Do I add welcome gate to Video Sales Letter... Or?

Well it's because a VSL is supposed to get the order. An optin box gets the email. If you break their attention on the sale, there's a great chance you're gonna lose them. The first letter of the formula is attention. You're already fighting against the entire internet, and their environment, robbing them of their attention. So you want to keep it. The most valuable and most limited resource we have is our time and attention.

I would have to disagree that you see popups and lightboxes on most sales letters. I think it's more of an exception than the rule. Maybe you see squeeze pages before you get to a sales letter, that's not unusual. And it's not unusual to have a squeeze before a VSL either. But dog and pony shows have one intention: to get people to part with their money. And yeah, asking people to opt-in the middle of them tends to reduce your conversion rate.

You might have a squeeze page that shows a picture of the video and has them opt in to get it. But once they land on the video, there's only one action you want. You don't want them to opt-in during it and land on a new page and then be scurrying off to check their email, and seeing God knows what in there that they're going to give all of their time and attention to now, and now you're hosed. Their email is a competitive environment.

It's the same as a squeeze page and even faster so less obstructive, so
I don't see this making a huge difference in your conversion rate for
the VSL. In fact, the tiny commitment they already made in giving
you their email address may heighten their interest in the VSL. Just
make sure what you are promising in the optin doesn't lead them to
check their email account right away.

It's worth a test.

-Ray Edwards