Pop-ups are dia­logue box­es that appear on top of your con­tent to cap­ture a user’s attention.

When used the right way, pop-ups can gen­er­ate leads, reduce bounce rates, and increase conversions.

Mis­use them, and chances are, you’ll do seri­ous dam­age to your con­ver­sion rate, SEO, and brand per­cep­tion. We’ll be look­ing at 19 ways you can use pop-ups and how you can cre­ate ones with high con­ver­sion rates that will help you reach your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing goals.

Should You Use Website Pop-Ups?

Aside from the fact that they are near­ly impos­si­ble to ignore, pop-ups have oth­er notable ben­e­fits. Here’s why you should be using web­site pop-ups:

Higher ROI

Pop-ups are a low-cost way to max­imise prof­its from your cur­rent traf­fic. Con­sid­er­ing how cost­ly it is to gen­er­ate traf­fic, pop-ups pro­vide a high return on investment.

Personalisation

80% of con­sumers are more like­ly to buy from a com­pa­ny that pro­vides a per­son­alised expe­ri­ence. The right pop-ups can take poten­tial cus­tomers on a per­son­alised jour­ney that empha­sis­es your val­ue propo­si­tion and reflects your brand personality.

Enhanced user experience

When used right, pop-ups can cre­ate a seam­less cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Because pop-ups draw atten­tion to a sin­gle mes­sage, poten­tial cus­tomers are less dis­tract­ed and bet­ter able to take action.

More opportunities to convert

Pop-ups are a great way to rein­force your val­ue propo­si­tion. If a poten­tial cus­tomer does­n’t respond to your web­site’s main mes­sage, pop-ups give you anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to make them anoth­er offer.

What’s The Usual Conversion Rate for Website Pop-Ups?

Accord­ing to Opti­monk, the aver­age pop-up con­ver­sion rate is 11.09%. Sumo states that pop-ups have an aver­age con­ver­sion rate of 3.09%, with the best-per­form­ing pop-ups con­vert­ing up to 10% of the time. Some of the most effec­tive pop-ups even boast con­ver­sion rates of between 40 and 60 per cent!

So, it’s a mixed bag, and this is because pop-ups can be used in so many ways. Dif­fer­ent pop-up cam­paigns yield dif­fer­ent con­ver­sion rates. A pop-up at the bot­tom of your fun­nel will con­vert more than one at the top of your fun­nel. Nat­u­ral­ly, this is because cus­tomers at these points of your fun­nel are at very dif­fer­ent stages of their deci­sion-mak­ing process.

Pop-up design also influ­ences con­ver­sa­tion rates. Well-designed pop-ups con­vert up to 10 times more than poor­ly designed ones.

What Are the Different Types of Pop-Ups?

Whether you’re try­ing to increase engage­ment or boost con­ver­sions, there’s a pop-up to help you meet your goals.

Standard pop-ups

Stan­dard pop-ups are win­dows that appear on top of your web­page. These blocks usu­al­ly cov­er a con­sid­er­able por­tion of a web­page, mak­ing them a great way to con­vey infor­ma­tion or deliv­er rel­e­vant CTAs.

Fullscreen pop-ups

Unlike stan­dard pop-ups, full-screen pop-ups fill the entire screen. As they are impos­si­ble to ignore, they tend to be used to deliv­er impor­tant prompts like licence agree­ments and pay­ment processing.

Side pop-ups

Side mes­sages pop up on the left or right side of a web­page. They aren’t as obstruc­tive as stan­dard pop-ups, so they’re great for deliv­er­ing rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion or CTAs to enhance a vis­i­tor’s experience.

Gamified pop-ups

Pop-ups that include game ele­ments are called gam­i­fied pop-ups. Using game ele­ments is a great way to infuse fun into your pop-ups. Gam­i­fied pop-ups like spin wheels, slot machines, and scratch-offs have an aver­age con­ver­sion rate of 13.23%.

How Can You Use Website Pop-Ups?

