
Have you ever been on a website and you’re presented with a pop-up before the rest of the page even loads? Ugh, annoying, right? But we’ve all been there!
Pop-ups can be a good way to grow your email list, but they can also be truly irritating for your website users if mistakes are made. Join me as we discuss 4 problems that could be preventing your lead generation pop-ups from performing well and how to fix them.
How do you feel about pop-ups on websites?
Do you love ‘em? Hate ‘em?
Anytime I ask this question, I usually am met with mixed responses.
That’s actually not surprising, because while the general consensus from UX experts is that they are no good and need to be used very sparingly, advertising and marketing people like them because, as a whole, pop ups are an effective lead generation tool.
Since my work includes looking at BOTH UX and marketing, I’m somewhere in the middle. Although as a user, I get VERY annoyed by pop-ups because I feel like a lot of people add them to their websites in a non effective, irritating way, I have seen firsthand how they can move the mark in terms of growing email lists. I’ve grown email lists by the hundreds and thousands and pop-ups have played a big role in that growth.
Pop-Ups Are Here To Stay
So love ‘em or leave ‘em, pop-ups aren’t going anywhere because they are still effective tools for growth. Today, I want to share with you how you can use pop-ups in ways that are less likely to tick off your website visitors. I am all about marketing with integrity because it feels less icky. And, I think it’s the most effective way, anyway.
What is a pop-up?
A pop-up is also known as an overlay or popover. It’s a box or window that appears on top of the page content.
There are a couple of other terms you’ll hear in the pop-up world, too:
- Modal: If users CAN’T interact with the rest of the page, so they are forced to interact with the pop-up before they can get back to the background content, it’s considered a “modal” pop-up.
- Nonmodal: If users CAN still interact with the background content – e.g., they can click on links or tap buttons – while the pop-up is visible, it’s considered “nonmodal.”
What do you use a pop-up for?
If you think about the journey your website visitor or potential client/customer is on, the pop-up generally is something they interact with at the beginning. Pop-ups work really well when your visitor is somewhat familiar with you and what you’ve got to offer, and they are interested in learning more.
Remembering this is crucial – as we’ll be discussing in a bit!
Most brands use pop-ups to grow their email list, plain and simple.
A common type of pop-up you’ve likely interacted with is one offering you a percentage off discount from a retailer. In exchange for your name and email address, you’ll be given a 15% off coupon code you can use on your first order, or something like that.
Or, maybe you’re browsing recipes on a food blog and a pop-up appears advertising a weekly meal plan PDF – you just have to enter your email address in to receive it.
With MOST of these, generally, when you sign up for the offer, you also opt-in to receive other promotional emails from the brand as well.
And technically, although the laws do vary on this from region to region, and they are always changing, and also I am not a lawyer so don’t quote me on this – you should usually have to give your consent if you want to receive these other promotional emails. In other words, there should be something saying “by submitting your email, you agree to receive promotional emails from us.”
Of course, that’s not always the case. But, in my opinion, it should be, because people are already so distrustful of sharing their information online. But – that’s a topic for another day.
Pop-Up problems and solutions
So now that you know what a pop-up is and how/why they are typically used on websites, let’s get into the nitty gritty and talk about common pop-up problems.
The problems I’m going to go through here are a combination of problems UX researchers have identified along with mistakes I commonly see website owners making.
Pop-Up Problem #1: It’s Premature
Let me just ask…how many times have you been on a website, and you get hit with one (or more!) pop-ups before you’ve ever had a chance to even understand what the actual page is about?
Maybe you’re online shopping and you haven’t had enough time to even see what types of products the website offers, let alone had a chance to determine if you like the products or not. But you’re getting hit with that “enter your email for 10% off!” pop-up anyway.
The premature pop-up is intrusive and it’s a huge problem.
In fact, people have gotten so used to premature pop-ups that they ignore them or immediately close out of them, sometimes without even taking the time to understand the content of the pop-up.
Nielsen Norman Group, a firm that does a lot of user experience research, uses a term called “pop-up purge” to describe when a user closes a pop-up before it has even fully loaded.
The real life equivalent of this would be a sales associate immediately jumping on you the moment you step foot inside a store, aggressively asking questions about what you’re shopping for. That approach may work with a small amount of customers, but most of us are going to be overwhelmed.
It’s the same thing online. The premature pop-up looks desperate and it can feel frantic to your users.
There is ONE use when it is acceptable to display a pop-up right from the get go, and that is when you are legally obligated to request the user’s consent to use cookies, or verify their age, or something like that.
The Solution:
This one is pretty obvious, right? Simply wait to present the pop-up, holding out for a time that makes more sense for the user.
Since most pop-ups ASK users for something – their name and email address, for example – it’s important to give people something of value FIRST.
For example, let them read through your blog post or whatever it is BEFORE you ask them to give you their email address by way of a pop-up. They will be more likely to give it to you since you have already given them something of value.
When you are building your pop-up – and it doesn’t really matter what program or email marketing service provider you’re using – you usually get the chance to select the length of time that passes before the pop-up pops up.
For example, I use Flodesk and the options they currently let you select when building your pop-up is display it immediately, after 10 seconds, after 30 seconds, or when a visitor scrolls 30%.
Side note – I wish they would let you choose your own, custom time frame, but that feature isn’t available.
I would highly advise you to NEVER choose to display the pop-up immediately, for the reasons we’ve just been talking about.
I also would be hesitant to choose ANY amount of time that is under 5 seconds. It’s just not enough time for a user to do anything on your website before getting intruded upon by the pop-up.
The “right” amount of time is going to be dependent on a lot of different factors, like the type and length of other content on the page the pop-up will be appearing on. How long will it take the user to make a connection with that content? How long will it take the user to make the pop-up be a “HECK yes! I’m so glad you showed me this!” rather than a “UGH get off my screen this is soooo annoying!”
Of course, everyone visiting your website is going to be a little different and there is no one specific, scientific amount of time that will be perfect for everyone. What I suggest you do is try the page and the pop-up out, pretending you ARE your target audience…how does it feel to you? Are you annoyed by your own pop-up?
This puts us in a good place to discuss our next pop-up problem…
Pop-Up Problem #2: You Haven’t Considered The User’s Intent
Does whatever you’re offering your audience through the pop-up form MAKE SENSE?
For example, let’s say you’re on a food blog looking at the “VEGAN RECIPES” category. As you’re scrolling happily down the page, seeing thumbnails of these amazing vegan dishes, you all of a sudden get a pop-up asking you to opt-in to receive a digital cookbook full of the author’s favorite chicken recipes.
But like…you’re there for the vegan recipes. And the vegan recipes looked good. But now, you’re annoyed because the website owner distracted you with an offer that you’re 100% not interested in.
The Solution:
This is another situation where, of course it’s hard for us, as website owners, to get it right 100% of the time. Of course we understand that the people visiting our websites are unique individuals, and what may interest one person will not be of interest to the next person that comes along.
But, this one really just takes a little bit of common sense and THINKING like your user.
Does the pop-up that you’re showing to them make sense, considering the other content on the page? Or is it totally out of left field?
Pop-Up Problem #3: What You’re Offering Isn’t Enticing
Somewhat related to the problem we just discussed, there are a lot of times that whatever is being offered via the pop-up just isn’t enticing.
I asked my partner his thoughts on pop-ups, and asked him if he usually signs up for the offer or does he click out. He said “it depends on how bad I want the thing.”
Bingo. Problems arise with your pop-up when the user doesn’t value whatever is being offered. People are skeptical of giving out their information online, so if you’re asking for someone’s name and email address, you better make sure what you’re sending them is good.
We all get sooooo much email these days. My inbox? It’s clogged. I’ve unsubscribed from so many email lists and I still get probably close to 100 promotional emails every day. And unsubscribing is easy, but it’s also kind of a pain, right? Especially if you are doing it one by one by one. So, these days, I am very hesitant to enter my name and email address in and hop on yet another email list unless I perceive what I’m getting to be highly valuable.
And let’s face it. A single page, PDF checklist? Not really valuable.
The Solution:
In my one-on-one work with clients, I oftentimes consult them on lead magnet strategy. I encourage them to think beyond the PDF freebie.
I’m not saying a quick PDF checklist isn’t valuable or that it can’t perform well. What I am saying is that convincing people that it’s valuable enough to sign up for it via a pop-up form is likely challenging, and your pop-up may perform better if you offered something a step up.
