Strategies for Increasing Pop-up Opt-ins and Maximising Lead Generation 🚀

• Introduction
• The importance of an effective pop-up
• A/B Testing
• Different offers to test within your pop-up
• How collecting zero-party data will enable you to personalise your flows
• Collecting SMS subscribers through your Pop-up
• Pop-up optimisation case study
• Conclusion

Research shows that, on average, only 3% of visitors convert the first time they visit your website.

That means a whopping 97% are leaving without purchasing.

Goodbye. Adios. Au Revoir.

Whichever language you choose, they’re gone.

And it’s natural. It’s rare you’ll arrive on a website for the first time, see something you like and purchase without a second thought.

In most cases, a relationship has to be built.

That’s where the power of email comes into play.

What’s the most effective way to gather emails? An attractive, high-converting pop-up form on your website.

Increasing your pop-up opt-in rate is one of the best ways to increase your brand awareness, customer interaction and importantly, revenue.

The art of creating an effective pop-up often lies in simplicity.

We don’t want it overcrowded or with mixed messaging.

The ‘offer’, whatever that may be, should be readable at a glance.

In most cases, it’s usually a discount, a gift, or free shipping.

Here’s a simple framework to increase your opt-in rates:

1. A headline including a benefit – Free Shipping on Your First Order
2. A product image – Crisp product shot imagery
3. Social proof – Over 10,649 5*  Trustpilot reviews
4. Unique button text – Unlock Free Shipping

Optima Tip 💡

You can also have a different variation of your pop-up for first-time visitors vs returning subscribers.

Once live, you’ll need to continuously monitor the performance of your pop-up.

Small improvements can have a dramatic impact.

Let’s take an extreme example. You’ve a pop-up underperforming and converting 2% of new visitors to your website.

If you can improve the design, copywriting and offer, bringing your conversion rate to 10%, you’ll have just 5 X your subscribers.

That’s five times more people seeing your brand regularly and understanding what you do.

Optima Pro Tip 💡

Multi-step pop-ups are a great way of collecting zero-party consumer data without hurting your conversion rate. Ask for name and email at step 1 and date of birth or product preferences at step 2.

Within a pop-up, you’ve several options of what to test.

The most important point is that you only test one element at a time.

Otherwise, you won’t know exactly what worked or didn’t work.

Here’s some examples of what offers to test:

• 10% OFF
• 10$ OFF
•  FREE Shipping
• FREE Sample pack
• FREE Gift with purchase
• Get 20% cashback (Big fan)

Many brands will default to offering 10% OFF.

However, It’s crucial you understand what makes sense commercially for the overall profitability of your business.

Some brands have a high LTV which can offer a higher percentage upfront to acquire customers.

Almost a lost-leader model.

To use this strategy, you must have accurate data and understand the average LTV of a customer.

In some cases, it’s a matter of using what appeals most to your customers.

A free gift could convert more yet actually cost the business less than a 10% discount.

We’ll look at this in more detail in our case study further on.

Zero-party data is information customers intentionally and voluntarily share.

For example, if you ask a customer about themselves or what they’re interested in, the information you collect from the responses is zero-party data.

As an email marketer or e-commerce owner, this information is golden!

Although you need to be creative when collecting such data. Quizzes are an excellent way of doing so.

Let’s use a Jewellery brand for example. We want to have a simplified way of categorising our subscribers.

At the pop-up stage, you could ask them which of the following are the most interested in:

• Wedding Rings
• Engagement Rings
• Costume jewellery
• Body piercing jewellery

This will enable you to tailor the copy and imagery in your  ‘Welcome Series’.

You can have a personalised welcome flow of emails using the data and preferences you’ve just collected.

Real-life example💡

Sephora, a beauty retailer, used zero-party data to send personalised recommendations to customers based on their skin tone, hair type, and makeup preferences. By doing so, Sephora increased its email open rate by 50% and generated $2.5 billion in revenue.

When collecting SMS subscribers, you can use a multi-step form. It depends on what the brand is trying to achieve. When collecting SMS and email consent in a single form, you can inadvertently slow down the growth of your email list.

Using the breadcrumb approach is a style we prefer. We can ask for the email and zero-party data on the first step. From here, you can ask the user for their SMS consent. If it makes commercial sense, the brand could increase the reward or offer them access to exclusive deals and VIP membership.

Before onboarding any client, we conduct a full audit. This involves a deep dive into their Klaviyo account but also includes macro-level elements.

The pop-up is often an area where we see improvements can be made. From design to copywriting all the way through to the timing of when it’ll appear.

In the below example, we tested different offers. It’s currently converting at 11%.

Of course, these metrics are only surface-level. You could offer 25% off and have your opt-in rates shoot up but that’s not the right move long term for a number of reasons.

After testing, we arrived at a different offer than the standard 10% OFF.

We found customers valued a free gift with a purchase more than a percentage discount.

As a business, it also made better commercial sense for the client.

Their average order value (AOV) is approximately €73 for first-time buyers.

A 10% discount gave up €7.30 on each sale.

However, the free gift we chose only cost €3 for the client to purchase.

This meant we increased sign-ups and also made an additional €4.30 on each sale.

A win-win situation. 

Sometimes you’ll need to think outside the box. Don’t automatically default to a specific percentage discount.

Understand what the customer values and work from there.

You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Pop-ups will play a significant role in the overall performance of your online business.

Give potential customers a reason to sign up. Spend time understanding their needs and wants.

Like our free gift example above. Customers may perceive this as of higher value than a percentage discount.

If you can build your email list it’ll allow you to develop relationships with your customers.

Educate them on your brand and provide them with valuable information.

Turn them into brand advocates. Having an effective email strategy will help increase average order values as well as customer lifetime value.

Two key metrics for any successful online retailer.

Want to increase your online revenue?

P.s If you own or manage an e-commerce business and would like to scale through email, let’s book in a call 😊

You can DM here or book a call here: https://calendly.com/caolan-optima/15min

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