Pop-ups are ver­sa­tile: they can sup­port your fun­nels and enhance cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. If you want to add pop-ups to your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, here are 19 dif­fer­ent ways to do so.

1. Building an email list

Con­sid­er­ing that email mar­ket­ing is 40 times more effec­tive at acquir­ing cus­tomers than Face­book or Twit­ter, using pop-ups to build email lists is a smart move. When paired with incen­tives like dis­counts, email pop-ups have con­ver­sion rates of up to 7.65%.

2. Promoting your lead magnets

Lead mag­nets are free resources, items, or ser­vices that com­pel vis­i­tors to give up their email address­es. Vis­i­tors pro­vide their con­tact infor­ma­tion at an aver­age rate of 1.95%. Using pop-ups with lead mag­nets has been proven to push that rate up to 7.65%, mak­ing them an effec­tive way to gen­er­ate qual­i­fied leads.

3. Reducing shopping cart abandonment

When a vis­i­tor makes it all the way to the check­out, they want what you’re sell­ing. To close sales, pop-ups pro­vid­ing time-lim­it­ed offers, or free ship­ping are extreme­ly effec­tive. With con­ver­sion rates of up to 17.12%, shop­ping cart aban­don­ment pop-ups can opti­mise conversions.

4. Providing incentives

Pop-ups offer­ing incen­tives like first-time buy­er dis­counts encour­age poten­tial cus­tomers to spend more time on your web­site. The longer vis­i­tors inter­act with your prod­ucts and ser­vices, the more like­ly they are to make a pur­chase. In fact, 60% of cus­tomers who receive a coupon are eager to try a new prod­uct.

5. Delivering timely offers

Pop-ups that are auto­mat­ed to appear after a vis­i­tor has been on your site for a spe­cif­ic amount of time dri­ve bet­ter con­ver­sions than those that appear imme­di­ate­ly. As these pop-ups give vis­i­tors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to look around first, they’re more like­ly to deliv­er time­ly offers.

6. Varying specials

Pop-ups pro­mot­ing dis­counts and sales effec­tive all year round. How­ev­er, to opti­mise sales, con­sid­er using sea­son­al pop-ups, too. Sea­son­al pop-ups are offers lim­it­ed to a spe­cif­ic day, hol­i­day, or event. The urgency asso­ci­at­ed with sea­son­al offers can boost con­ver­sions by up to 11.88%.

7. Sharing important information

Pop-ups are hard to ignore, mean­ing they’re per­fect for shar­ing impor­tant infor­ma­tion with poten­tial and exist­ing cus­tomers. They can keep vis­i­tors in the loop about new prod­ucts, pol­i­cy updates, or changes to your terms and services.

8. Promoting events

Whether you’re host­ing an online or in-per­son event, pop-ups are a great way to gen­er­ate inter­est. When paired with a pro­mo­tion­al aspect, like a dis­count, high­er atten­dance rates are guaranteed.

9. Optimising conversions

Instead of redi­rect­ing prospects to sep­a­rate land­ing pages, pop-ups can deliv­er cap­ture forms and rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on the same page. This sim­pli­fies the sign-up process, which in turn, leads to more conversions.

10. Reducing bounce rates

Pop-ups can be set to appear when a vis­i­tor attempts to leave your page. These are known as exit intent pop-ups, and they’re designed to turn a neg­a­tive sit­u­a­tion into a win. If you make an irre­sistible offer, a vis­i­tor might just change their mind.

11. Getting feedback

With feed­back pop-ups, your cus­tomers can share their thoughts and feel­ings. Cus­tomers appre­ci­ate the ges­ture as it demon­strates a com­mit­ment to con­tin­u­ous improve­ment. Plus, being includ­ed in the process makes them feel val­ued. For this rea­son, feed­back pop-ups have con­ver­sion rates of up to 12.62%.

