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Pop-ups walk a fine line between being intrusive and being an effective conversion tool. Learn about the different types and best practices when implementing them into your marketing strategy.
We’ve all encountered pop-ups when browsing the web. The chances are that in most cases they were spammy, annoying, or irrelevant. That, or related to cookie permissions.
The truth is though, that when implemented strategically, website pop-ups aren’t intrusive. Instead, they can become a powerful tool to generate conversions, whether sales, leads or email signups.
To turn pop-ups from an intrusive interference into an effective and appreciated marketing tool, you have to understand their nuances. A spray and pray approach can be damaging not only to user experience but also to how search engines like Google rate your page to help decide if and where it will rank for a relevant search query. However, selective and subtle use can provide excellent results.
In this post, we’ll cover the basic types of website pop-ups, why and how they can work, and how to implement them into your digital marketing strategy. Let’s dig in.
The definition of a website pop-up is relatively broad and simple. It’s a type of overlay or modal that appears outside of the typical user interface on a webpage, usually covering some of that page’s content in order to display a message. The messaging is usually promotional, but not always.
As a result, there are actually quite a few different types of website pop-ups. 5 of the most common are listed below.
These appear as soon as a website loads. They’re especially common on the websites of news publishers asking for subscriptions, and on e-commerce websites with offers for new users. They are also used on websites when wanting to get a core message across, like a lightning sale.
Used incorrectly, they can be immensely intrusive and cause users to leave immediately. It can be incredibly frustrating when landing on a page of information you want to read, to immediately have it obscured by a pop-up pushing you to complete an action that you’re not ready for.
These are generally used to prompt users with an attractive offer to prevent them from leaving a website. They’re common in middle and bottom-funnel conversions, like shopping cart pages on e-commerce websites. They’re triggered by an action that means that a user is about to leave a website, like their cursor moving toward the X to close the browser tab.
Used effectively they can tip a lost opportunity into a guaranteed sale. Use incorrectly, they can feel pushy or irrelevant.
These are banners that appear at the top of a page. They usually push the rest of the standard page content and design down so that they’re very prominent at the top of the browser window. They’re most common on websites looking to share important information, either site-wide or on specific pages.
These appear once a user has been on a specific page of a website for a pre-defined amount of time. For example, once a user has been on a product page for 45 seconds, a timed pop-up might appear prompting some action or other natural next step.
This type of pop-up can also have other triggers, like scroll depth on a page.
These activate once a user clicks on a specific element on a page. They’re also known as user intent pop-ups and tend to be the least intrusive option because they align with the user journey and only appear when visitors actually expect a pop-up or redirect.
Back in what felt like the wild west days of the internet, pop-ups were far more prevalent. You couldn’t avoid being bombarded by them. They were also frequently used for nefarious means, which is part of why we’re primed to dislike them.
As long as the internet exists, people will try and use it to achieve page views and clicks in dishonest or misleading ways, but thankfully the web browser companies have helped to squash out a lot of this out.
One outdated pop-up type you may still encounter on occasion is the new window pop-up. A type of entry pop-up that opens in a new browser window or tab as soon as a user visits a specific page. Most browsers now block this pop-up type because search engines like Google deem them intrusive and penalise websites using them accordingly.
In addition to the types of pop-ups available, it’s also important to consider where in the browser window they’ll appear:
In some rare cases, you might also come across sidebar pop-ups that appear alongside or above the sidebar navigation if there is one. Again, these are less intrusive but also less likely to produce user actions.
Regardless of a website’s purpose or audience, pop-ups only make sense when they are calls to action prompting the user to take a defined next step, or as a way to provide important information relevant to the user’s visit. As a result, most websites and companies use them for one of these goals:
These are common across B2B and B2C websites, to collect data for more direct marketing communications.
Another very common goal is to provide awareness or promote something that a user may be interested in, or that may prompt them into action.
Some are to provide added value in the hope of being memorable and helpful to attract potential customers in future. Especially for businesses with longer and more considered buying cycles. Many content marketing pieces will sit within this category and another, like data collection.
These usually take the form of offers and discounts and are especially common on e-commerce websites.
For many businesses, especially in B2B industries, a conversation with a sales person can be the best way to secure a sale.
Not all pop-ups are limited to these purposes, of course. As long as they help an audience take a step they should want to take, and that you want them to take, they can be built to help increase your conversion rate.
At their worst, pop-ups are intrusive, create a poor user experience, and if used wrongly or excessively can actively damage organic search performance.
At their best, though, they’re relevant enough to actually make a significant positive difference in the user journey, and on your conversion rate.
Over the years, a number of studies have found that there are significant positive effects when using this marketing tactic strategically:
That last study is especially relevant. Pop-ups are generally additive, meaning they’re designed to generate conversions that wouldn’t otherwise occur. A 3% conversion rate can be a very significant increase regardless of whether it is in lead generation or sales.
Traditionally, pop-up ads are most common on desktop-based websites. But as it turns out, studies have begun to show that they’re actually very effective on mobile devices. One service provider, for example, found that mobile pop-ups converted at a 11.01% rate.
That said, the use of pop-ups on mobile devices is even more delicate than it is for desktops. Intrusive automatic pop-ups are not typically well-received, because they can be difficult to close on a touch-screen. Instead, most experts recommend action (or click) pop-ups that only appear when prompted by a user, which might explain the higher conversion rates.
Pop-ups on websites walk a fine balance. They can work, but can also be intrusive and decrease user experience, website experience, and SEO. These best practices can help you make sure you tend toward the former, not the latter side of that balance.
Relevance is the absolute key. For each page where you’re considering a pop-up, consider the goals your users might have, and how they navigate your page to achieve them. This allows you to choose both the right pop-up type, placement, and message to lean away from intrusion and towards a mutually-beneficial prompt.
Google doesn’t punish every type of pop-up, but it is very strict on what it calls intrusive interstitials. These pop-up tactics can hurt your chances of ranking well:
Some of these are broad guidelines, of course. The key is similar to anything SEO-related. Focus on providing a good user experience, relevance and value for your users, and you have a higher chance of avoiding damage to your ranking chances.
Every pop-up should have a single goal, and every part of its message and design should focus around that goal. The more streamlined and clear your offer is, the better off you are. This also allows you to keep it relatively small for minimal disruption.
Don’t assume that, just because it works for desktop devices, the same is true for mobile users. Treat them as separate audiences to make sure that every pop-up makes sense. Not just in the context of the page content, but also in the context of how your users are browsing the site on a given device.
Another potential pitfall of pop-ups is the impact they can have on your website’s performance if implemented with the wrong technology. Implementing them on your WordPress site means finding the right technology to prevent that.
Many 3rd party page builders like Elementor include pop-up options, as do a number of CRMs and marketing automation tools like HubSpot. There are also a number of WordPress pop-up plugins available, and of course custom-built options.
Speak to your web developer about what option is best for your website, to reduce the impact on performance and to avoid disrupting page experience.
When planning your marketing strategy, don’t forget about the opportunities that pop-ups can provide. With the right planning and strategic implementation, they can make a significant difference in your conversion rate. But, you have to get them right in order to avoid alienating your users.
Fortunately, you’re not on your own. When working with Impact Media, we can help you make sure pop-ups and customisable banners are included in the website design and build process. We can also help you add them to your existing WordPress website as part of a development retainer. Just contact us to get started.
If you’d like to learn more about our WordPress & WooCommerce Support & Maintenance plans, drop us an email or give James a call.
Our plans provide a holistic solution to your website’s performance, reliability and security, and are inclusive of premium tools and services.
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