Email Capture: To Pop-Up, Or Not To Pop-Up?

A strong, robust email list is one of the most valuable assets a company can have. Not only is an active email list a great indicator of the true size of your audience, but it can also add up to real conversion -- email marketing is estimated to be as much as 40 times more effective than social media if it's done right.

Capturing those email addresses, though, can be a tricky business. Do you come right out with a lightbox pop-up, or do you try to net potential new clients in a less obtrusive way?

Pop-up email capture: A controversial subject

There’s a lot of discussion surrounding the relative merits and drawbacks of this method of capturing email addresses, but it generally centers around two main questions:

●Is it effective, and
●Is it too irritating?

Pop-up email captures are, anecdotally, more effective than simply having an option to opt-in on the side of a website. They provide a clear call-to-action, grab the reader’s attention -- and may not even impact your overall bounce rate.

However, pop-ups can also be exhausting for users who are greeted with aggressive marketing with every website they visit. Additionally, as Copy Hackers points out, when some marketers try to get creative with their language, they can actually be kind of insulting, which turns users off.

In response to the usability complaints, developers have started creating pop-ups that are slightly less obtrusive, like those which show up on the side or in the bottom corner. However, those types of email capture points run the risk of being too subtle for the average reader to notice or interact with.

Workarounds for email capture fatigue

Potential solutions to curb the irritation of the email pop-up are to either a.) run it at the end of your content or site, or b.) use custom website development to request emails only when users signal exiting behavior.

These options also have drawbacks, though. Most people only read about 60% of an article, and very few actually finish, meaning you might not get to them before they sign out. If users have cookies turned off, systems that look for exit intent may not function properly, or may not be signaled to deploy. Still, these can be effective options for businesses who want to capture emails while maintaining a prize reader experience.

If you decide to try any sort of pop-up email capture, be sure the language and visual signals are clear: You do not have to close out of the entire page to get away from the pop-up. If readers can easily close the pop-up if they’re not interested, your bounce rate shouldn't suffer, but you could get the benefits of increased email capture that a pop-up has to offer. 

Are you ready to get more leads through your website?

efelle creative is a Seattle Web Design firm that specializes in online marketing, web design, web development, content management, and search engine optimization. Our team of internet and web experts is located in Seattle, WA and has been helping businesses distinguish their website from their biggest competitors since 2005. Call us 206.384.4909 to speak with our online marketing specialists or fill out our contact form.