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Pop ups: The good, the bad and the ugly

Pop ups, love them or hate them, they can be a great way to market your business. Gone are the days of tacky spam pop ups, we’re now subject to a whole new kind of pop up, albeit more subtle ones, but the intention is all the same.

Hundreds of websites use pop ups to try and boost their subscriptions and whilst they do work, there are many who find these tactics annoying. 

The Good

The aim of a pop up is to market your website, be it to encourage people to join an email list, sign up for notifications or even download a free ebook, the main point is to encourage your audience to stick with your service as well as help encourage sales. 

The key to a successful pop up is to gently guide your readers through the sales process, from initial sign up to their final purchase. Getting this right could be the difference between a good pop up and a bad pop up. Websites which feature subtle, small pop ups tend to be more well received, they’re unobtrusive, offer value and can be easy to ignore or get rid of if someone isn’t interested.  

The Bad 

Most pop ups are closed before they have even finished loading, often people don’t want to be disturbed and a pop up is usually seen as intrusive or annoying. With over 10 million people now using pop up blocking extensions, this speaks volumes about how people feel about pop ups. 

It’s popular belief that a pop up is the most irratating when they obstruct the view of the page, change the focus of attention or offer information that isn’t relevant to the content. A common example of this is when a site has a pop up that appears almost straight away, right in the middle of the page, if you desperately want to have a pop up in the centre, at least make it an exit intent pop up so it appears at the end of their session.  

The Ugly

As much as we like to believe we’re past the ugly pop up boxes of the 90s, some websites just can’t stay away from these dramatic, in your face ads. Using various forms or bright, bold text in the pop ups and a multitude of different colours and images just doesn’t look good. Add to that flashing buttons or cartoons and customers will be leaving your site in no time.

When it comes to ads, it’s evident that there are specific ways to do pop ups and whilst there’s no rules, it’s important to remember to stay subtle, keeping your pop ups as unobtrusive as possible, your visitors have come to your site for information, not to be bombard with ads. Clear boxes, pop up boxes at the side of the screen, the fewer fields to fill in the better, these are all key factors in creating an effective web page pop up.

Article By
Sarah Seymour,
Published: 13th June, 2016
Categories: Marketing

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