Yes, I know pretty much everybody talks about subscription pop-ups at some stage, so here are my own thoughts, for what they are worth.<\/p>\n
I visit a lot of sites, and the moment the page loads, there’s a pop-up somewhere – usually as a lightbox, front and centre – asking you to subcribe to their newsletter (or whatever).<\/p>\n
Sometimes it’s on a timer, popping up after a few seconds, but in many cases, it’s instant.<\/p>\n
And to me, as a first-time site visitor, there is no way I am going to give out my email address (even if it’s to receive a free ebook) before I’ve had a chance to look at the site and read the article I visited the site for in the first place.<\/p>\n
A subscription should be earned, in my opinion, and until I’ve taken the time to assess the quality of the site and the content, you haven’t earned it yet.<\/p>\n
So, do I use subscription pop-ups?<\/p>\n
Well, yes on my main business site, I do.<\/p>\n
But, I have changed the originally recommended settings so that the pop-up only appears (in the bottom right corner) after<\/b> the person has scrolled (or, hopefully, read) at least 75% of the article.<\/p>\n
My thinking is that they if they’ve read that far through the article (and since most of mine are anywhere from 1,000 – 3,000 words or more, that means they’ve consumed a lot of the content), then that’s a better time to ask them if they want to receive more articles on that subject.<\/p>\n
Doing it this way, to me, respects their judgement and does not appear too pushy or desperate.<\/p>\n
I may even increase that figure of 75% to something even closer to 100%, but I’ll need to do some testing before I make that decision.<\/p>\n
So, is my strategy based on any hard evidence?<\/p>\n
No, it’s not – it’s based on my preferences as somebody who visits a lot of other sites myself, and not on my needs (or desires) as a site owner.<\/p>\n
And I get that many “gurus” may advise a different approach, and that’s fine – whatever works for them, but for me, I like to treat my visitors the same way I prefer to be treated, and that does not include being bugged about signing up for a newsletter too soon.<\/p>\n
If you have information that either does or does not support what I do, then I’d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n