Update: Since this post was written, Google has made changes to the way it treats pages that “interfere with user experience” especially on mobile sites.
To pop up or not pop up… that is the question.
Most people don’t like pop ups… actually, most people HATE pop ups… right??!
I’d been considering using pop ups for a long time (like years!!). I’d looked at other peoples, I’d looked at the stats, I’d looked at what was working for others and what wasn’t, but I always came across the same sticking point… I hated pop ups!!
And I couldn’t get past that fact… for a long, long time. I knew I hated them, therefore everyone else must hate them too, right?
The thing is, no matter how much I hated them, I had entered my details into one before.
So it worked, and it worked even on someone like me who swore that they hated pop ups. Which left me with the question…
It was about time that I admitted that I was wrong about pop-ups and I gave them a go.
You’ll notice now that I use a range of different opt-ins – in fact I use 5 different options in various places – some pop up, some are embedded, some only appear to certain people and some only appear at certain times.
But it took me a while to get to this point… you see, I still hated pop-ups.
So when I was looking to build mine I wanted to make sure I could control EVERYTHING. Things like how often they showed up, who they showed up to, what they offered… and I wanted to put different offers on different pages and put different offers on different websites even.
I’m going to be honest… I still don’t like pop ups.
BUT
They work!!
I’d love to hear your point of view. Love them? Hate them? Tollerate them because they are useful like I do?
Let me know
– Sam xx
(Oh… just in case you were curious – I use Popupally Pro, check it out here. )
Like you, I am not the biggest fan of pop-ups but I have them on my site because they are meant to work. A lot of people swear by them for miraculously increasing your list, but truth be told, I haven’t had a great surge in my list for having them there *shrugs shoulders*
That’s a great point Nina.
I have found that you need to make sure that the pop-up is perfect for the offer. Eg, the one I had the most success with was set to pop up just as they clicked away from a sales page, offering them a free trial. They obviously weren’t quite ready to buy as they were already going to leave, and so giving them a go for free was the perfect “pull back”.