Maybe you clicked this because you thought, that has to be a typo. Nope, you read that percentage right. We integrated just one super-simple strategy and increased our conversions by 10,000%. And it’s something you can utilize in your own business right now. So listen up, get your implementing pants on (hopefully they are comfy) and get set on turbocharging your conversions — because you’re doing a LOT of work and it should be moving the needle for you.
We’ve long had a pretty elaborate pop-up strategy that invites our site visitors into an offer related to the blog post or page they’re currently visiting. I talked all about it in episode 223 of the podcast, and we walked through all the nitty-gritty strategies I use to add 5,000 new email subscribers to my list each week. Pop-ups can be absolutely transformational to business growth, if you do them the right way.
My process is simple, and it goes a little something like this… If I’m talking about my favorite Hawaii beaches, you would receive a pop-up inviting you to check out our condos. If I’m talking about oil cleansing, you’d get one directing you to my page all about my favorite products by Primally Pure. If we’re talking about email marketing, I might have a pop-up offering you access to my 50 best subject lines or invite you to a webinar I might be hosting about email marketing so you can learn more.
This smart pairing of subjects has been a pretty incredible tactic not only to grow my email list, but to better serve my audience by taking them on a journey to additional information they’re clearly already interested in based on what they’re currently viewing. It’s like giving the next invitation and not a dead end — simple, right? But we often leave deadends when there’s still more to give. It’s all about giving you the stuff you want — before they have to search for it, potentially taking you away from the very thing you were seeking!
The problem with traditional pop-ups: desktop vs. mobile pop-ups
But even with this powerful pop-up approach, something still always bothered me. I knew 80% of my audience was consuming our content on mobile devices, and our pop-up strategy could only work for desktops. Inevitably, we were missing out on communicating with a huge percentage of people in this amazing way, and I was determined to figure out how to make mobile pop-ups work for us.
You probably haven’t seen many mobile pop-ups as you browse on your mobile device… or if you do, they take over your whole screen with horrible formatting that gets in the way of your entire experience and you’re not sure how to close it out so you just close the whole screen out and move onto the next thing. They’re clunky and hard to get out of, and they do more harm than good most of the time.
Literally, if you Google “mobile pop-ups,” you’ll get a ton of articles about how they’re dead! These sources say they just don’t work and are super annoying to the end-user. You’ve most likely experienced the frustration of poor mobile pop-ups and wrote them off as something you would never do.
A lot of pop-ups on mobile devices are spammy and incredibly ineffective, especially in comparison to how transformative our desktop pop-ups have been. But I just knew we could do better and that there was a way to reach people on their phones in a way that wasn’t annoying and, instead, focused on serving them and improving their experience as they viewed my content.
Here’s what I did to integrate effective mobile pop-ups
- Timing: First up? We got highly, super, MEGA intentional about when the information pops up. In OptinMonster, the platform we use to plan, place, and design our pop-ups, you can time it so it only pops up once someone has scrolled to a specific part of the post. We knew when they had read and gotten through the important pieces already, so once they were past the best meat of the post, it was a good time to invite them somewhere else.
- Slide it on in: And up next — we made what’s called a “slide-in,” instead of a full pop-up, which can take up the entire screen and be entirely disruptive. The slide-ins we designed just show up in the corner, and we make it super clear how to get out of it with a very apparent “X” so that it’s not aggravating if the person chooses NOT to engage with it. The last thing we want to do is irritate someone and push them away from something that could be helpful or informative.
- No repeats: A really important step we made was instating a strict rule that if someone received the pop-up one time, they would not receive it again. I didn’t want my audience to associate me with pushing the same thing over and over and not taking into consideration their choice to forego the content.
- Keep it conservative: And the cherry on top? We use mobile pop-ups sparingly and with a lot of thought behind each one. I never want to be the pop-up queen with stuff flying onto the screen on every post you read. Pop-ups should ultimately add benefit and value to the reader, and we know that NO one is wanting to experience pop-ups on every page and post they view, especially when they’re viewing from their phone. That’s plain old annoying.
Although — I will say, with desktop, we are a little more aggressive with our pop-ups because we can code them so that they are “exit intent” pop-ups, meaning they show up when the person is ready to click away, anyway. You can’t do that on mobile, so you don’t want to frustrate the user if they are still reading and clicking around your site.
The results we experienced from setting up strategic mobile pop-ups
It was absolutely nuts what happened from the VERY first mobile pop-up we set up. We had a 10,000% increase in opt-ins within one week from creating our first mobile pop-up. And we’ve subsequently been designing them for our very best material and infusing them into our content ever since… because those numbers are just too good!
So… Have you noticed them? Engaged with them? What are your thoughts as a user? From a business perspective, I’m calling it a wildly successful way to grow your list, and when done thoughtfully and intentionally, it can be used as a method to continuously serve your audience — and avoid coming off as “spammy.”
