As an online user I can honestly say that popups bug me. I’m going about my own business, scrolling through a website and up pops this little box right in the middle of the article I was reading, or the product I was viewing. Frustrating, right? So why do we insist on using these annoying little boxes that interrupt the users’ browsing experience?
Well, let’s face it, they work! Popups capture attention and drive engagement. eCommerce stores have a huge disadvantage when it comes to retail, and that is they have little, to no, physical contact with potential buyers. Forging a relationship and building loyalty in a brand is far more complex when you are unable to communicate personally with a customer. This is why email is so important, and thus email capture, is vital for eCommerce merchants.
Using popups as a form of communication has its pros and cons. In this article, we are going to divulge into the world of popups and learn how effective use of popups for eCommerce stores can be a real game changer.
Number 1 – Email Capture
Popups are frequently used to capture email addresses. Research has shown that websites that use popups for email capture acquire on average over 1,300% more email addresses than websites that opt to use a side-bar to capture email addresses
Email capture is a vital strategical link that cannot be overlooked when it comes to eCommerce businesses. Day after day you see hundreds, or even thousands of unique visitors attracted to your site via your marketing efforts. Fantastic. But hey, what happens next? If you are not capturing their details that’s it, you have no way to even connect with these people again. What a waste of your marketing efforts. Capturing email addresses gives you a small opening to begin to forge a relationship with these visitors and convince them to return to your store time, and time again.
Email capture isn’t there to just grow your existing lists, sadly an average store will naturally lose, on average, 20% of their email lists each year. There are several reasons why email lists naturally deplete; an email recipient may have changed email address or the store no longer suits their requirements. Whatever the reason is that they have disengaged, it leaves you with an added problem. Now you not only have to grow your lists, you need to replenish your losses too. Time to start using popups.
Number 2: Pre-empt barriers to purchase
Email capture is the primary reason eCommerce businesses use pop-ups. However, that is not the only use this tool has. The second most useful use of popups is to give an answer that will pre-empt a potential barrier to purchase such as shipping costs.
Think of a list of potential barriers that would stop your customers from purchasing from you and stop those issues before they even occur. One of the most frequent questions asked is shipping options and costs. Another barrier to purchase that is frequently questioned is the payment options.
Give Remarkety a FREE try today and experience the simplicity of its powerful email marketing automation tools.
Number 3: Educate your audience
Encourage your audience to learn more about the industry, your brand and/or your products by downloading content. By showing your audience that you understand the industry you will instantly begin to build an alliance based on trust. While we understand that it is important to inspire or excite people to take action and make a purchase, without information or education, it is a lot harder to convince people to take action.
Number 4: Learn about your audience and improve engagement
It is far easier to engage with your audience if you learn more about them. We often push the importance of personalization and now you can use pop-ups to help you gather more information. The information you gather will allow you to create the right content that will engage your audience. Use your popups to not only gather information; such as likes and dislikes, but can also be utilized to get the audience involved in your branding. Ask them their opinion on your new products or your new brand logo and make them feel as if their views matter to you.
Number 5: Offer incentives
The problem with online shopping is that it is very easy for shoppers to quickly scan the web for cheaper options. Having an exit intent pop-up that provides a last-minute incentive is a quick way to stop the shopper in their tracks to reexamine the need to search elsewhere. There are many different types of incentives you can offer, including; free shipping, 10% of next order, refer a friend offer or a flash sale.
Number 6: Showcase new products or a sneak peek into
Why not use your pop-ups to showcase your new products or make an announcement about something that is coming soon? This is a great way to communicate to your audience and get them excited about your brand and give them a reason to come back at a later point.
Reduce the Annoyance of Popups
As we have seen Popups can give a company many different benefits but it still does not remove the problem that we face with popups being annoying. There are actions that you can take to help reduce the annoyance of popups.
There are several ways to display your popup based on visitor actions. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular below:
Timed-Based – You can choose to activate your popup at different times throughout a person’s visit on your site. This can vary depending upon the content of the pop-up as we have seen above. We always advise that a pop-up should never appear less than 60 seconds after a session has started. If a shopper is still on the website after 60 seconds then we can assume that they are more likely to be engaged and the popup will add-value.
Content-Based – You can choose to show certain popups for specific content that will only appear on the relevant pages that you have pre-defined. This will add relevance to the popup.
Scroll-Based – A scroll-based popup will show your popup when a user has scrolled a specific percentage of the way down your page. This is commonly used on blog posts and is similar to the timed method as you are only showing your popup to someone who has engaged with your page a specific amount.
Exit-Intent – An exit-intent popup only shows when a visitor is about to leave your site. This type of popup has gained a lot of attention recently as it is being seen to be the most successful in convincing shoppers to convert.
As you can see, popups come in all different shapes and sizes and provide numerous benefits to your brand. If you are going to implement popups into your eCommerce store then make sure you experiment with the various types of popups and see what works best for you. Remember, a popup is a crucial part of your sales efforts and getting the message and style right is essential if you want to increase your conversions. Always make sure that your popup provides a clear benefit to the shopper and has a strong.
[NOTE*** Did you know that Google rolled out a mobile popup penalty? Yes, that’s right. Google began rolling out its intrusive mobile popup penalty, aimed at reducing the number of results that take mobile searchers to pages that use large popups or interstitials over the content they expected to find. Read more…]
Give Remarkety a FREE try today and experience the simplicity of its powerful email marketing automation tools.
