{"id":2350,"date":"2020-03-03T19:01:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T19:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2025-05-06T11:10:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T11:10:32","slug":"thinking-of-getting-more-subscribers-with-a-mailing-list-popup-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/thinking-of-getting-more-subscribers-with-a-mailing-list-popup-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Annoying Your Visitors: Why Mailing List Popups Don’t Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Popup ads are awful.  They\u2019re intrusive and frustrating, interrupting your browsing experience to shove spam in your face. They\u2019re so reviled that their original creator, Ethan Zuckerman, posted a public apology in 2014<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the business model that got us funded was advertising,\u201d Zuckerman explained. \u201cI wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I\u2019m sorry. Our intentions were good.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

You know what they say about good intentions.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Particularly in recent years, popup ads have fallen out of favor on the modern web, particularly since most major browsers now include popup blockers by default. They\u2019re a dying medium, and very few people will be sad to see them go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet in their wake, something else has surfaced. Websites now increasingly use pop-up mechanisms to pester users for their email addresses. The idea is that doing this can significantly boost engagement and generate leads.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some evidence exists to suggest that this is true. Marketing expert Matthew Woodward, for instance, discovered that implementing a popup led to a 44 percent increase in email signups<\/a>. Yet this also led to an approximately nine percent reduction in engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He got more subscriptions, but these came at the expense of his audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mailing list overlays <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Have the same problem as traditional popup ads. The same problem as the intrusive on-page ads that led to the rise in ad-blocking software. They interrupt the user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay attention to me,<\/em> they demand, heedless of the audience\u2019s needs. What you were doing doesn\u2019t matter. What you want doesn\u2019t matter. Give me your email. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That isn\u2019t what you want to say to your audience.  But if you shove an overlay in someone\u2019s face the moment they visit your site, it\u2019s the one you will inevitably send. This is especially true if it\u2019s a full-page overlay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlocking the whole page behind an overlay is about as interruptive as you can be,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt also suggests you\u2019re becoming a little too desperate to grab the visitor\u2019s attention. It does force the user to take some action, and for that reason, they probably deliver some results, short-term at least.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We aren\u2019t saying you should stay away from overlays altogether, mind you. Rather, we\u2019d advise keeping them low-key. Wait until a user is done reading a blog post to show them a popup, or simply include a soft call to action at the bottom of relevant pages urging them to sign up for a mailing list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern web provides users with a positively massive <\/em>volume of information. One side effect of this availability is that if they don\u2019t like what your website is doing, they can very likely go elsewhere. Keep that in mind with all your design decisions, and avoid mailing list popups wherever possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s common knowledge at this point that popup ads are an invasive, spammy marketing tactic that should be avoided. Yet, webmasters say this doesn\u2019t apply to mailing list prompts. While it\u2019s true that popups can lead to a small increase in signups, they\u2019re also a double-edged sword to avoid. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4860,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions\/4860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}