If you’re more on the retail side of things and you’re offering a percent-off discount in exchange for signing up, consider the price of your products, your average order total, and what discount would be motivating for your customers.
If your average order total is, say, $50 and you’re offering a 5% discount, well hey, that’s only $2.50 off. That may not be a big enough number to motivate people into opting in for the discount and making the purchase.
Pop-Up Problem #4: There’s No Way Out
I don’t think this one is ever really intentional, but I’ve encountered situations where I’m browsing a website – usually on my phone – and a pop-up comes up, and there is no way out. Maybe the “X” close button isn’t working or it’s hidden altogether, and I’m essentially trapped because the pop-up is covering the entire screen. Sometimes, refreshing the page doesn’t even work, because the pop-up simply loads again and I’m back to being trapped.
You definitely want to make sure your users have a VERY CLEAR WAY to exit the pop-up and get back to what they were originally doing.
Not offering this is going to tick people off and likely drive them away from your website.
The Solution:
First of all, make sure however you are adding your pop-up is reliable and supported across all browsers and devices. No funny business.
Triple check that your pop-up performs properly on all devices. This means checking on both your desktop or laptop AND mobile devices.
Pop-Up Problem #5: Your Pop-Up Had Valuable Information & Your User Can’t Find It Again
As you already know from what we’ve discussed thus far today, some people are prone to closing pop-ups, essentially just out of habit.
Full disclosure: not everyone shares this opinion. Some people will tell you to create scarcity and urgency so people feel compelled to sign up via the pop-up or else they will miss out on the offer. This approach definitely works in some cases, yes. But I think if you’re presenting important information, or even just a really great offer, to your users by way of a pop-up, it’s important to make sure they can find it again easily.
The majority of pop-ups work in conjunction with cookies. So, if a user closes out a pop-up, the pop-up may never appear again for them until a certain length of time passes.
Sometimes, you can choose this length of time in the settings when you are building your pop-up: for example, check a button that says “don’t show this pop-up to users who have closed out for 14 days” or something similar.
Of course, this is a great option to have IF the user truly doesn’t want to see the pop-up again. But what if they realize they DO want the offer but they already closed the pop-up and they can’t get it back again?
That would be a problem, amirite? And you’d be losing out on an opportunity to generate a lead.
The Solution:
My advice here is, if the pop-up information is really important or it’s a great offer, or it’s an event you want people to attend…present it again in non-pop-up form for users who miss the pop-up.
For example, a couple weeks ago, I had a pop-up promoting a mini-course I was putting on. For anyone who didn’t see the pop-up, the mini-course was easy enough to find from the homepage of my website.
You don’t necessarily have to do this for ALL pop-ups – which is good news, as it’s double the work – but I think it’s a great opportunity for your bigger, more important offers.
Wrapping It Up…
That’s gonna wrap up our discussion on how you can perfect the art of the pop-up. Yes! You can effectively use pop-ups and not feel like a total creep doing it.
To make the most of your pop-ups, make sure your timing is right. Don’t show your pop-up TOO EARLY or you risk annoying people with it. Consider what your visitor is looking for when your pop-up will pop up, and make sure it’s in alignment with that. Don’t show a pop-up for a PDF that contains the secrets to making the best fried chicken on a vegan recipe. That sort of thing.
Make sure your pop-up offer is valuable and that it’s something people actually want. And also make sure that users have a way out – they aren’t trapped in your pop-up, with the “X” button hidden or not obvious.
And lastly – be aware that some people may not truly consume and understand the info that is being shown to them via pop-ups, for whatever reason…maybe they close out prematurely or maybe the offer didn’t interest them at the time the pop-up was shown to them, but after closing it and reading through your whole article, they are now intrigued. So if it’s an important offer, maybe consider having the same info on the page but NOT in pop-up form. This is just my thought process. You want your offers to be easy to find to encourage the most opt-ins!
Did You Like This Topic?
You may also like Choice Paralysis, The Dangers of Too Many Options, which has some really great info on how to improve your user’s experience, just like this episode described. And Overpromising But Underdelivering: Is Hype Hurting Your Brand? is another good one to check out if you’re interested in learning more about marketing with integrity.