When it comes to gaining conversions on your website there are a vast number of tools that companies use to increase their conversion rates. One that is world-renowned is the pop-up ad. Pop-up ads have a bad reputation due to the way they have been overused. People had been blitzed by pop-up ads for years to the point of feeling like they were being constantly spammed on websites. However, as the internet has evolved, these ads have also evolved into messages that look clean, and are helping increase desired actions/conversions on companies’ websites.
Why Use Pop-up Ads?
With all conversion-based marketing, you are trying to create a process for individuals to view content that will encourage them to take action. However, even if you have an amazing offer and your pop-up is working well, there will always be potential customers who don’t complete your pop-up ad. Pop-up ads can also be used strategically to increase potential customers and increase the probability of consumers completing an action. Your pop-up ads don’t have the to be conversion you absolutely need; it can be one that has less intent for the consumer if you want.
Pop-up Strategies
Similar to landing pages, pop-ups can be multifaceted. Your design can encourage people to take action, but the success of a pop-up ad is linked to the design, copy, formatting, etc just like a landing page. Another factor is when your pop-up ad activates during your potential customer's experience. This is where the difference between pop-up ads in the past and in the present today.
There are two types of strategies that should be useful to most industries. They are the funnel strategy and the eCommerce strategy.
Ecommerce Pop-up Strategy
If your business model is based on selling products online this strategy is for you. You can use pop-up ads that are focused on the products or services that the user is intending to purchase. However, there are multiple steps in the buyer’s journey so you will need to decide what pop-up makes the most sense in order to get them to convert into a purchase. There are three stages in the buyer's journey to focus on to convert for pop-ups.
Inquiry Stage
In this stage, the potential customer views a product page. During this process, we recommend using a pop-up on your organic pages. The reason is that the potential consumer might view multiple products and receive a pop-up when you are simply browsing can be considered annoying. However, if you are running paid marketing ads that send users to a specific product page, then you should add a pop-up because the consumer already made a deliberate action to go to the page you are promoting.
Add to Cart Stage
This stage is pretty self-explanatory, this is when a customer has added a product to their cart but hasn’t purchased the item(s) yet. There is a good chance that the consumer will get cold feet and leave the website without purchasing the product or service. A pop-up with a trigger when consumers try to leave the page or are idle for a specific amount of time on the page is the way to go here.
Checkout Stage
This stage is when consumers are on the checkout page with the products in their cart. With the customer already at checkout, a pop-up ad here could include a discount or a last-minute recommendation promotion.
Funnel Pop-up Strategy
If your business isn’t eCommerce focused, you probably use some type of form fill that goes into a marketing funnel. At the top of a marketing funnel, you will have offers that have lighter intent, and as you move further down the funnel you are getting closer to closing a sale, which is your main objective. Knowing how your marketing funnel works will help you create an effective strategy.
For example, let’s say you are driving traffic to a landing page that offers a demo, or free trial. This landing page could have a pretty good success rate, however, if the potential customer isn’t sure about signing up for the offer you can use a pop-up tool. The specific action of this pop-up would trigger if the user is not converting on the page and is about to leave. The pop-up can be a higher funnel objective like a sign-up for a webinar, ebook, or case study. That way if the customer is confident about a demo or purchasing the service, you can still keep them interested. You can also gather some of their information for retargeting, bringing them down the funnel a little further to get a full conversion later on.
Another place you can utilize a pop-up is on your thank you pages. By utilizing this you can try to push customers who received something higher up the funnel, like a webinar, further down the funnel with your offer of services or products. This helps produce a natural path for leads that might have some intent to use your services. Instead of having a slow trickle system like an email marketing list, you can expedite the process to hopefully lead to faster conversion.
Delivering a Pop-up Ad
The way your pop-up ad is delivered is just as crucial as the actual pop-up itself. As we have said a couple of times before, there is a fine line between an efficient pop-up ad and annoying spam. It needs to be at the right place at the right time. If you try these two strategies above you will have a higher chance of success and enjoy stronger pop-ups. Depending on what pop-up tool you are using, there are a variety of pop-up types you can try leveraging. Let’s go over some of the most common ones and when to use them.
Page Load Pop-up
This pop-up type is activated after a page has been loaded for a specific amount of time. Usually, you don’t want it to activate too early, or for it to wait too long to show. If you check out your analytics, you can gauge how long users are on your page to make a judgment as to when your pop-up should show up.
Bounce Pop-up
A bounce pop-up is one of the most common pop-ups used. This allows you to deliver a pop-up ad when a user is about to exit out of their tab within their browser. This is great for last-minute discounts or as another way to try and engage the site visitor before they leave.
Scroll Pop-up
This pop-up is usually applied on blog posts since the pop-up is activated by the visitor using the scroll function on their mouse. However, you can also use this scrolling feature on landing pages that have more content or information below the fold. Once they scroll past the fold, the pop-up will trigger.
Click Pop-up
This pop-up is triggered by the use of buttons and links. Typically this pop-up is for form submissions. An example of this pop-up is what eCommerce companies would use when a product is added to a customer’s shopping cart. The pop-up in this example would provide a promotion to help complete the transaction.
Pop-up ads have matured from being a spam message getting in the way of a user’s experience, to being helpful, appealing, and effective. They can help expedite a potential customer's journey down the funnel, bring potential customers into the funnel, or, if you are an eCommerce company, they can help you complete purchases on your site. Hopefully, these tips on pop-ups will help you to increase your conversions.