10 Tips for Creating an Email Popup that Works (and Doesn't Annoy Users)

Then, we'll show you how to start implementing these tips with Getsitecontrol, an easy-to-use popup builder and email marketing suite.

10 Best practices for creating an email newsletter popup

Below, we'll cover ten tips for creating an email newsletter popup that will get you more subscribers:

1. Try a two-step email popup
2. Offer a lead magnet
3. Use personalization
4. Add a relevant image
5. Create an opt-out button
6. Launch your popup at the right time
7. Use proper targeting rules
8. Create a clear headline and call to action (CTA)
9. Match your popup design with your page
10. Try less aggressive popup types

1. Try a two-step form to ease the entry point

Instead of displaying a newsletter form immediately, consider using a two-step approach. First, ask visitors if they want an offer, and only show the form if they agree.

Here is an example from Michelle Vella, an online art store:

Two-step email newsletter popups have been trending recently, and for a good reason! They leverage the Zeigarnik Effect, which suggests that people are more likely to complete a task they've started. Additionally, it's generally easier for users to begin interacting with a simple button click rather than filling out a form immediately.

2. Offer a lead magnet to give visitors an incentive

If you aren’t offering anything in exchange for an email address, your call to action can look like a bit of a one-sided affair.

You're asking for a visitor's email address, but what are you really offering in return? “Updates”? Sure, that might work for some, but most people want a clearer vision of what's in it for them.

That's where a lead magnet (or content upgrade) comes in.

A lead magnet is something valuable offered in exchange for a visitor's email address.

A lead magnet for an ecommerce brand can be a discount, a free shipping coupon, and reward program points.

For example, portable ice bath retailer, Aussie Ice Baths, offers a 10% discount as a lead magnet. It’s a fantastic incentive to join their email list and it encourages sales for first-time visitors.

Depending on your business niche, you could also offer a bonus resource like a checklist, buying guide, or webinar recording. Ideally, these content upgrades help show your expertise. They keep visitors interested in your brand, making them more likely to interact with more of your content or purchase from you.

If you want to go even further, you can combine lead magnets with personalization to create separate resources for your high-traffic posts that are directly connected to each post's content.

For example, if you were creating a post on “how to launch a t-shirt store”, you might offer a checklist that helps new entrepreneurs follow along with the steps. Or, if you’re displaying your signup form on a product page, you can offer a free shipping coupon for the next purchase.

Speaking of personalization…

3. Use personalization to add relevancy

When it comes to creating an effective email newsletter popup, personalization is one of the best techniques you can apply. By “personalization,” we mean displaying a popup that's relevant to the user. The popup could connect with:

• The content a visitor is engaging with
• Where a visitor came from (like a referring site or a social network)
• Information about a visitor, like whether or not it's their first visit

For example, if you’re displaying the signup form at the end of a blog post, the message may look something like this:

Based on our data, contextual signup forms perform times better than a generic “Join our newsletter” call to action, so investing a few extra minutes in crafting your message is worth it.

While personalization can get deep, you don't have to get too technical to reap the benefits. Some ways to get started with personalizing your email popups are creating special email newsletter popups for your:

• Most visited content – try creating unique, relevant popups for each piece of high-traffic content.
• Top referrers – if you get a lot of traffic from another site, consider creating an email newsletter popup that's personalized to visitors from that site. Or, you can create special popups for visitors from social networks.
• Returning visitors – give them the 'ole “Welcome back” message and tie it in with subscribing to your list.

As you determine which types of personalization work best for your website, you can focus your efforts on the message and popup design 👇

4. Add a relevant image

Our data suggest that images can increase email signup rates by over 63%. So if you want to create a more efficient newsletter popup, you should add an image. Not only will it capture your visitors’ attention better than a plain popup, but it can also help you convey your message or evoke the right emotion.

Unsure what kind of visuals to use? Resist the urge to use stock images right away. Consider using your product photos, photos depicting your customer persona, or other images resonating with your audience.

5. Create an opt-out button

Another often overlooked detail is a second button, also known as an “opt-out button”. Opt-out buttons are designed to make visitors reconsider your offer before rejecting it, and there’s evidence that they can help you slightly increase signup rates.

Here are several options for what to write on the opt-out button:

• No, thank you
• Maybe next time
• Thanks, I know enough about [topic of your newsletter]

Whatever you choose to put on your rejection button, remember that your goal is not to make your visitors feel bad about their decision, but rather to delay the impulse to close the popup without reading your CTA. For example, there’s no need to use phrases like “No, I’d rather pay in full” or “I don’t like discounts” unless this tone of voice or humour align with your brand.

6. Use the right triggers to launch your popup at the right time

Have you ever landed on a website only to be met immediately by an email opt-in popup? It's annoying, and not a very good way to get people to sign up.

These people haven't even engaged with your website yet — why would they be willing to give up their email addresses?

Instead, a much better approach is to be patient and wait for the right time to display your popup.

For example, our customers report that waiting to display a popup until a visitor saw two pages had more than double the conversion rate compared to displaying a popup on the initial landing page:

So, what are some good popup triggers to experiment with?

Consider the following (and these display triggers are easily configured in Getsitecontrol’s widget display options!)

• Time on site – wait X seconds to display your email popup. If you’re unsure how long to wait, try starting with eight seconds.
• Page views – wait until the second or third page view to display your popup.
• Exit intent – wait until a visitor looks like they're going to leave to display your newsletter popup.
• Scroll depth — wait to display your popup until a visitor scrolls a certain amount of your page.

If you want to get scientific with your triggers, you can use Google Analytic’s average engagement time metric to see how long an average visitor engages with your site and then set your popup to display a little before that amount of time:

Alternatively, consider creating an A/B test to systematically test how different display rules affect engagement and conversion rates.

