“The key to successful usage of the pop-up box, as with all aspects of marketing, is the ability to pivot from your perspective and step into your customer’s shoes, how does this scenario look from their point of view? Have you intrigued them enough to join your mailing list? Have you shown them enough value that a strong call to action for a purchase with an enticing discount will have them taking the next desired step?”

 

You know them, all online users do. You come across a new website, maybe through an ad or the result of a google search. You are exploring their products or maybe an article, and you are engrossed with the reason that you visited the site, to begin with, and all of a sudden your session has been interrupted, the screen has been closed out and there is a box in the center screaming for your attention (not that you have a choice at that point). Welcome to the world of pop-up box ads.

These are very popular with online retailers, bloggers, or really anyone trying to build a mailing list or generate direct conversions and so are often overused. They can be annoying and actually drive your websites bounce rate through the roof, as a majority of users will actually leave your site instead of engaging or closing the dreaded pop-up. However if used correctly or in a strategic, even cleaver manner these babies can be your best friend.

 

“..don’t attack any and every visitor to your site with a desperate plea to engage. This will simply drive the majority of your traffic away, the very same traffic you are working so hard to generate in the first place.”

Putting The Pop-up Box To Use

How could that be possible you may ask? The answer is simple and almost always overlooked – structure them into your funnel or build them into your user journey. What I mean by this is, don’t attack any and every visitor to your site with a desperate plea to engage. This will simply drive the majority of your traffic away, the very same traffic you are working so hard to generate in the first place.

For example, if you are running acquisition advertising, depending on your industry, your target audience and the competition for their attention, you could be paying as high as $10 per click (or higher)  on a Google AdWords ad. You may think $10 for one click, that’s a lot, but if that lead turns into a repeat customer, imagine the revenue you can make over a period of time. However, your $10 click is only money well spent if you can build on their initial engagement with your business. Chasing them away with an ill-timed pop-up that is urging them to “join your mailing list” or to buy your product because they “now get 10% off” is counterproductive and detrimental to all of the other hard work you are putting into your marketing efforts. By driving this lead away, you are not only waving goodbye to the $10 you spent getting on your site, to begin with, but also all of the potential revenue they offered – certainly some food for thought in my mind.

There are a lot of free and paid services that will allow you to install pop-up boxes on your website with multiple purposes, most will have some form of tracking and you can customize the conditions in which the pop-up will appear to users, here are some examples:

• Only showing up on specific pages
• Showing up to users from predefined geo-targets
• Showing up after behavioral conditions have been met like viewed three or more pages
• Showing up after a user has stayed on the site for a duration of time
• Only showing up when the user hits the site with specific tracking codes

 

Let’s Take Some Of These Concepts For A Test Drive:

• Call-to-action pop up that directs segmented users to certain pages with specific messaging – Test drive
• Recommended content pop up –  extend your user’s session by keeping them engaged with the content they will enjoy while moving them through to the next planned stage of their user journey (would typically appear at the bottom of the article & would direct you to the next page) – Test drive
• Join our mailing list pop up – offer engaged users the chance to stay connected by joining your mailing list, after they have seen sufficient value from your site – Test drive 

 

you can further customize the experience by utilizing Google Tag Manager and adding additional conditions and by doing so, customizing the pages the “tag” will appear on and trigger the pop-up box (although typically this would be considered advanced).

The benefit of using a marketing automation platform that has this functionality built-in is ensuring a seamless experience for your users, what I mean by this is, you should be structuring your buyers’ journey, with the intent of qualifying and moving them through the sales funnel or buying process. This is difficult when your touch points are split among various platforms that may or may not integrate on various levels. Most of the mid to high-end marketing automation platforms will have a type of campaign or workflow builder, which is what you would use to actually build out the journey you would like your visitors to experience or go through. Pop-up box ads can be a crucial aspect of this journey as they allow you to focus your user’s attention on the most important information at that moment in time; transiting users and maintaining the traffic flow from one stage to another.

 

How Can Pop-up Boxes Be Added Into Your Marketing Mix?

The possibilities are endless, but, here are a few ways you can use pop-up boxes:

• Collect data from known contacts visiting your site – increasing your knowledge of them, their needs and further qualify them as a prospect.
• Convert unknown users into known users – growing your mailing list.
• Offer prospects a stronger motive to buy such as a discount on a product or service that they have already engaged with but did not convert on
• Call repeat customer’s attention to an upcoming sale or online event.
• Drive traffic from a specific channel or source to a custom page on your site – highlighting a special message just for them.

The key to successful pop-up boxes, as with all aspects of marketing, is the ability to pivot from your perspective and step into your customer’s shoes, how does this scenario look from their point of view? Have you intrigued them enough to join your mailing list? Have you shown them enough value that a strong call to action for a purchase with an enticing discount will have them taking the next desired step? By looking at things through the eyes of the audience I am working to engage and convert, I have actually had people go back to a certain piece such as an email and click-through in order to re-trigger the pop-up and access an exclusive deal. If the channel or element is applied with a strategy and has clear value, your audience will embrace it – marketing automation platforms can help you structure your initiatives to achieve this.

 

Find part seven of this series – How To Demystify Social Media Marketing For Your Business