What are the pros and cons of pop-ups?
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:42 am
People often ask about the pros and cons of popups. Often, we answer that it really depends on how the popups are implemented. If a website owner thinks about user experience, chooses popup formats well, designs those popups to match their brand, and targets the popups to the right audience, the pros outweigh the cons.
In fact, the biggest downsides to popups come from poor popup implementation. This can be annoying to users, slow down pages if a bunch of popups are added at once, and create an overall bad user experience. However, these downsides are the exception rather than the rule.
Benefits of adding popups to your site:
Engagement and Action: Pop-ups can significantly increase the number of actions users take when they visit your site. Remember that only about 1 in 100 site visitors typically take action. If you can increase that number to 5-10%, it can transform your business. In fact, this simple change can often mean the difference between achieving profitability or not.
Strong ROI: Popup solutions have a very high ROI. As a website owner, you need to understand the value of every person who joins your email list, becomes a lead, or buys something. If you know this, your ability to track the ROI of a Popup solution is very simple. And most Popup solutions provide a very high ROI. In fact, Hello Bar regularly generates 83% more leads, sales, and subscribers for their clients. Imagine how much your business could grow if you could convert more of your website visitors into customers.
Flexibility: Pop-ups are extremely flexible. Unlike making changes to websites and web pages, pop-ups can be changed very quickly and easily. This means that you can add richness to your website in just a few minutes a month.
Customizable: With pop-ups, you can customize the experience for your site visitors. This can lead to your visitors engaging more with your business, which can lead to much higher conversion rates.
Easy to Use: Pop-up solutions like Hello Bar are very easy to use. They are quick to learn and can be managed by people in your organization without significant design, development, and copywriting skills.
Cons:
If done incorrectly, pop-ups can be distracting: If you add too many pop-ups at once or design your pop-ups poorly, it can distract your users. Like any other content in marketing, your goal should be to add value to your visitors. If you don’t take this into account when managing your pop-ups, you can annoy your users.
Perceived Annoyance: Some people automatically perceive pop-ups as annoying. It’s like advertising. Some people automatically assume that ads are annoying. However, if the ads are relevant and interesting, they can add value to the user experience. The same applies to pop-ups. So it’s important to choose a pop-up provider that allows you to customize and target them.
User experience issues: If you add a bunch of popups at once and these popups are competing for the same attention, it can lead to user experience issues. This is especially true on mobile devices. We see some whatsapp israel number websites with 5 or 6 different popups on a single web page, and these popups can create an annoying user experience.
What are the best practices for creating effective pop-ups?
Award pop-up to illustrate best practices
Like many media tools and forms, pop-ups can be effective or ineffective. Hello Bar has been helping large companies grow their business with pop-ups for over a decade. During that time, we have learned many best practices. Some of them are listed below:
Add Value to Your Users: You need to add value to your site visitors. For example, if you use a Popup to send a visitor to a URL that is not interesting or relevant to them, then you are doing them a disservice. Think about what you want the visitor to do and match that with what the visitor wants to do.
Test Often: One of the great things about popups is their flexibility. That’s why we encourage all our clients to test, test, test. Test different formats. Test different designs. Test different copy. With Hello Bar and some other Popup tools, testing is easy with great analytics, easy A/B testing features, etc.
Target different audiences with different popups: Target different audiences with different messages, incentives, and updates. You can target based on the topic of the page, what you know about the user, the user's geography, and a whole host of other things. Targeting can lead to huge performance improvements.
Align your brand with your popups: To build and maintain trust, make sure your popups are consistent with your brand. This isn’t just the look and feel, but also the language and voice you use in your copy.
Create Urgency: Pop-ups are a great way to create urgency with things like expiring discount codes. Create urgency to take action with your pop-ups.
Find a solution that has people to help: Find a solution provider that will help you when you need ideas or are stuck. For example, the Hello Bar team has been helping website owners for over a decade, and we pride ourselves on helping our clients grow their businesses with pop-ups.
In fact, the biggest downsides to popups come from poor popup implementation. This can be annoying to users, slow down pages if a bunch of popups are added at once, and create an overall bad user experience. However, these downsides are the exception rather than the rule.
Benefits of adding popups to your site:
Engagement and Action: Pop-ups can significantly increase the number of actions users take when they visit your site. Remember that only about 1 in 100 site visitors typically take action. If you can increase that number to 5-10%, it can transform your business. In fact, this simple change can often mean the difference between achieving profitability or not.
Strong ROI: Popup solutions have a very high ROI. As a website owner, you need to understand the value of every person who joins your email list, becomes a lead, or buys something. If you know this, your ability to track the ROI of a Popup solution is very simple. And most Popup solutions provide a very high ROI. In fact, Hello Bar regularly generates 83% more leads, sales, and subscribers for their clients. Imagine how much your business could grow if you could convert more of your website visitors into customers.
Flexibility: Pop-ups are extremely flexible. Unlike making changes to websites and web pages, pop-ups can be changed very quickly and easily. This means that you can add richness to your website in just a few minutes a month.
Customizable: With pop-ups, you can customize the experience for your site visitors. This can lead to your visitors engaging more with your business, which can lead to much higher conversion rates.
Easy to Use: Pop-up solutions like Hello Bar are very easy to use. They are quick to learn and can be managed by people in your organization without significant design, development, and copywriting skills.
Cons:
If done incorrectly, pop-ups can be distracting: If you add too many pop-ups at once or design your pop-ups poorly, it can distract your users. Like any other content in marketing, your goal should be to add value to your visitors. If you don’t take this into account when managing your pop-ups, you can annoy your users.
Perceived Annoyance: Some people automatically perceive pop-ups as annoying. It’s like advertising. Some people automatically assume that ads are annoying. However, if the ads are relevant and interesting, they can add value to the user experience. The same applies to pop-ups. So it’s important to choose a pop-up provider that allows you to customize and target them.
User experience issues: If you add a bunch of popups at once and these popups are competing for the same attention, it can lead to user experience issues. This is especially true on mobile devices. We see some whatsapp israel number websites with 5 or 6 different popups on a single web page, and these popups can create an annoying user experience.
What are the best practices for creating effective pop-ups?
Award pop-up to illustrate best practices
Like many media tools and forms, pop-ups can be effective or ineffective. Hello Bar has been helping large companies grow their business with pop-ups for over a decade. During that time, we have learned many best practices. Some of them are listed below:
Add Value to Your Users: You need to add value to your site visitors. For example, if you use a Popup to send a visitor to a URL that is not interesting or relevant to them, then you are doing them a disservice. Think about what you want the visitor to do and match that with what the visitor wants to do.
Test Often: One of the great things about popups is their flexibility. That’s why we encourage all our clients to test, test, test. Test different formats. Test different designs. Test different copy. With Hello Bar and some other Popup tools, testing is easy with great analytics, easy A/B testing features, etc.
Target different audiences with different popups: Target different audiences with different messages, incentives, and updates. You can target based on the topic of the page, what you know about the user, the user's geography, and a whole host of other things. Targeting can lead to huge performance improvements.
Align your brand with your popups: To build and maintain trust, make sure your popups are consistent with your brand. This isn’t just the look and feel, but also the language and voice you use in your copy.
Create Urgency: Pop-ups are a great way to create urgency with things like expiring discount codes. Create urgency to take action with your pop-ups.
Find a solution that has people to help: Find a solution provider that will help you when you need ideas or are stuck. For example, the Hello Bar team has been helping website owners for over a decade, and we pride ourselves on helping our clients grow their businesses with pop-ups.