Pop-ups are one of the most effective ways to do this and, with the Convertiply extension, you can create beautiful, effective designs that engage your customers. What is a conversion rate? Your conversion rate is the percentage of site visitors that make a purchase — the percentage of people you convert from visitors to buyers. Pop-ups are more than just lead capture, use them to create a site-wide experience that nurtures visitors from their email opt-in to post-purchase messaging. Segment your audience and serve personalized experiences to each of your customers based on what messages will be most relevant.
It’s pretty obvious by now that pop up promotions are a key part of driving conversions for the top eCommerce brands and businesses. Yet many are still skeptical of the benefit that pop ups can provide in both lead generation and overall sales conversion. You may be looking to drive your visitors to subscribe to your mailing list or check out your clearance section. You also may want to drive individuals to purchase by providing promo codes. These are all actions that you want to encourage visitors to take, and pop up overlays provide the most effective way to accomplish this.
In this post, we will take a look at why pop up promotions are a must for any website and how you can improve your website experience with proven tactics.
Why Pop Ups Work
In order to convert shoppers into leads and sales you need to do two things.
- Setting up your marketing conversion funnel is as easy as adding those URLs as steps. You can also set up different funnels for different goals on your site. For example, if you’re tracking contact form submissions for a specific service, you might start with the URL of your general service page, then the URL of that service’s specific page.
- 1: Align your pop-up design with your website design. The best-converting pop-ups are the ones which feel like they’re part of your website experience. As a visitor, there’s nothing worse than a pop-up which feels like an ad. Here are a few actionable tips to adapt your pop-up to your brand identity: Use the same colors.
- To drive people to take action, you must engage them with an actual action to take. You wouldn’t expect an answer from someone without asking a question first, right
- You must provide something of relevant value to your visitors. If they see value in what you’re offering, they’ll be much more inclined to take the action you’re calling for. In many cases, this is a subscription to your newsletter or completing a purchase.
When it comes to how color use can impact the performance of a landing page, some of the least intuitive changes can produce a significant lift. Read on to learn how the MECLABS research team used a simple pop-up overlay on a landing page to increase account sign-ups 63%.
Pop ups have proven time and time again that they are the most effective way of converting your website visitors. In one conversion rate optimization study, an eCommerce brand increased email sign ups by 758% and boosted sales conversion rate by 50% with a simple addition of a discount pop up. Other pop up studies have shown doubling conversion rates and almost no negative effect on bounce rates.
Why Use a Pop Up?
While some people bash on pop up overlays for being annoying and disrupting website visits, others are using them to achieve tremendous conversion results. Look at the top eCommerce brands, world-class bloggers, successful SaaS businesses, and global online publications; they’re all using pop ups! Why is this the case?
The short and simple answer is that they work very well. The main purpose of a pop up is to engage website visitors with a visible and strong call-to-action that will drive them to take the desired action. The reason why pop up promotions are so effective is in large part due to the typical consumer of today.
The consumer has a short attention span, little brand loyalty, and are always looking for ways that they can receive value. With an pop up, you engage visitors in a way that they can’t ignore and can drive the actions you want with visible calls-to-action and incentives.
Convert a Higher Percentage of your Traffic
Around 98% of people that come to your website will leave without converting into a lead or sale. This is not ideal, especially when most of the focus today is on driving traffic. To convert traffic you have to engage your visitors. Using these promotions allow you to engage visitors with enticing offers and content that drive them to take the actions you want them to take.
Build your Email List
The only thing your email sign up form is doing up in the corner of your website is collecting virtual dust. Present your sign up form in a highly visible place with a strong call-to-action by using a pop up. You can also add incentives like discounts, free shipping, and contest entry to drive more sign ups.
Drive More Sales
You can drive more sales both directly and indirectly with onsite promotions. Drive sales directly with sales promotions at key points in the purchasing process (product pages, cart, and checkout pages). By converting more of your traffic, you will also have the ability to drive these visitors back to your site at another time. We have to remember that people make purchasing decisions at different times and different paces. We constantly need to re-engage our contacts to drive sales over time.
Reduce Cart Abandonment and Bounce Rates
Exit offers provide one more opportunity to convert visitors into a lead or sale. With around 78% of all shopping carts ending up abandoned, it’s key that you have tactics in place to keep people on your site and incentivize them to purchase. Consider implementing exit offers from the cart page to directly target those cart abandoners – a tactic that increased KUTOA’s sales conversion by 187%!
Pop Up Best Practices
Add a Delay
In order for visitors to experience your site, they actually need to see it. Adding a delay of 10-15 seconds to your pop up will allow visitors to form an opinion on your website. While 10-15 seconds isn’t a huge delay, we must keep in mind that 55% of visitors will leave your site within 15 seconds. Keeping within this range will open you up to more conversion opportunities. You can choose your own delay length to fit your onsite marketing needs.
Use Pop Up Promotions Sparingly and Strategically
There are plenty of uses for pop ups but there’s no need to go overboard. I’d recommend using 1-3 different promotions throughout your site, each aimed at accomplishing something specific. Convert new visitors with a home page promotion, drive sales with offers on the cart page, or display an important announcement to all shoppers.