12. Increas­ing engage­ment Did you know that by adding gam­ing ele­ments to your web­site, engage­ment time can increase by as much as 30%? With gam­i­fi­ca­tion pop-ups promis­ing con­ver­sion rates of up to 18%, it’s no won­der they’re the new way to gen­er­ate leads and increase conversions.

13. Welcoming visitors

Putting your best foot for­ward can set you apart from com­peti­tors, which is why wel­come pop-ups are a good idea. These types of pop-ups appear when a vis­i­tor enters your website.

Although they get a bad rep­u­ta­tion, wel­come pop-ups are great for build­ing mail­ing lists, offer­ing dis­counts, or pro­mot­ing ongo­ing sales.

14. Retaining customers

Con­sid­er­ing that acquir­ing new cus­tomers costs five times more than keep­ing exist­ing ones, your efforts are best spent retain­ing loy­al cus­tomers. A great way to do this is to use pop-ups offer­ing dis­counts for future purchases.

15. Personalisation

Per­son­al­i­sa­tion is best achieved using con­ver­sa­tion­al pop-ups. These pop-ups engage cus­tomers, get their pref­er­ences, and make rec­om­men­da­tions. This per­son­alised approach allows you to build rela­tion­ships, grow lists and con­vert at the same time. Paired with incen­tives like dis­counts, con­ver­sa­tion­al pop-ups can dou­ble your con­ver­sion rate.

16. Helping visitors find what they need

When cus­tomers can’t find what they need, they’re more like­ly to leave a web­site. Trig­ger pop-ups are pop-ups that are acti­vat­ed by vis­i­tor behav­iour. Pop-ups can be set to pro­vide rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion or entic­ing pro­mo­tion­al offers when cus­tomers are on cer­tain pages.

17. Giving customers what they want

Give cus­tomers exact­ly what they want by mak­ing use of click trig­ger pop-ups. These pop-ups are acti­vat­ed when a vis­i­tor clicks on a link. Com­pared to oth­er pop-ups, click trig­ger pop-ups con­vert up to 12 times more. This is because poten­tial cus­tomers ini­ti­ate the pop-up themselves.

18. Creating a sense of urgency

Count­down timer pop-ups give a vis­i­tor a set amount of time to take action. As they cre­ate a sense of urgency and play on the fear of miss­ing out, timer pop-ups are very effec­tive. In fact, the aver­age con­ver­sion rate for pop-ups with a count­down timer is 14.41%, while the aver­age for those with­out is 9.86%.

19. Addressing fears

Cus­tomers often per­ceive online pur­chas­es as risky because they can’t actu­al­ly see the prod­ucts they want to buy. These fears are ampli­fied when the prod­ucts in ques­tion are cost­ly. Pop-ups pro­vid­ing social proof or mon­ey-back guar­an­tees are great ways to address cus­tomer concerns.

How To Create High-Converting Website Pop-Ups

The high­est con­vert­ing pop-ups tend to have:

• Con­text
• Val­ue
• Opti­mal tim­ing and frequency
• A clear and direct message
• Con­sis­tent brand personality
• A clear call to action

Here’s how you can cre­ate your own high-con­vert­ing web­site pop-ups:

Understand your Audience

Under­stand­ing what dri­ves, deters, and per­suades your vis­i­tors helps pro­vide the best user expe­ri­ence. This infor­ma­tion also pro­vides con­text, which is what gives the best pop-ups con­ver­sion rates, at over 40%.

Get the timing right

Out of the best-per­form­ing pop-ups, 92% dis­play after 4 sec­onds. The low­est-per­form­ing pop-ups have a dis­play time of between 0 and 4 sec­onds. Clear­ly, pop-ups that real­ly con­vert don’t pop up imme­di­ate­ly; they offer vis­i­tors val­ue at crit­i­cal points of their deci­sion-mak­ing process.

Using Google Ana­lyt­ics can help you fig­ure out the best time to show your pop-up. Sim­ply estab­lish how long the aver­age cus­tomer spends on a page and use that to guide your tim­ing decisions.

