Mobile Popups Done Right: Implement These Best Practices Today!

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Trappe Digital LLC may earn commission from product clicks and purchases. Rest assured, opinions are mine or of the article’s author.

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Popups on websites can make sense and drive results, but they need work on all devices and screens. Why are there problems you might ask? It likely comes back to an overlooked step in the quality assurance process. People create their marketing on a desktop or a huge screen – <raises hand> “Guilty!” > and forget about checking how things look and work on other screen sizes.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! And if you are looking for better conversion rates, it can’t be that way. Here’s how to fix potential issues related to popup display and effectiveness.

Why a popup anyway?

People are busy, they scan things on the website, might leave quickly and a popup has a chance to get their attention and take them toward some kind of relevant action. A few examples of what popups can be used for include:

• Newsletter signup
• Special offer
• Discount code for their next purchase if they sign up
• Alert for a new product or service offering

When the popups are easy to use can drive results quicker because they create a bit of a choke point for users on the website. They have to make a decision:

Do I leave or do I stay and submit my email into that popup? 

Read next: How Consumers Shield Emails Using Apple’s Hide My Email Feature

Best practices for popups

Best practices for your mobile popup include:

• Make them simple. Don’t overdo the copy. State what people should do and more importantly why that action is good for them. Example: Get our tips to improve employee retention. (If your site is about employee matters that might be a good one.) But also don’t overstate it. For example, don’t say: Never lose employees again with these tips. Get the download. Accuracy matters!
• Allow sign ups right there. Don’t send people four more steps down the road, but make it simple.
• Then follow up with good content that was promised in the popup.

Consider when the popups show up. For example, on a time delay – 5 seconds or so into a visit. I’m a big fan of the time-delayed popup as it gives people a bit of a chance to do what they came to the site for and doesn’t smack them right over the head.

Sure, we all want people to fill out the form, click the button, whatever, but still make it easy for people to either X out or close out of the popup. A white X on white background is not easy to see and makes that process harder than it needs to be!

Consider how often the popup shows for each visitor. Will it show up again on that same visit, for example?

Ways to set up your popup

There’s plenty of tools out there now to use, including:

• The Icegram plugin in WordPress
• ConvertKit
• The elfsight popup builder

Here’s an example of a ConvertKit popup:

At the end of the day, popups can drive results, but let’s make sure they work on all the different screen sizes, are cleanly designed, use clear copy and make conversions easy.

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