Pop up ads have been a controversial topic for years now. Some love them, others hate them. But the indisputable facts point in their favour. Read on to find out why.
We’ll begin with the pros and cons of pop up ads.
Advantages of pop up ads
They lead to incredibly high subscribe and conversion rates.
When used right, pop ups are powerful little creatures. You can find many case studies of pop ups increasing lead counts.
Especially if you use discount pop ups and exit intent pop ups, you’ve got nothing to lose but you can certainly gain a lot.
They always attract users’ attention and can’t be ignored.
Using popups as part of your email marketing strategy is great. But offering discounts is not the only way to get more email subscribers.
You can incentivize visitors to share their email address by offering a free guide, It’s certainly an efficient way of advertising and attracting one’s attention. Pop ups aren’t just sitting somewhere on the web page, waiting for you to notice them. They demand you look at them and engage NOW because they interrupt whatever you’re doing. Visitors can easily ignore website banners but not pop ups – and that’s why every digital marketer uses them.
They put the focus on the most important message.
Pop up messages have to be catchy and to the point. One pop up has to focus on one message you want to convey to the Internet users that are currently on your website. And one call to action, no more, or you will confuse and discourage them. With so much information on your website, pop ups are a good way to deliver the most important message and CTA you have in mind.
They deliver a message when website visitors are already engaged.
It’s tricky to do but crucial – you need to wait for visitors to be engaged with your content before you show them a pop up. That way they’ll be more interested in what you have to say.
Maybe they’ve been reading your blog posts on digital marketing? Show them a pop up promising additional pro tips, which they can get by simply entering their email address.
They offer value.
Again, pop ups need to be all about the visitors and customers. If they don’t offer them anything valuable, they’re more likely to simply exit.
They have a huge ROI potential.
Pop ups are either free, or very cheap, so the return of investment potential is off the charts.
They are less intrusive nowadays.
In the beginning, pop ups were too flashy and annoying. Even their creator apologized publicly. However, pop ups now can be carefully customized and implemented in a way that is less intrusive so that you can only reap the benefits of using them – higher conversions, subscriptions and sales.
They are versatile.
The greatest thing about pop ups is that there are so many of them – exit intent pop up, email pop up, discount pop up, and so on. You can use them to stop visitors from leaving your website and abandoning their shopping carts, to encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter and collect their email address, to incite potential customers to make a purchase ASAP, to collect feedback through a pop up survey, and whatever else you can think of.
They are customizable.
What’s awesome is that pop ups are now fully customizable. You can choose how they’ll look, when they’ll appear and exactly where on the website they’ll appear. You can create specific pop ups targeting only users from a certain country, new visitors or returning customers. Take advantage of this and create smart campaigns to reach pop ups’ full potential.
They help you make visitors stay longer on your website.
Pop ups, when used right, will help you retain your visitors’ attention. It can be by displaying a pop up offering a discount if they shop now, a free pdf if they subscribe, or an exit-intent pop up just as they’re about to leave.
They provide instant customer feedback.
You can use pop ups to receive instant feedback from your visitors and customers. After all, it’s crucial to understand their needs. Display a quick pop up survey to get valuable feedback so that you know how to improve and beat the competition.
They are cheap.
We already mentioned this but we should emphasize – pop ups are cheap and you should absolutely include them in your marketing strategy. In fact, if you subscribe now for our brand new digital marketing tool – Catchfull – you’ll be able to create unlimited pop ups for FREE for 3 months!
They help in showcasing your brand, product or service.
Get creative and customize your pop ups to showcase your brand and newest or most popular products in the best possible way. A unique message will certainly impress your visitors and make them remember and like your brand.
Main mistakes to avoid when using pop up ads
Here are some bad practices rookies might fall into initially.
Using pop ups that seem spammy.
You don’t want to annoy your website visitors, right? Then don’t bombard them with pop ups as soon as they land on one of your pages. Give them some time to have a look around and get engaged with your content.
