Pop-Up Forms: How Useful Are They to Your Marketing Strategy?

Oct 5, 2018 | Digital, Web Services

Using pop-up forms to expand email lists, increase blog subscriptions, and push purchases could be a nuisance to some website visitors. Or is it?

Here’s why pop-up forms actually work, and how to tailor them to be the most effective for your website’s goals.

Pop-up forms aren’t the third-party pop-ups of yesteryear. Now, they’re being used by websites themselves to drive conversions and generate leads. Pop-up forms come in all shapes and sizes, but the content is pretty standard: they have a catchy header, collect visitor’s information, and have an option for visitors to opt out of the collection. But the resurgence of pop-up forms led Google to lower search engine rankings of sites whose content is not easily accessible because of pop-up forms in 2017.

So, are pop-up forms really useful? In short, not all are bad, and they’re incredibly useful at driving conversions and leads. It’s all about how you use them.

Do Pop-Up Forms Actually Work?

In short, yes. Pop-up forms can be used for almost any need. Whether you want to collect emails for a mailing list, notify readers of new blog posts, or convince visitors to complete a transaction, there’s a pop-up form for that. Some are triggered when you first reach the landing page of a website; others appear when you attempt to leave a page or spend a certain amount of time on a page.

But, pop-up forms should be used effectively and relevantly. You want the visitor to engage with the pop-up form, and not make them leave your site altogether.

How Can I Make Pop-Up Forms Work for My Website?

There are several aspects to creating an effective pop-up form. Think about when you enter a website, and a pop-up form appears: what’s going to capture your attention? What’s going to make you want to click away?

Realize that your visitors are human – and so are you. The language and tone you present to a visitor should be humanizing, engaging, and not questionable – does the visitor know exactly what you’re going to do with their information? They should.

Greet the visitor, use active language, and keep it simple. For example, a visitor is going to be more turned off by a full-screen welcome mat that presents them with a paragraph of copy followed by “Sign up for emails” as opposed to a quick pop-up form on the landing page that says something along the lines of “Nice to see you on our website! Would you like to be notified when we have a sale?” Politeness counts, and don’t use condescending language if the visitor opts out!

How do I make pop-up forms my customers want?

Relevancy matters too. Your pop-up form content should stay true to your website. If you’re a retailer, reward the visitor with a coupon in exchange for signing up for emails. Or, if you write a blog, get traffic to new posts by giving visitors a brief overview of your content.

It’s important to consider how visitors use the page the pop-up form appears on. If a visitor is about to exit a product page, a pop-up form triggered by scrolling upwards could encourage them to think about the product one more time. If a visitor has been engaged on a page for a certain amount of time, offer them an opportunity to see similar content elsewhere on your website. But respect the visitor, and make it easy to exit the pop-up form. This is especially important on mobile devices, where pop-up forms shouldn’t inhibit the function of your website.

Don’t know where to start? Ask us anything about getting pop-up forms effectively utilized on your website, and we’ll be in touch.