A Pop Up Window Sucks But Doubles Conversion Rates
Pop ups suck, everybody seems to agree. I carried out an experiment to see if pop ups work on this site to convert more visitors to subscribers.
I used this wordpress pop-up plugin (aff) on my blog, and I actually tested it out a few months ago when I didn’t blog for a few months and traffic was very stable.
Results:
Testing Pop Up Windows Results
| Pop Up Window | Total %
Change |
||
| WK1 On | Wk2 Off | ||
| Mon | 46 | 20 | 173% |
| Tue | 48 | 23 | 109% |
| Wed | 41 | 15 | 173% |
| Thu | 48 | 23 | 109% |
| Fri | 52 | 17 | 206% |
That’s a fair increase in email subscribers accross the board in this small experiment on this site. Using a pop up does seem to have an immediate impact.
I have since tested it on and off for a few months and the results from the small test above have been repeated over and over.
I’ve tested different layouts and different calls to actions without pop-ups, and they work too, to some degree, but they typically take a bit longer to deploy than activating a plugin.
I don’t really like pop-ups as they have been an impediment to web accessibility but it’s stupid to dismiss out-of-hand any technique that works. I’ve also not found a client who, if they had that kind of result, would choose accessibility over sign-ups.
I don’t really use the pop up on days I post on the blog, as in other tests, it really seemed to kill how many people share a post in social media circles.
You can get this wordpress pop-up plugin here.
Written by Shaun Anderson
It’s unanimous that pop ups suck but they do stall the web page and give you a way to get a small message into peoples faces fast like the pop up in your image above.
As the human eye is naturally pulled to the left side of a page having a message like: Try my FREE course gets read long before they see the cross icon to close the window.
as you mentioned there are times this sort of tactic work great like prolonged periods of no new content where people just fly by the site.
Did you notice an appreciable increase in bounce rate as well?
Interesting post, thanks for sharing the results of this experiment!
Actually I started looking at that just before my server meltdown at the weekend – I will look into it