Welcome back to another BIZ BITE episode of the eCommerce Badassery Podcast, I’m your host Jessica Totillo Coster.
Here’s the thing about pop-up forms… I know as consumers a lot of hate them. We think they’re annoying. We don’t want to annoy our customers. But there’s a reason why you still see them on the majority of websites that you visit… because they work. Seriously, websites with pop-up forms will see faster list growth than those without… it truly is that simple!
Does that mean you need one? Not necessarily… but if list growth is a focus for you in your eCommerce business then I would say you should have one.
But there are a few things you can do to make sure that it’s not super annoying to your website visitors.
- Make sure the pop-up doesn’t take over the entire screen on mobile. Google hates that just as much as your website visitors.
- Make sure you have a prominent X-out or close button.
- Test your timing. Any good pop-up software will allow you to set when you want that pop-up to appear. It can be based on the time on page, how far down they scroll, or a combination of both. There’s no one-size fits all here, so I recommend you test a few things out, but don’t have it pop-up as soon as someone lands on your page. Give them some time to absorb the content first.
- Make sure it’s not showing to people who are already on your list. this is why I always prefer to use the pop-up feature included with your email service provider, like Klaviyo vs. a third party like Just uno. There is a better chance your user will be cookied by Klaviyo and it will know that they are already on your list and won’t show them the pop-up as long as you have that turned on in the settings.
- Try a slide out, instead of a pop-up. A slide out will slide out from the side of the screen instead of popping up in their face which is a little less intrusive.
- offer them an alternative way to access the signup even if they close the pop-up. Klaviyo recently added a feature called teasers. These are little tabs you can add that will show when the pop-up isn’t open where you can tease them with your offer like get 15% off.
Ultimately, what you decide to do is of course up to you, but I encourage you not to project your own feelings onto your potential customers. Just because you hate pop-ups, or don’t enjoy getting emails from your favorite stores doesn’t mean that they are a good way to drive more revenue in your business.