Design and Branding Matters
Want to damage your brand perception? Present a generic or ugly pop up to your visitors that they’ve seen a million times. I still don’t understand how businesses spend a ton of time, money, and manpower on designing an attractive website and use an unbranded pop up.
Every element of your website must represent what your business is about. This is an opportunity to showcase your brand and engage visitors in a unique way. It also can boost engagement by 5X! Check out these awesome pop up overlay designs.
So Does Copy
Be short, clear, and quirky. People tend to respond well to fun and witty messaging. When writing your promotional copy, clearly state what kind of value the visitor is receiving, what they have to do to receive the value, and when and where they will receive the value.
Target Visitor Behaviors for More Relevant Content and Offers
Again, you don’t have to go crazy with targeting but a few key rules can help you deliver a more personalized experience and drive results. Whether you’re trying to decrease cart abandonment, convert first time visitors, or reward people that have purchased from you before, pop up overlays provide an excellent way to engage your visitors. Here are some strategic uses of pop ups to use on your site.
Incentives That Work for ECommerce
Justunofree Pop Ups And Conversion Marketing Strategies
Contests
The top onsite promotion for generating emails is a contest for a high-ticket item. Use a product or bundle of products that your target market would have interest in receiving. Contests are a terrific way to convert new traffic from PPC (pay per click) campaigns and Facebook ads because of the high perceived value of the offer and the low barriers of entry (just an email address). The Fifth Watches engages shoppers with an pop up contest promotion (seen below). This simple tactic generates an average of 500 new email subscribers every day!
Free Shipping
Free shipping is by far the biggest sales driver throughout the year. 73% of online shoppers stated that free shipping is the #1 criterion for making a purchase. Free shipping appeals to the majority of shoppers which means visitors are likely to submit their email address to receive the offer.
Discounts
Another way to incentivize your visitors to subscribe is with a discount. Shoppers see value in a percentage off or a dollar amount discount so they will most likely convert to receive the offer.
Grow Your Business With Pop Up Promotions
While some eCommerce businesses still continue to focus on driving as much traffic as possible, the top marketers put a heavy emphasis on conversions. Effective digital marketing today requires proper means of engaging and converting your visitors. Luckily, there are conversion optimization platforms available to help businesses drive onsite engagement and increase conversion rates. Make 2016 the year your business boosts sales through effective web marketing!
Grant Thomas
Justunofree Pop Ups And Conversion Marketing System
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The halfway step in finishing your website (as defined in my free report: Get Your Website Done: 12 Actionable Steps for Designers) is to choose your call to action. Pretty much, you have to figure out what you want your website visitors to do—then tell them in the best way possible.
Like in many of the other steps, the idea is to keep your CTAs simple. You can get creative with the design and placement (pop-ups anyone?). But, first, let’s figure out what we want our website visitors to do so we can lead them in the right direction.
Step #6: Choose Your Call to Action
Think carefully. What do you want people to do on your website?
- Call you?
- Fill out a form?
- Sign up for something?
- Buy something?
Also consider: What do they want to do?
My primary call to action is:Get my free report
My secondary call to action is:Let’s chat about working together
Where to put these CTAs?
Right now, I have my primary call to action (get my free report) at the very top and bottom of my site. I also have a standalone free gift page that is helpful for giving out a specific URL. These work—and I will probably keep them. According to my signup form tracking in MailChimp, I get the most subscribers through the free gift page, then the header.
I’m also considering pop-ups. Yup, I said it. Pop-ups.
Justunofree Pop Ups And Conversion Marketing Strategy
Pop-ups have had a bad reputation. They were fairly icky in the early days of the web. But these days, when they’re done in a thoughtful way, they can be helpful, not intrusive. These days, they can also look great (like the rest of your site!) to provide a consistent user experience.
Here’s some beautifully designed pop-up eye candy for you:
marieforleo.com
kriscarr.com
For my website redesign, I’m considering these types of pop-ups and figuring out if/how they can help support my visitor’s journey:
- Intention-based pop-ups: If a website user demonstrates intent to leave the site (exit-intent) a pop-up can be triggered that’s sort of like saying, “Hey, before you go, let’s stay in touch!” According to PopupAlly, exit-intent pop-ups can increase conversion by over 300%.
- Timed pop-ups: These show up after a certain amount of time so they don’t bombard visitors. SumoMe says the best time to introduce a pop-up is after 5 seconds.
An important note about pop-ups. While they can be useful on larger screens, they should be disabled for smaller ones. Google does not like pop-ups on mobile devices. They call them intrusive interstitials since they block and cover up the content the visitor is trying to consume. Your site will get penalized accordingly on mobile search results (unless you simply disable pop-ups on smaller screens). Got it?
How can you implement pop-ups on your site?
Justunofree Pop Ups And Conversion Marketing Platforms
My favorite pop-up plugins for WordPress are:
Want more info about CTAs?
Check out:
I’m exited to see what adding strategically placed pop-ups on my website does for my free report signups and if they work as an effective marketing tool. What do you think about pop-ups?