This article talks about email popup best practices and the best email popups that you can consider implementing on your website. The objective of the blog is to help readers understand how they can grow their email list and drive more conversions by optimizing their email popups and using the right popup strategy.
Let’s be very honest. Email popups are arguably an annoyance. They create a distraction and disturb the user flow.
People generally dislike popups, and I am also among those people who, sometimes, get irritated by witnessing a popup on their screen, especially when I am fully concentrated on the content in front of my eyes.
But not every email popup irks users. Email popups can be effective if used wisely, but they are either not being utilized in the right manner or they are just not good enough to capture user attention.
What is an Email Popup?
Email popups can be referred to as a tool to capture visitors’ email address. They contain content, which could be an exclusive offer, a free ebook, etc. for which users need to provide their email address if they wish to grab it. It is designed to draw user attention and persuade them to take action.
Email Popup Best Practices
In this write-up, I have put forward 8 Email Popup Best Practices to build your email list and boost your conversions. Let’s check them out.
1. Pay Attention to your Popup Appearance
First things first. Your email popup needs to have attractive visuals. It should have an eye-catching design.
If your email popup does not look appealing, visitors will close the popup window straight away. They would not even bother to pay a look at the popup content.
Use colours that are appealing and not the ones that cause pain to the eyes. The popup colour should also match with your website’s design.
For the best results, try using a lightbox popup; that appears on the top of your web page. It darkens the actual page so that the entire focus is centred on the popup.
A well-designed email popup tends to capture more user attention.
2. Prepare Compelling Popup Content
The heart of your email popup lies in its content, which is what people would notice. Hence, it should be very crisp and clear and should serve a purpose.
Create curiosity in your visitors, hit their mind in one go. Give them a reason as to why they should become your subscribers.
Use a title that triggers visitors to take instant action and explains the need to take action. Remember, visitors have come to your website because they might have liked something that interests them, and a sudden popup is going to interrupt their activity. You would surely not want to hinder their experience.
So, if you want to shift their focus towards your email popup, the content needs to be apt.
3. Have an Impulsive Call to Action
The motive behind any email popup is to coax visitors to provide their email address, and for that, the popup CTA holds vital importance.
Your call to action should be relevant to the content. Its font, text colour, background colour, etc. should be tempting enough to make visitors click on that button. If the CTA evokes interest in the visitor, they will likely press that button.
Show your creativity. Do not come up with just common call to actions like Sign Up, Download, unless there is no better alternative.
4. Email Popup should have Fewer Inputs to Fill
Another email popup best practice would be to restrict yourself from asking too much information. Lesser you ask, more are the chances of a visitor turning into your subscriber.
Email popup having more than two inputs to fill would likely be avoided by the visitor. In fact, I would suggest having only one input, and that is just the email address.
You can avoid asking for first name and last name or restrict to asking for first name and email address, at max.
You want to capture their email address, make the task quick and easy.
5. Set an appropriate time for the Popup Delivery
Adding further to email popup best practices is the Popup timing. Timing is the key for an email popup to deliver positive results. It should not occur repeatedly.
Visitors get frustrated when they receive popups one after another. You do not want to divert their mind from the website content right? Distracting your visitor from their purpose would be the last thing you would want to happen.
Avoid displaying the popup just when the user has entered your website. Let them have a look at your website first. Give them time to go through your website content.
Some of the best practices for the email popup timing would be displaying the popup after a visitor has visited a certain number of pages or when they have scrolled to some percentage or when they are trying to exit.
6. Make Use of Inline Labels and Inline Validation
Labels or a text placed inside the input fields are known as Inline Labels. For example, the email address input that says “Enter your email address” is what we call as Inline Labels. The text automatically disappears when a user starts typing.
Inline Validation, on the other hand, is the process of identifying the error made while entering the input fields. When a user switches from one field to another, it displays whether the information entered is correct or not.
This makes it easy for the visitors to correct the error at that very moment, instead of getting notified after submitting it. And there are higher possibilities of a user getting added into your email list.
7. Have some Attractive Offers for your New Visitors
The best way to welcome your visitors is by offering them enticing deals and discounts or a freebie.
The popup adds more value to the visitors if it contains something valuable, something that they cannot refuse to take. It could be a coupon code, an exclusive offer for new visitors, a flat discount, etc.
Offering incentives help you grow your email list better than any other method, and this makes it one of the best ways to approach your visitor.
Create a sense of urgency. Make them feel that they have only limited time to grab that offer. This email popup strategy is followed by most of the online businesses.
8. Choose the Best fit
Not every popup format would match with your website structure. Look out for a number of popups and check which popup fits your website well. And do not forget to check it for mobile. It should be optimized for both.
Choose the popup that creates the least distraction for the visitors.
Best Email Popups to Grow Your Email List
Since you have gone through the email popup best practices, let’s now take a look at some of the best email popups that you can use to grow your email list, that too without being an annoyance.
1. Spin and Win Popup
The Spin and Win popup can be seen on many eCommerce websites today. The reason why it has gained huge popularity is it adds a Gamification interface to your website.
It does not create any distraction, neither it looks annoying. You can engage users in a fun activity, and offer them a discount in exchange for their email addresses.
Check out the Spin and Win module by Knowband. The module lets you easily add the Gamification popup on your website.
When visitors come to your store, this email subscription popup will emerge and ask them to try their luck to earn some discounts on your store products. The spin will require visitors to enter their email id. Curious to win some offer, visitors will possibly enter their details.
Isn’t it a great way to grow your email list? This also helps to increase user engagement and boosts your conversions. Knowband offers this module for various eCommerce platforms. Checkout
OpenCart Spin and Win Extension
Magento Spin and Win Extension
Magento 2 Spin and Win Extension
WooCommerce Spin and Win Extension.
2. Scratch Coupon Popup
By adding a Scratch coupon on your website, you can draw visitors’ attention and generate curiosity in their mind to check what’s behind the unscratched coupon. A visitor will be tempted to scratch the coupon and would surely enter his/her email address.
The Scratch Coupon module by Knowband incorporates an unscratched coupon on the top of your website. While scratching, a popup will appear asking the user to provide his/her email address to claim the discount. Checkout-
Prestashop Scratch Coupon Addon
OpenCart Scratch Coupon Extension
Magento Scratch Coupon Extension
Magento 2 Scratch Coupon Extension
3. Exit-Intent Popup
The Exit-Intent popup is used to prevent visitors from leaving your website. It detects user behaviour and prompts a popup in front of them as soon as they try to close the window.
It is one of the best email popups as it appears at the last moment and lets you make one last attempt to make the visitors stay on your website. The exit-intent popup has the highest possibility of grabbing user attention.
The Exit-Intent Popup by Knowband displays an interactive popup every time a user intends to exit your website. The online merchants can check out-
The Bottom Line
Though popups can be used in a number of ways, one thing that is important is to allow visitors to close the popup without any hassle.
You may have amusing content or amazing offers, but if one does not want it, let them have that option to close the popup window.
It indicates that you value your visitors and leaves a good impression of your brand. Making it difficult to close will break your bond with the users even before you could build it.
That’s it. I hope you liked these 8 Email Popup best practices and the email subscription popups that I have mentioned. If you have anything to add in this article, do drop your comments below.
Need any help with the mentioned popups? Drop us a mail at support@knowband.com
Also read:
6 Effective Ways to Build and Grow your Email List
5 Conventional Mistakes that are Killing your Email Subscriptions