In the age of digital transformation and the massive amount of content we have available to us, marketers are chomping at the bit to get our clicks but most importantly our data. Our data is extremely important to a company. The most basic level of data a company wants is our email. With our email we become a “person of interest” to them so they can send us targeted emails and later turn us into a lead which could later convert to an opportunity and eventually a sale. While there are a lot of methods to get users to convert, one of the more controversial methods, second to buying email lists, are website pop ups. Besides the obtrusive nature of it all, pop ups have also proven to annoy web designers.
It is totally understandable. A lot of websites abuse the heck out of pop ups. Pop ups are boxes that appear on the screen asking for your contact information after you spend an amount of time spent on the page or upon exiting the page. They can be configured to appear based on your website urls, reference urls, search criteria and more. Pop ups usually ask for your email but can also ask for your first and last name, phone number, job title, etc.
How They Work
Generally, upon collecting your information you’ll most likely be added to a workflow then a list then eventually some sort of email campaign or if nothing else, a database somewhere in Narnia. As a bonus if you happen to submit your info on a dodgy site you might find your email being sold to anyone with an internet connection and a PayPal account.
Now that we know how they work and what happens after you click send. Let’s talk about why companies love to use them. I’m sure this week alone you’ve experienced at least two pop ups along your internet journey. That’s assuming you’re a heavy internet user — heavy as in you are on the internet a lot not heavy like your waistband is snugger than a bug in a rug. No judgments here. Do you.
Companies love to use pop ups because if we are being totally honest here, they are really easy to implement and relatively inexpensive. There are a lot of plug and play options when it comes to adding pop ups to your site. You have SumoMe, HubSpot, MailChimp, and WisePop for starters. All with their own flavors and analytics but each require little to no coding effort at all. And all at a cost cheaper than some huge ad campaign.
They Aren’t Suited For Everyone
I should state that pop ups are not suited for every company, blog or brand. Pop ups work well when there is traffic to your website. If you launch a site with no search presence or social media presence then I recommend that you don’t employ pop ups. I mean, you totally can if you want. You have that right but don’t expect much. Pop ups work when you have traffic coming to your website. And to get traffic to your site you need to promote it or have a good SEO strategy. Even if you don’t actually promote it you can bet on great organic search traffic from a good (maybe even great) SEO strategy.
Besides the ease factor, most companies use pop ups because they know it works. The cost of actual implementation of the pop ups vs the amount submissions is what they in the biz like to call “ROI” aka return on investment. For easy math let’s say I spend $5 (or nothing if I use HubSpot’s free marketing account) for the pop up service and I have roughly 100 visitors a month on my website. If 10 people submit their information to my site in a month’s time I have spent $2 per acquisition.
$5 / 10 sign ups
= $2 per acquisition
- ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MATH
That might sound like a lot. But when you consider that the average Google AdWords cost-per-click (CPC) is between $1–2 it seems pretty reasonable. However, with AdWords alone, you only have their eyes on your site, not their data.
And They Might Never Come Back
Consider this: 96% of visitors won’t return to your site so adding a well-thought-out, unobtrusive pop-up to your site is a great way to gather their information before they make a dash for the next tab.
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I’m Allyssa. I am a hybrid designer who likes to front-end code, who loves marketing ops and marketing automation, growth hacking and content marketing. You can find me on Twitter usually tweeting about sports, music and whatever podcast I’m listening to. If you want to chat over email you can jet over to my website to send me a message.
