit them with a pop-up that provides them with some kind of value. Value can be in the form of a PDF, white paper, discount code, or another kind of lead magnet.

Your welcome pop-up should also set expectations where possible. This is effectively a value proposition.

Here’s an example of a full page pop-up with a concise value proposition from Tim Ferriss:

Pro tip: Have a checkbox or a CAPTCHA to avoid having spam emails sign-up for your newsletter. I also suggest turning on double opt-in to avoid against spam and to improve deliverability.

Value Pop-Up

I didn’t know what else to call this kind of pop-up, so I called it a value pop-up.

These kinds of pop-ups will provide you with insight into something in exchange for your email address. Think, “Take our quiz to find out how ready your business is for Black Friday”. You give them your email in exchange for something valuable.

Exit Pop-up

Perhaps the most annoying of all the pop-ups is the exit pop-up. Now don’t let its annoying nature prevent you from testing its effectiveness.

Lots of annoying things work…like 2FA and taxes (lol!).

Exit pop-ups display on-screen when someone navigates towards an exit from your website. Because the person may never come back, it’s probably a good idea to hit them up with something extra valuable.

A final word on pop-ups…

Given the annoying but effective nature of pop-ups, don’t overdo it, okay?

Try one website pop-up at a time and work on optimising them for conversion rate. You aren’t a sleazy used car salesman so don’t act like one.

Also, don’t shame people into giving their email address.

Like what the hell, man? You sound like a child.

“Wanna see what’s behind my back?”

“No.”

“Fine! Your loss. It’s soooo cool.”

Even if you agree to providing your info, you’re doing it begrudgingly. That’s not the best way to build relationships.

If you come across any great pop-ups, do share links to them beneath this post. I’d love to create a swipe file to share with you all.

Adios amigos,Andrew