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How to craft the perfect pop-up: 5 top tips
When people think of pop-ups, their knee-jerk reaction is usually a negative one. They describe them as annoying, intrusive, and obnoxious.
In reality, pop-ups don’t have to be any of these things. And, more importantly: they work.
When our users deploy CANDDi Capture, for example, they experience 3-5x more conversions than by using regular sign-up forms.
Here are five things you can do to ensure your pop-ups are as effective as possible.
1 - Offer something valuable
Make sure whatever discount, deal, or knowledge you’re offering is worthwhile. Otherwise, why should they bother handing over their personal information?
It isn’t enough to simply ask visitors to sign up to your newsletter; you must instill a sense of urgency and exclusivity in order to drive conversions.
2 - Choose your language carefully
If you’ve decided on your offer, it’s time to convince your visitors that they want it. Since you have limited characters on pop-ups, creative copy is paramount here.
Use exciting language to convince visitors of your offer’s value, or perhaps to get their attention with some on-brand humour and quirkiness.
This applies to the call to action too. Studies show higher conversion rates when CTAs use exciting phrases like “Get my free ebook!” or “Give me 30% off!” instead of “Click here to redeem”.
3 - Keep things simple
People already dislike being interrupted by pop-ups, so don’t make things worse by forcing a 2,000 word essay in their face. Use a minimalist design, make your offer short and sweet, and let your persuasive CTA do the work.
You should also keep your sign-up form as simple as possible. Since data shows conversion rates drop with every additional field on a form, ask for only the bare minimum of personal information.
Finally, you want to make it simple for the visitor to exit the pop-up. Hiding the ‘X’ might seem like a crafty way to boost conversions, but it’s a user-hostile practice that often causes visitors to just exit your page altogether.
4 - Timing is everything
You’ve got the perfect pop-up; it’s enticing, straight to the point, and worded beautifully. But when should you make it appear?
Pop-ups work best in the goldilocks zone between too soon and too late - you don’t want to annoy your visitors by bombarding them straight away, nor do you want to wait too long in case they close the web page. Usually, making pop-ups appear 20-30 seconds after visitors arrive on the page yields the most conversions.
It’s also worth considering an exit pop-up. These appear when a visitor moves their mouse towards the ‘close tab’ button, as a last-ditch attempt to drive a conversion.
5 - A/B test your pop up
Following the tips in this post is a great start, but the only way to truly maximize the effectiveness of your pop-ups is to test them.
Got two different ideas for the header? Run them both at the same time, and see which one generates more conversions. Repeat split tests like this with every part of the pop-up until you have a final product that is demonstrably successful.
