Anatomy of The Perfect Email Popup

Barbara Bartucz
May 21, 2024
Conversion
6 min read

Crafting the ultimate email popup is the holy grail of marketers.

A great email popup captures your target audience’s attention and boosts conversions like crazy. But let’s face it, achieving that isn’t always easy.

That’s why we took a surgeon’s scalpel to meticulously dissect the perfect email popup, examining all its smallest details.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of creating THAT perfect email popup. Just follow our step-by-step guide and your email popup conversion rates will skyrocket.

Ready to dive in?

What are email popups?

Simply put, email popups are website overlays designed to collect visitors’ email addresses.

An email popup is triggered by a specific user action: entering a site, showing intent to exit, or simply spending a certain amount of time on a page.

These popups don’t show up empty-handed. They offer subscriptions to newsletters, discounts, or access to exclusive gated content in exchange for the user’s email.

For example, you might see an email popup offering you a 5% discount—plus health tips and exclusive offers—just for sharing your email address.

What's the average conversion rate of email popups?

When it comes to the average conversion rate of email popups, it’s all about the incentives you offer.

Here’s what we’ve found in our very own research:

Simple newsletter popups (without any incentive) have a 5.10% conversion rate.
Email popups that have an incentive, like an ebook in exchange for subscribing, have a higher 7.49% success rate.
Our winners here are discount popups, with a 7.65% average conversion rate.

That being said, we’ve seen plenty of email popups with even higher conversion rates.

But how can you achieve that? Read on and find out!

How to create the perfect email popup?

Creating the perfect email popup is both an art and a science, requiring a delicate balance of creativity and strategy.

First, take a look at the image below, which shows us what the perfect email popup example looks like:

Seems pretty complex, right? Don’t worry—we’re here to guide you through the process, breaking it down into manageable steps.

1. Use a multi-step popup

If you try to squeeze too much information into one single popup, it can cause too much noise for the visitor.

Multi-step popups are a great way to divide all that information into digestible pieces so the visitor doesn’t feel overwhelmed.

Start with a Yes/No question to increase the number of new visitor sign-ups.

This method taps into human behavior: by encouraging a small first action, you can play on people’s urge to finish what they’ve started. This can improve engagement and conversions.

Here’s an example of how the first page of a multi-step popup could look:

2. Display on exit-intent

Email popups can be triggered at different times. The best moment to show those popups depends on your goals. While some stores blast visitors with popups right away, others choose to wait a few seconds. Often, the most effective strategy is to use exit-intent popups.

These appear only when a visitor shows signs of leaving and lead to the highest conversion rates.

This strategic timing not only catches the visitor’s attention but also provides an opportunity to entice them back into the fold.

3. Make it full-screen

Full-screen popups—as the name implies—cover the entire screen, causing a temporary interruption.

This attention-grabbing format allows you to get your message across, even on smaller mobile screens.

However, be careful not to cover up important information on your site to avoid disrupting the user’s experience. Moreover, when employing full-screen popups on mobile, it’s crucial to trigger them on exit-intent to avoid potential penalties from Google.

4. Optimize for mobile

As more and more people are shopping from their mobile devices—today, mobile users account for around 42.9% of all ecommerce traffic—you should focus on optimizing the experience for them.

Make sure that your popup elements work smoothly on mobile screens. That means making the buttons easy to tap and correctly sized for touch interaction.

By tailoring your popups for mobile users, you can increase conversions among this critical group of visitors.

5. Add trust-building elements

Adding trust-building elements like logos, badges, reviews, or media mentions is important because it helps your target visitors feel more confident about your brand or product.

When they see familiar logos or positive reviews, they automatically trust you more, making it more likely that they’ll buy from you.

Check out the second page of the popup we showed earlier. You can see that they’ve included their logo at the top and their rating at the bottom to boost credibility.

6. Delay the closing ‘X’

Online shoppers are used to popups. Therefore, they often click the X button without thinking twice. They can’t help it—it’s a force of habit.

Luckily, we’ve found a simple trick that can help you work around this issue and get your message across.

Delay the appearance of the X button by a few seconds (2 or 3) so visitors can absorb the content of your popup before closing.

Are you worried this might annoy your visitors? Don’t be. They won’t have time to get upset, as they’ll be too busy reading your offer!

7. Use a unique discount code

Want to provide your visitors with a sense of exclusivity? Give them a unique discount code.

A unique discount code is a one-time-use code, and it has several benefits. First, it can prevent misuse, ensuring that each customer can only use the code once. Second, it can make sure that each offer is personalized and exclusive to the recipient.

Additionally, unique codes can help you track the effectiveness of your promotions more accurately.

Here’s how to set up automatically generated unique discount codes in OptiMonk:

Set the discount code type to “Automatically generated codes.”
Choose if the discount should be a “percentage” or a “fixed” dollar amount.
Add the amount of the discount.
Set up the expiration.

8. Auto-redeem discount codes

Visitors often forget about their coupon codes.

To avoid this, use auto-redeeming discount codes, which will be redeemed automatically for your visitors during the checkout process.

This way, you can ensure they won’t forget about their coupon. Plus, seeing a sweet deal automatically show up at checkout can be a big dopamine boost!

To set it up in OptiMonk, just turn on the “auto redeem” feature in the “General” settings for your coupon element.

9. Recommend products on the thank you page

After you’ve got your visitor’s email address (or after they’ve taken the desired action) their journey doesn’t have to end there!

Take advantage of the thank you page by recommending your most popular products. By leveraging this opportunity, you can further engage your audience and potentially increase sales.

Displaying product recommendations, such as your bestsellers or items related to their interests, can pique their curiosity and encourage them to explore further.

10. Add a sticky teaser

Did your visitor choose not to fill out the form? All is not lost!

Implement a sticky teaser that activates if the visitor closes the popup without filling it out.

This feature will follow them as they navigate your website, gently reminding them of the offer until they’re ready to engage.

+1 Pro tip: Add a discount reminder campaign

Ready for one last tip that will improve the effectiveness of your email popup campaign?

If your visitor is still not ready to use those coupon codes, don’t give up on them. Instead, implement a discount reminder campaign.

A discount reminder campaign is a follow-up sticky bar that reminds visitors about their unused codes and encourages them to finalize their purchases.

Give these templates a try:

Get started with these templates

OK, now that you’ve explored the anatomy of the perfect email popup, you’re probably itching to launch one of your own.

Ready to give it a go? Check out these templates:

Wrapping up

We hope you’ve gained some valuable insights into crafting the perfect email popup.

An effective email popup requires creativity, strategic thinking, and a deep understanding of your audience’s needs.

By implementing the tactics covered in this article, you can boost engagement and conversions, making your marketing efforts more effective than ever before.

Looking for a partner in crime? Create your perfect email popup with OptiMonk today and watch your conversions soar!

What should you do next?

Thanks for reading till the end. Here are 3 ways we can help you grow your business:

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Written by

Barbara Bartucz

Barbara is a Content Marketer at OptiMonk. She takes pride in creating different forms of content, whether it’s an article, a video, or an e-book.

Posted in
Conversion

Anatomy of The Perfect Email Popup

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