Pop-ups. The ecommerce world has gone crazy for pop-ups.
“10%? 20% Free Shipping? What can we give you to make you order from us?!?”
And, duly, the ecommerce marketing world has gone crazy with a ‘They Work!’ versus ‘They Disrupt!‘ argument.
Take the latest blog post from content marketer Gill Andrews as an example. Somebody who firmly believes that they cause pain.
The strange thing is this. These arguments are all about the mechanism. They ignore the value of the message. I’ve seen ecommerce clients have enormous success through their use of overlays (exit intent in particular) when employed to trigger a sequence of contextual or timed promotions. I’ve also been brought in to learn why they fail for others.
The finger is always pointed at the mechanism. i.e. ‘pop-ups do not work’. Really?
If your message is of value to your website visitor your website visitor will take notice. Should we be bothered if a survey shows 1.75% of people register for other people’s newsletters or coupon codes on the back of a pop-up? No. We should be bothered about what’s happening on our own website. Where we make our money. Yes we should.
This is the value of learning.
Whatever the mechanism. If your specific timed message does not resonate? What will you do to change the context of that message so that it does?
It’s not just about the pop-up. It’s about every mechanism we, as ecommerce people, have available to us.
I see these throughout the tech we invest in. How we gather reviews. How we send newsletters. How we confirm order success. The list goes on. Simply investing in a new piece of kit does not open up a new era of increased conversion rates for our retail businesses.
I spend my days reviewing, building and optimising ‘ecommerce marketing stacks’ – the most suitable ecommerce marketing technology for clients. No matter the function, again the following priority resonates… it’s the message and the timing of that message over the mechanism.
Don’t be alarmed (or give up) if you see ‘industry standards’ that far exceed your current results. Certainly don’t point the finger at the mechanism. Separate your work from the work of others. Don’t be put off (or encouraged) by the statistics of others. If you see a 1.5% sales conversion rate, what can be done to earn a 1.6% conversion? Amazon Prime customers convert at 74%. There’s a long way to go for all of us.
Again, focus on the message. Address people on the problem that you can solve for them. Untemplate your message. The 10% discount code that worked last year? Your customers are bombarded with 10% discount codes now. It’s the trend. Discount to win customers? We have to be smarter than that.
Spend more time refining your message. You have access to wonderful tools such as Google Optimize (it’s free) to test ideas to see what works and what doesn’t. Most pop-up service providers allow you to run tests ( www.optimonk.com and www.justuno.com are two great examples I recommend to my clients). Utilise them.
Don’t pass judgement based on the mechanism itself. “People don’t like popups”. Correct. People don’t like anything that interrupts.
Your task, dear marketer, is to make your message so impactful that the question over mechanism no longer applies.
Written By:
