It can be hard to find the right balance between gaining new subscribers and maintaining an enjoyable user experience. And I’ll be honest: the pop-up window does work. Indeed, it will increase subscriptions to your newsletter significantly but at a high cost, because it is the most hated advertising strategy online (NNgroup).
According to Steve Krug, the author of Don’t Make Me Think, visitors come to a website with varying amounts of goodwill. Every frustration reduces that reservoir and increases the likelihood that they will leave the website. Since the pop-up is one of the biggest sources of frustration for web users, you may want to reconsider using them.
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3 questions to ask yourself before adding a pop-up
One of the principles of humane technology is to respect the attention of the visitor and adapt the delivery of information to the degree of urgency of the situation (Humane by Design). This is a concept that applies to notifications in our mobile applications but also to pop-ups in websites. So before you integrate a pop-up, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is it in the interest of your visitors to receive this message now in a pop-up?
- Is the message urgent?
- Are there alternatives to pop-ups?
As you might expect, when we talk about people’s best interests, we’re usually talking about their health or privacy rights, not their best interests in getting a discount. If you are a non-profit, you might argue that it is in the best interest of your audience to subscribe to your newsletter to stay informed about social or environmental issues that are important to them, but in reality, you don’t know the habits of these people, the state of their mailboxes, or the time they will be able to devote to reading your newsletters. And is it urgent to encourage subscribing now? From the visitor’s point of view, probably not. A tornado warning is urgent. Your newsletter is not, sorry. Besides, there are alternatives that will help you find people who are really interested in your content. So let’s have a look at those.
More respectful, less intrusive approaches
1. Relevant and informative articles
I know it’s not what you want to hear, but if you offer relevant and interesting articles, people will naturally look for your newsletter subscription form. Sure, it’s easier to add a pop-up than to write articles, but useful content will always be more profitable in the long run. Focus on writing tips and tricks, articles on concepts discussed in your workshops, texts that complement your products and services, comments on current events, etc. Your audience will then be more likely to not only subscribe to your newsletter, but also to download your next guide, contribute to your next fundraising campaign, or purchase one of your products. A person who freely subscribes to your newsletter will also be more likely to read your content than someone you had to convince with a pop-up, a free digital book, or a promo code.
2. A link to the subscription page at the end of each article
Here’s a simple solution! Now that you have blog posts, add a short sentence like this at the end of each post:
Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our newsletter.
The strength of this approach is that it relies on context (an interesting article) and repetition rather than on the pop-up, which annoys most people.
3. A subscription button or form in the footer
Another easy solution: integrate a colourful button or short form to subscribe to your newsletter in the footer of your website. The strength of this option is its omnipresence and ability to attract attention without being intrusive.
4. A non-modal overlay
“A what?” you might ask. There are two main types of pop-ups: modal pop-ups and non-modal pop-ups. Let’s take a look at what sets them apart.
a) Modal pop-up
The modal pop-up prevents visitors from using the website until they click on an X, on a button, or, in some cases, outside the pop-up. This is the most annoying pop-up. Here is an example from the City of Montreal’s website during COVID-19.
Since this pop-up concerns emergency measures related to public health, one could conclude that it is necessary. But the website’s administrators had already done a great job of getting our attention with the red “! Emergency measures” and the large red rectangle behind the pop-up (which contains the same content as the pop-up). So, even in this situation, the pop-up was not necessary.
You’ll understand that I don’t recommend this type of pop-up for newsletter sign-ups, as it distracts your visitors from their main goal and greatly reduces their reservoir of goodwill.
Where would such a pop-up be acceptable? When an Internet user must accept certain conditions before accessing the content.
b) Non-modal overlay at the bottom of the page
The non-modal overlay often takes the form of a rectangle at the bottom or top of the page. The non-modal overlay has the advantage of attracting attention without interrupting the navigation of the website. This overlay can be present as soon as you enter the website, i.e., it is loaded at the same time as the rest of the content and without animation. Here is an example on the Canada Post website for the management of cookies:
This example is discreet in terms of its colour, its size, and its animation-free loading. Its use is also justified because it is in the interest of visitors to be able to set cookies on a website.
Other non-modal overlays can appear as soon as you enter the website, but with animation. Still others may appear after 10 seconds or on a specific page. In these cases, the visitor associates them more with advertisements because they appear by surprise, without the visitor having asked for them, and create a distraction while browsing the website. The type of animation can also have an impact on the user. A non-modal overlay loaded with smooth animation at the same time as the rest of the content will be perceived as less intrusive than a quick animation with special effects, for example.
Conclusion
It goes without saying that many marketing agencies will encourage you to use a pop-up strategy, as this allows them to quickly demonstrate the impact of their actions. It also allows your organization to increase its subscriptions and brag about it online or in your next annual report. But it is necessary to examine the matter further:
- How many people will you have annoyed with the pop-up? Answer: About 95% of your visitors (NNgroup). Imagine that the visitor’s main goal was to make a donation or a purchase. You may have diverted them from this goal, which defeats your purpose.
- Will the subscriptions obtained through this pop-up lead to a real long-term commitment to your organization, your products, or your services? Answer: It is unlikely.
- If you’re like most people, you don’t like pop-ups, so why force them on your audience?
You may answer the last question by saying that it’s to reach more people, that it’s for a good cause, or that the survival of your business depends on more newsletter subscriptions. That may be true, but, as we’ve just seen, their level of engagement will be lower. So I encourage you to use approaches that are not only more respectful but also more effective in the long run. Bottom line:
- Write relevant and interesting articles.
- Add a link to your subscription page at the end of each article.
- Include a subscription form in your footer;
- If necessary, use a non-modal overlay at the bottom of the screen, ideally without animation.
To verify the effectiveness of these approaches and adjust them to your target audience, you can then conduct usability tests and A/B tests to assess their impact on real people.
