5 types of pop-ups to improve your sales
without annoying your clients

Where ever you browse online, you are likely to run into pop-ups. Whether you love them or hate them, there is no denying that they are a very effective way to catch your visitors’ attention. Our clients have reported up to 6x the increase in email subscribers since implementing our pop-ups when compared to a less intrusive capturing method like buttons or boxes.
Laptop with Socital popup

Table of Contents

Why do Pop-ups work?

Generally, a pop-up presents a strong Call-to-Action to the visitor. Typically, this could be a discount coupon or a seasonal sale, and equally important, it could be a newsletter subscription engagement point, where your goal is to collect more data and grow your mailing list.

Why collecting more email addresses matters?

You probably spend a lot of money bringing in new visitors to your online store. However, many will end up leaving your site without making a purchase. Or more importantly, without leaving you any data to re-engage them in the future. Remember that email converts customers better than any other channel. Having your customers’ email address enables you to target them in a more personalized way and in an environment that is less “noisy” than other marketing channels, like Facebook or Google. By using personalized content for audiences of specific genders or brand affiliations, you can improve your CTR up to 6x. Click here to see how we make it simple.
personalized onsite promotion

Types of Pop-ups

There are several ways to display your Pop-Up based on visitor actions. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular ones:

1. Time-Delayed

This method will show your pop-up after a predetermined amount of time. According to our clients’ results, the best time to show a welcome pop-up is around 35-45% of the average time spent in your home page which is typically between 10-20 seconds after the visitor has entered your site. This way you are showing your pop-up to a visitor that you know is engaged with your content and is therefore more likely to act on it.

IDEAL FOR: Home Pages. You want your customer to have some time to understand your products and categories before firing a pop-Up.

2. Content-Based

Content-based pop-ups will only appear to visitors who land on a specific page. You can also track the domain of where a visitor came from and trigger appropriate pop-ups based on that. This ensures that the customer is not tired from the same value proposition, on the contrary is intrigued to engage with the more relevant information on your website.

IDEAL FOR: Special Offers. This could be either targeted to a specific product category or a specific audience, even for a specific landing path (example through a FB contest).

3. Scroll-Based

A scroll-based pop-up will appear when a user has scrolled through a specific percentage of your page. The logic behind the scroll pop-up is similar to the timed method, as you are only showing it to someone who has engaged with your page up to a point, so you can avoid annoying customers who just browse quickly through your content.

IDEAL FOR: Blog posts, where you want the visitor to engage first with a part of the content before you serve a pop-up. You might also want to use a less intrusive option here, like a side pop-up.

4. Exit-Intent

Exit intent pop-ups appear when your visitor is about to click the exit or back button and quit your page. Our Socital software detects when they pass the cursor above the top window bar and triggers a pop-up. It catches your visitors’ attention the second they are about to leave and incentivizes them to stay on your page a little longer or at least leave their data with you for future re-engagement opportunities.

Remember that it is crucial to provide a really good reason for the customers to trust you with their data, rather than just use a “Before you leave” tagline. You can find more details on our approach for Exit Intent Pop-Ups here.

IDEAL FOR: Newsletter Subscription, Limited Offers and generally strong Value Propositions: the Customer is about to leave your Shop, so make sure you put your best foot forward.

5. Slide Popup

A Slide Pop-Up is a less intrusive option, which is probably more suitable for a constant presence through pages where you want to provide a visible Call-to-Action but not disrupt the UX significantly. Instead of popping up and interrupting the visitors surfing experience, this option slides up from the side or the bottom of the page and partially covers the page allowing the visitor to continue browsing.

IDEAL FOR: Site-wide Call-to-Action. You can have a Slide Pop-Up following the journey of your Visitor throughout your Site, without messing with the rest of the UX.

Common Pop-Up Value Propositions

  1. Prompt your visitor to subscribe to your newsletter.
  2. Promote a special or limited time offer like Free Shipping or Seasonal Discounts.
  3. Encourage your Visitors to download an E-book or other useful content.
  4. Ask your visitors to answer a survey.
  5. Encourage them to participate in a special contest.
  6. Let your visitors know about a new or upcoming product release.

The Disadvantages of Pop-ups

Of course, pop-ups don’t come only with positives. Some visitors find pop-ups to be annoying and disruptive to their shopping. 

Additionally, pop-ups containing scripts might slow your page load time down, which is a factor in conversions as well as SEO. In Socital, we build tools on our pop-up builder which minimize this effect, however this is also related to the accuracy of the loading time of every component of the site (CMS, Social Connections, etc).

Finally, you should be careful about the content and design of your pop-up. Anything less than “the right message at the right time” can be annoying and may distract visitors from their browsing experience. We pride ourselves in making it easy for you to present unique messages at the right place and right time.

Curious about how Socital can help increase sales and brand awareness with personalization?
Contact us for questions or start a free trial now
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