Sign Up Form or Sign Up Button?

Sign up form - all day long. Forcing the visitor to make an extra click (on the CTA button) to sign up is going to hurt conversion rates. Make it easy to subscribe and embed the form.

Signup form or a signup button is usually used to register on a website. I would prefer a signup forum with a attractive signup button.

Depends on your offer, your audience, etc. No "works for all" solution. Do a split test and implement the winner.

That being said, I have heard good things about two-step optins. Like in this LeadPages article/video, for example:
The Two-Step Opt-In Process (And How It Increased Our Newsletter Subscriptions By 60%)

I would personally go with your option #2 (button with popup form), but again: test and you will know for sure.

According to me, there is no much difference among these. So it fully depends on your choice & will. Thanks

Thanks everyone for the great responses. Some really great insight here!!

Interesting replies here.

From my experiences and from the knowledge I have invested a lot of money to learn from - what convert best is a Two-Step process. Or two clicks process.

And that is because of the psychology behind it. Look up Micro-Commitments!

But this will depend on the niche and the type of traffic. You know there are 3 types of traffic online. You need to learn what they are and how they convert with different types of capture pages.

When someone has to click on a button to get to an optin form - that person is already making a micro commitment to finish the entire process!!

You get what I mean?!

So, it will be more likely for that person to optin. Against just having an optin form - in that case the person just thinks about it and it would be easier for the person to click away.

Now, picture this.

A person sees a capture page where the optin form is just there. He thinks about it, and ends up not being so interested on optin in - so he walks away.

Different scenario now ....

A person sees a capture page where they have to click on a button in order to see an optin form pop up. He thinks about it, and ends up not being so interested on optin in, BUT he happens to click on the button ..... unconsciously he wants to finish the process automatically if he had the smallest interested in the offer because humans usually want to finish what they start! ... so he says; "oh well, I clicked on the button already, might as well optin!!" ... haha

You get what I mean!

There is a lot of psychology that goes into landing pages and conversions with different types of traffic. You just have to take the time to invest in your education on these topics!

I hope this helps!

Keep up the great work!

Like Robert said, only testing will tell you what works best for your business.

I am with Freddy though, the two step process has been converting better. Might not work as well for every one.

Use something like Thriveleads and you can try and test it all.

I definitely agree with FreedomBlogger, 2 step opt ins have been working very well and the psychology behind it is pretty powerful.

However, everything should be tested, and then you will know for sure.

I am curious about the software that you guys are using to embed opt ins into your videos... I have yet to use that and I am intrigued

You need to test. There is no hard rule for choosing one over other. Test and see what converts in your scenario but I would suggest to not force the user to sign up.

depends from the video and your goal
For example
If you have spend all week creating valuable video content+visualization which goal is to collect emails so I would add optin form just after several minutes of watching or half video. Visitor straight should take action optin or cancel to continue. And yes this is kinda agressive, but these slide ins, optin forms are all over nearly every website these days. So if visitor catch the bait/will be interested in video information you provide it will definitely optin.