Provide clear content and CTAs

An unclear head­line or offer will low­er your con­ver­sion rates. For an effec­tive pop-up, lead with your offer and pro­vide a clear CTA. Infus­ing a bit of per­son­al­i­ty into your pop-ups helps, too — just remem­ber to keep it con­sis­tent with your brand image and tone.

Provide value

Pop-ups that lack val­ue is the main rea­son why they’re some­times con­sid­ered annoy­ing. Vis­i­tors should per­ceive your pop-ups as valu­able and rel­e­vant for them to engage and convert.

Reduce customer anxiety

Vis­i­tors might be hes­i­tant to give out their details due to pri­va­cy con­cerns. So, let them know how you plan to use their infor­ma­tion and how often you plan to use it, and assure them that it won’t be misused.

Prioritise ease

Forms that ask for too many details may cause cus­tomers to aban­don your page. Hav­ing few­er form fields leads to more con­ver­sions. There­fore, when it comes to pop-ups, stick to the basics: email address and first name — you’ll have more con­ver­sions that way.

Create a sense of urgency

Once a cus­tomer is invest­ed in your val­ue propo­si­tion, cre­at­ing a sense of urgency is more like­ly to get them to take action. This is eas­i­ly achieved through mak­ing time-lim­it­ed offers.

How To Create Pop-Up Ads on Websites

Step 1: Determine your goals and objectives

Do you want more leads? Or do you want to make more sales? Fig­ure out what you would like your pop-ups to do first. Know­ing what you want to achieve makes opti­mis­ing your pop-ups easier.

Step 2: Consider your website and visitors

Next, con­sid­er your vis­i­tors’ needs. Think about their user expe­ri­ence. Your dai­ly traf­fic con­sists of vis­i­tors who are at dif­fer­ent stages of their pur­chas­ing jour­ney. How can you enhance their expe­ri­ence and pro­vide val­ue through pop-ups?

Step 3: Optimise your pop-ups

Poor­ly designed pop-ups can frus­trate vis­i­tors and reduce con­ver­sion rates. So, opti­mise your pop-ups for rel­e­vance, clar­i­ty, and attractiveness.

Step 4: Test and iterate

Cre­at­ing and choos­ing the best pop-ups can be tricky, even when you know your audi­ence well. A/B test­ing your pop-ups is a great way to see what works. You can also make use of usabil­i­ty test­ing to ensure your pop-ups don’t frus­trate users.

What Can You Use Instead of Pop-Ups?

If you would rather not use pop-ups, here are some great alternatives:

Sticky bars

A sticky bar is a small ban­ner across the top of your web­page. It’s “sticky” because it stays in view as a vis­i­tor scrolls down. Sticky bars are great for deliv­er­ing infor­ma­tion with­out inter­rupt­ing a vis­i­tor’s brows­ing experience.

Feature boxes

Fea­ture box­es are more promi­nent than sticky bars but still allow vis­i­tors a seam­less brows­ing expe­ri­ence. Should cus­tomers not want to sign up, they can sim­ply scroll down. Sign­ing up is as easy as scrolling up again.

Embedded forms

Embed­ded forms can be includ­ed after con­tent such as reports, arti­cles, and blogs, allow­ing vis­i­tors to glean val­ue from your posts first before giv­ing up their con­tact information.

Side navigation bars

Your web­site’s side­bar is a less dis­tract­ing loca­tion for a sub­scrip­tion box or mail­ing list opt-in. Vis­i­tors can enjoy inter­rup­tion-free brows­ing and still have easy access to these dia­logue boxes.

Final thoughts

Pop-ups can be a great addi­tion to your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, how­ev­er, tread with cau­tion: poor­ly designed pop-ups can do more harm than good.

Remem­ber, the best pop-ups lever­age the right copy, con­text, loca­tion, size, and tim­ing to deliv­er cus­tomers excep­tion­al val­ue. If you’d like us to help you with your pop-up strat­e­gy, get in touch, and we can book a strat­e­gy call.