Nowadays, you can easily customize pop ups and carefully select when, how and where to display them so that they are helpful and welcome instead of annoying. That way you won’t drive visitors away but will appeal to them and make them stay and take the action you want them to – click somewhere, enter their email or even make a purchase, for example.
Displaying irrelevant pop ups.
Not only do you need to time your pop ups correctly, you also have to think about relevancy. The key here is for your pop up to bring something more to the table. It has to be useful and offer additional content or a discount, for instance, so that your potential customer will be happy to see it.
Using generic pop ups.
If your pop ups are spammy, generic and don’t add any value to the user and customer experience, of course they’ll result in a higher bounce rate. But if you put in some effort to create carefully customized and thoughtful campaigns, you’ll see an amazing increase in conversions. It’s all up to you and how you use pop ups.
With Catchfull, you’ll be guaranteed to succeed. Our blog will continue to provide essential tips every digital marketer follows, while our pop up builder will let you create the best possible pop ups.
Read on to see the rest of our tips.
Do’s and Don’ts of pop ups
Here we will discuss what other frequent mistakes to avoid if you want to make the most of your pop ups.
For good pop up ads, do:
- Make pop ups easy to leave.
If users can’t intuitively find the X to close the pop up, they might simply leave your website. So make sure you feature the X or No button clearly or allow people to click off the side of the pop up to close it. Don’t hide the exit option. - Make the content or promotion you’re displaying relevant to the page the user is on.
- Make the value you’re delivering (discount, ebook. etc.) front and center.
- Display your pop ups only when your visitors are ready to see them.
- Make your pop ups personal and original.
- Use the right pop up type for the right use case.
- Make sure your pop ups work.
Test everything and check them regularly. - Keep your pop ups simple – focus on one message and one action you want your visitor to take.
- Consider where you place your pop up.
Test what works best for your visitors. - The fear of missing out is a powerful incentive. If your pop up lets people know that your discount offer is limited, they’ll be more eager to act now and make a purchase instead of leaving it for later and forgetting all about it.
Don’t:
- Don’t use multiple pop ups.
Focus on one main thing instead. Otherwise, you’ll confuse, annoy and discourage visitors. - Don’t forget to keep it light.
If your pop up is too heavy (because it contains a large image, for example), it will take longer to load and you might lose users’ interest and attention. - Don’t make it lengthy.
You visitors will decide in less than a second if they’re interested in what you have to say. So better keep it short and sweet. - Don’t implement pop ups without a plan.
You need to have a specific goal in mind. Don’t just sprinkle pop ups here and there aimlessly. Know what you want to achieve with your pop up and focus on that, whether it’s getting newsletter subscribers, making visitors download a PDF, or something else. If you have multiple goals at the same time, it’s more likely to fail to achieve all of them. - Don’t put too many fields on an opt-in pop up.
The fewer fields your opt-in form has, the better. Statistics point to higher conversion rates when there is only one field or even no fields at all. The explanation is simple – no one has the time and patience for filling out a full form and users automatically get overwhelmed and click to exit when they see many blank fields waiting for them.
Want more tips? See how you can take advantage of pop up ads with these highly successful pop up ideas for conversion and sales increasement that we’ve gathered and get ahead of the competition in no time.
To sum up
Pop up advertising in online marketing isn’t new. Many businesses are actively implementing it as we speak.
After this article, the many advantages of pop up ads are clear. Now if someone asks “Are pop up ads effective?”, you can answer: Absolutely! You know how to use pop ups best so that they suit your needs and expectations and convert visitors into customers.
But that’s not all. Do you need a quick, easy and efficient way of creating successful campaigns?
Catchfull is a pop up builder that allows you to create and customize amazing pop ups, banners and on-site messages with just a few clicks. It will help skyrocket your conversions and sales in no time.
And the best part? If you subscribe now, you’ll get to use it for free for 3 months!
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