Coupon Pop-ups are easy to set up on any eCommerce websites, but most people are doing it wrong, losing 80% potential clicks and conversions they should have earned by running popups the right way.
For long in the Internet era, coupon pop up has earned quite a bad reputation for itself, creating a controversial debate: whether it should be used in websites, especially e-Commerce stores.
Pop-ups have been recognized as an abusive form of advertising on the Internet. Internet surfers see popups intrusive and annoying as they block them from continuing to view the page and require actions that site visitors may not want to take. Instead of getting conversions, the counter result is that the site visitors just leave the site because they cannot get rid of the advertising coupon pop ups.
In general, does it work or not? Yes, if you do it the right way: to make popups less of an advertisement and more of a featured integrated as an exciting part of your website.
In this post, we address the list of the Dos & Don’ts for creating the best coupon popups for e-Commerce web stores in particular so that they can contribute to the successful sales conversion for online sellers. Most of these tips are also well applicable for websites in general to help generating more clicks and conversions from popups.
The Dos to design perfect coupon pop ups for your online stores:
#1 Make it easy to close the pop-up
People see pop ups as intrusive and irritating because they block users from viewing the site until required actions are taken. Many websites even intentionally make the close button hard to find so that customers must perform action in order to turn off the popup. For the sake of users, we should use popups to help them make benefits from our business, not collecting their information for advertising and selling. If they do not wish to get the benefits, make the exit options easy and visible so that customers feel pleasant to have their own choice.
In this coupon popup example, the X close button is obvious right in the right top corner.
#2 Show popups after a delay time or 1-2 page views
When to show the coupon pop-ups is critical to customer’ impression and decision to click. In order to click on a pop up and perform an action to engage with your website, customers need some time to grasp a good understanding of your websites. Give them some few minutes to read over content on your website. When they navigate to the next pages, they are interested enough in your website to click on your popup for deeper engagement.
#3 Design a unique theme for popups to match it with your store’s look & feel
The goal is to integrate coupon pop ups as a part of your store that make customers feel natural to see when they are on the site. A popup that does not blend in with the website’s design may give an impression that it is virus or for advertisement purposes. If possible, try to design unique themes for your coupon popups that go with the overall template of the store. Not only does it feel natural that the popup should appear as it belongs to the site but it also does not break your website’s look.
This website celebrated their 2-year Birth with a discount campaign. They designed a unique coupon pop-up for the campaign using Better Coupon Box app. The popup fits perfectly with their store’s overall birthday theme.
#4 Write captivating copy that highlights customers’ benefits
There’s nothing on your website that should impress your benefits/sales/revenue more than customers’ benefits. To make people pay attention to your popup windows and actually click on it, you need to make sure the copywriting highlights what customers will get from the popup. Keywords should be visible in the first 3 words because customers may turn off popup after glancing it for 1 second!
#5 Show proper popups in the right place at the right time
Time and place matter when it comes to influencing people’s decisions. In order that you get the most clicks on popups, they need to be shown to the right people in the right page at the right time. Shoppers at cart page are probably more interested in a coupon pop up than a popup asking for email subscription without offering any rewards (so in this case it would be great to combine both approaches: show a popup at cart page to offer a coupon discount if customers subscribe email). Or customers who are about to leave the page are definitely not interested in a popup asking them to follow the store’s social media. Instead, they need something rewarding and exclusive as a good reason to stay. In this case, strategic exit intent popups can well do the tricks.
Keep in mind: before implementing popups, you need to decide who you’re targeting at in order to choose the right page and the right time to show popups that can engage them.
The Don’ts to avoid making intrusive popups that drive customers away:
#1 Don’t ask for too much information or complicated actions from customers
You want conversions? Make the process as simple and short as possible that requires only 3 seconds to complete. For popups to get most successful clicks and conversions, don’t ask for survey or polls or any complicated actions (except for that the rewards are really huge!). Simply ask for their email or social likes to get the rewards.
#2 Don’t abuse customers with the same popups every time they visit the site
This happens quite regularly when we surf websites on the internet. If we come back to view a website, sometimes the same popup just keeps showing up, asking for the same course of action. Everytime we come back, the same “Exclusive offer valid Today only” popup appears, giving an impression that this offer will valid forever!
Use a cookies to track if customers are first-time visitors or returning ones to target the right popups. Or more simple, choose a plugin that does it for you, your job is just to choose which type of customers you want to show the popup and how often the popup should be shown.
#3 Don’t sell products on popups if they are not on special deals!
Again, popups should be for the benefits of customers, not yours. Of course you run popups for the sake of your business, but don’t present that obviously to your customers to give than an impression that they are being taken advantage of. Make sure you only sell on popups with the products on special deals, not promoting your full-priced products or hot items because it is exactly advertising!
Conclusion:
Popups are effective to convert your customers into sales if you know how to use them the right way. Optimize every elements of the popup to make it a complete part of your website and avoid giving people an impression that your coupon pop up is an advertisement.
*Tools for WordPress sites: Build a unique and highly coupon pop-up for your site with the best WordPress popup plugin.