How effective are pop-ups?

If you are trying to sell a product, a pop up for people who are leaving the site, containing a coupon code or discount could be the trigger for them to buy the product.

If it's some spammy pop-up saying ''Do you really wanna leave'' or w/e, it is considered to be pushy or spammy.

Simple Stan

The exit popup has a very specific use. It's used when you are about to lose a lead. If they are going to be lost, why not do something that can save the lead? If only 1% stay on site it's been worth it.

The exit pop-up strategy is extremely effective! For the purpose davejug1 said, if you save only 1 out of every 100 who leave your site, turn them into subscribers, and then eventually customers, it is well worth it.

The way to realize this on a larger scale is to realize when your site is popular, for example lets say you're getting 1000 visitors per day, saving 1% means 10 new subscribers. Done daily this turns into 300 new subscribers per month - if you are good at email marketing these can be worth thousands to you on a monthly basis - and if you continually do this, the sky's the limit.

Paul

We both posted popup questions at near the exact same time.

The quick answer is - you won't know unless you try it. If you're on WordPress, there are a gazillion plugins that make setting up a popup really easy. If it doesn't work, take it down.

The less clear cut answer has to do with what kind of popup you use. An exit popup is way different than one that pops shortly after a user arrives. The messages would be completely different and so the results would be completely different.

So to answer your question, "do they work?" I would first decide what you are trying to do. Sell a product? Build a list? Get a FB like? Get a Twitter follow?

Once you know that, then decide how to appeal to your visitors. A popup is only one option. In my case, I tried various sidebar offers and nothing really worked. I started a popup and it began to work.

You might get some additional insight by looking at the great replies I got on the thread I started just a few minutes ago...

this is where you have may have to put your personal preference and your business intuition at odds. I agree. Personally, I hate all of them. Pop ups when I arrive at a site and pop ups when I leave. I can tell you that I do not remember a single time they have worked for me; however, I am sure some warrior can tell you statistics that show they work. I guess even if they work once then there's value.

The question: "How effective are popups?" is completely relative.

Relative to your niche, your website, how you use them, what you use them for, your traffic, your traffic's demographics, your timing and a whole host of other variables...

To answer your question: They are very effective (in my opinion which is also relative) if you address all of the variables and test accordingly...and not effective (relatively speaking) if you don't.

Personally, I like to use them with a delay...I don't like to "threaten" people who are "easily spooked" with them "immediately upon arrival".

Typical Javascript popups can be really annoying and I am not a huge fan of using javascript popups, but instead I would suggest lightbox jQuery popup.

Now the use of popup really depends on how effectively you utilize it. If you are using it to grab emails it can be handy. A lot of people offer freebies for their emails. A lot of people uses popup to aware people about their new product.

Overall, it would depend on your needs and how you use it.