7. Avoid annoying visitors by using proper targeting rules

Triggers are one half of the puzzle when it comes to the behind-the-scenes parts of creating an effective email newsletter popup — targeting rules are the other.

We already mentioned one type of targeting rule in the personalization section, but targeting is about more than just matching content with an email popup. Your targeting rules also affect:

• How often visitors see your email popups
• Which users see your email popups

Let's start with that first one. No matter how great an email popup you create, most visitors are still not going to subscribe — that's just the nature of the game. Long story short, you're going to have a lot of people clicking that “X” button.

So here's what you do not want to do — keep displaying popups on every new page view.

Instead, you need to hide the popup after a user closes it. At an absolute minimum, you should wait a full day before displaying the popup again. And ideally, you'll push things a little further and wait 2+ days before showing a popup to that visitor again.

Second, be aware of mobile visitors. Popups are proven to work very well on mobile devices, however, when designed poorly, they can be jarring. It’s worth using a different approach for designing mobile-friendly popups. For example, you could adapt your design and copy to a smaller screen, while making the close button more obvious on mobile devices.

8. Create a clear headline and call to action (CTA)

We're seven email popup tips in and we still haven't even talked about the text on your popup!

There are a few things that go into effective email popup copy.

First — keep it simple. Most people are going to move for the close button quickly, so you need to catch and hold their attention as fast as possible. That starts with your headline. Your headline is what grabs people and convinces them to read all the other stuff. In your headline, you want to:

• Clearly communicate your value position
• Offer a hook to keep them reading

Ideally, you'll do both. But sometimes one is all you need.

Take this cheeky headline from luxury underwear retailer Shinesty's popup:

It’s in-your-face and provocative, but in a way that feels congruent to their brand’s tone of voice.

That definitely grabs your attention, right?

Once you grab them with your headline, your email signup call to action (CTA) is another opportunity to push people to give you their email addresses. Skip the generic “Subscribe” button and use something more descriptive. You want it to:

• Describe a clear action explaining what clicking the button does (e.g. Send me Insights)

• Be short and simple. Limit your CTA to five words maximum and use action-oriented words like grow, now, start, or stop.

If you nail your headline and CTA, you'll give your email popup the best chance to convert.

9. Match your popup design with your page

If you want to avoid annoying your visitors with your email popup, it's important that your popup feels like a cohesive part of your site, rather than a random intruder.

To make sure that your popup's design fits with the rest of your site, use similar/complementary:

• Fonts
• Colors
• Images
• Etc.

For example, athleisure brand Lululemon includes its brand’s red, white, and black color scheme, an athleisure-themed image, and its logo on its website popup design. This makes the popup look like a natural extension of their website, rather than making it feel intrusive.

Consistency in design not only enhances the visual appeal but also reinforces brand recognition, making the popup more welcoming and less likely to be perceived as intrusive by visitors.

10. Experiment with less aggressive popup types

When most people hear “email popup”, they think of an aggressive modal popup. However, there are other types of popups you can use that are a little less “in your face”.

Consider experimenting with:

• Slide-ins
• Sidebars
• Bottom bars

Sometimes, these popup types can offer you similar results with a lower risk of annoying visitors.

If you're using Getsitecontrol, you can easily A/B test different popup types against one another to find out which works best for your audience.

Speaking of Getsitecontrol…

How to create an email popup with Getsitecontrol

Ok, now for the million-dollar question — how can you create an email newsletter popup that follows these rules?

In order to implement personalization, triggers, and all the other tips, you need a tool that will let you actually create an email popup with those features. With Getsitecontrol, you can do just that.

Step 1. Select a popup template

To get started, log into the dashboard and select a premade template from the gallery:

These templates already have a layout, screen position, and targeting pre-designed, which means all you need to do is adjust the headline, CTA, and the rest of the content – including the image and the follow-up email that will be automatically sent to your new subscribers.

Step 2. Customize the copy and image

For starters, you can edit the title, description, field names, and the text on the button:

Then, you can customize the color theme, switch to a different font, and change the image:

Step 3. Fine-tune targeting settings

From there, move on to the Targeting tab to select the trigger for your popup and make sure it appears at the exact right time. Premade templates in Getsitecontrol already include suggested targeting settings, but you can tweak them by using additional controls like:

• time delay
• scroll depth
• exit intent
• page views
• and more

You can also limit how many times a visitor sees your popup after closing it or submitting the form:

If you want, you can use add all kinds of targeting rules to personalize your popups by content, referrers, device, browser, language, etc.

Step 4. Create a follow-up email

Finally, it’s time to work on a follow-up email that will be automatically sent to your new subscribers.

Once in the Follow-up tab, you can create an email from scratch or use the suggested template. We recommend the latter route because it’s easier and faster.

The follow-up email contains a brief welcome message, a GIF, coupon code, and a button – everything you need to thank subscribers for joining your newsletter and suggest further actions. Adjust the email and its style to your taste, then use the right-side menu to edit the email subject, preview, and the remaining parameters.

When you’re done working on the follow-up email, proceed to save your email newsletter popup and activate it on your website by following simple steps.

Create your email newsletter popup today!

And with that, we've come to the end of our guide on how to create an effective email newsletter popup.

Putting in the time to implement these tips will help you achieve a higher conversion rate for your email opt-in efforts, while also creating a more cohesive, less frustrating experience for your visitors.

And for the tool that lets you implement all these tips, check out Getsitecontrol and build something awesome today.

Now that you know how to create a perfect popup, check out the ultimate guide on newsletter design prepared by our friends at Moosend.