Create an email opt-in popup for your website

The second-best format for collecting emails is a slide-in (featured below). And yes, if you’re offering an incentive – such as a discount – you can expect your signup rates to be twice higher.

With the Getsitecontrol app, you can add pop-up forms like these two to your website within a few minutes – even if you have zero technical skills.

In the tutorial below, we’ll show exactly how to do that.

How to create an email opt-in popup within 5 minutes

Follow the steps below to create an email opt-in and tailor it for your website.

Step 1. Select a template

With Getsitecontrol, you can create a popup entirely from scratch, but it’s way faster to get started with a template. Just log into your account, click Create widget and continue to Premade widgets. Then select any popup featuring an email form:

If you want to explore more designs, check out the gallery available on the website. You can view and test these templates without registering an account:

Once you find the template you like, click on it, and hit ‘Take this template’ to add it to the Getsitecontrol dashboard.

Step 2. Edit the copy

Once in the dashboard, you can tweak any element of the popup. Click on the title, description, or button text and just type your copy – it’s that simple.

If you switch to Page 2 you can also edit the submission success message – a short note confirming email subscription.

Feel free to rewrite the default text, so it echoes your brand voice.

Step 3. Replace the image

When you’re finished editing the copy, you may want to tweak the look of your popup as well. For example, we suggest using your own image and changing the font and color theme to make the popup look like an integral part of your website.

To replace the image, click on it and continue to Change image. Then either upload your own image or pick something from the built-in gallery:

Replace the image on the second page of the popup as well, and if you need to change the font, color theme, or field style, use the Theme menu at the top.

💡 To achieve a more cohesive look for the popup, it’s a good practice to use the same font you’re using on the website.

Step 4. Set up the timing

One of the most important decisions you’ll need to make is when to display the email opt-in popup. There are several options to choose from:

• As soon as a visitor lands on the page
• After a certain amount of time
• After a visitor scrolls down
• When a visitor starts heading to the exit

To choose the trigger, open the Targeting tab and scroll down to Start displaying the widget; then choose a displaying rule.

Once finished, scroll down a bit more and create another rule: Stop to display the widget → Upon action. This way, the popup will no longer be displayed to those who have joined your list already.

💡 If you want to display the opt-in popup to a certain type of visitors – first-time visitors, for example – use the Display widget if menu.

Step 5. Create an opt-in confirmation email

To create a confirmation email that will be automatically sent to your new subscribers, move on to the Follow-up tab. Then either edit the suggested template or create a new email:

Creating a follow-up email is optional, but it’s considered good practice. You can use it to show your gratitude, introduce your brand, promote bestsellers, or feature a limited-time offer to give new subscribers a reason to return:

If you need help crafting a confirmation email, you’ll find a large collection of examples in this guide.

Step 6. Connect the popup to your email marketing software (optional)

The last step is connecting the popup to the email marketing software you’re using. To do that, open the Integrations tab and select your platform.

Once the popup starts collecting new subscribers, their email addresses will go straight to your list. If you don’t want to connect the EMS just yet, the addresses will be stored in your Getsitecontrol account, under the Responses report, as well as in the Contacts section. You can download collected emails at any time.

And that’s all! At this point, your opt-in popup is ready. Hit Save & close and activate it on your website following the app prompts.

As soon as your website visitors start interacting with the popup, you’ll start seeing its click-through rate right on the widget card on the main dashboard screen. However, there’s a more detailed statistics report available 👇

How to analyze the efficiency of an opt-in popup

So, you’ve added an email opt-in popup on your website. Great job! Now, you may want to see how efficient it is. Here is what you’ll need to do.

Under the Statistics tab, your Getsitecontol dashboard houses all the information on the popup performance.

Apart from the overall number of views and submissions over time, you want to look for a trend. For example, you can use filters to see if people subscribe more actively:

• from desktop or mobile devices
• on specific pages of your website
• when they come from particular traffic sources

With all this data, you’ll be able to make informed decisions on whether your opt-in popup performs at its best or needs attention.

For instance, if you set a scroll-triggered popup, you’ll probably see lower sign-up rates on mobile – because scrolling 30% of a page on mobile takes longer than on desktop – and some visitors will simply miss the popup.

The only surefire way to optimize popup performance is to launch an A/B test where you create 2 versions of the same popup and display version A to half of the audience and version B – to the other half. At some point, you compare results and leave the winning version on the website. Read a more detailed guide to running A/B tests.

Start collecting more emails on your website

For ecommerce businesses, email remains the most efficient marketing channel, as of today. However, to make it work, you first need to get people to join your email list, and popups have proven to be the most efficient tool for that task.

Add one to your website today to see how it works. With Getsitecontrol, it’s a complete no-brainer, and if your website already has some traffic, you’re likely to see the first results even before the free trial ends.