And I also received several complaints from my regular visitors, that’s really the reason I removed it. Even though I had it to turn up only 3 times on each visitor (using cookies), that was way too many times for many people.

I guess I am thinking like you on this matter. I want my visitors to subscribe because they like the content, not because of some freebie.

- jens -

And I also received several complaints from my regular visitors, that’s really the reason I removed it. Even though I had it to turn up only 3 times on each visitor (using cookies), that was way too many times for many people.

I guess I am thinking like you on this matter. I want my visitors to subscribe because they like the content, not because of some freebie.

- jens -

Didn’t mean to misrepresent you there — I guess I misread what you had said.

Wish I had the patience (and the traffic!) to do this level of split testing in my own work. I get bored just rewriting Google Ads, never mind programming pop-ups… lol. I’d be interested in finding out the long-term results though, if anyone out there does have the patience!

~Graham

Didn’t mean to misrepresent you there — I guess I misread what you had said.

Wish I had the patience (and the traffic!) to do this level of split testing in my own work. I get bored just rewriting Google Ads, never mind programming pop-ups… lol. I’d be interested in finding out the long-term results though, if anyone out there does have the patience!

~Graham

I understand you’re suggesting it may be, and I think you might be right. The way to find out, of course, is to test some more! By stopping the pop-overs and then keeping an eye on the percentages, I’ll be able to see what my long-term tactic ought to be. If the open and click percentages grow again, even though the list itself grows more slowly, that would clearly point to abandoning pop-overs as an acquisition tactic.

I understand you’re suggesting it may be, and I think you might be right. The way to find out, of course, is to test some more! By stopping the pop-overs and then keeping an eye on the percentages, I’ll be able to see what my long-term tactic ought to be. If the open and click percentages grow again, even though the list itself grows more slowly, that would clearly point to abandoning pop-overs as an acquisition tactic.

Something has been bugging me about this since I first read the post days ago. As Michael Martine says: the numbers don’t lie.

But then I realized, what are the numbers really telling us?

If your end goal is solely to get newsletter subscribers, then this is a great tactic. Who cares who you piss off, because ultimately if they don’t sign up, they don’t matter anyway. You’ve just qualified your own leads.

However things like blogs have a greater purpose in mind. As Michael pointed out, his open and click rates have declined using a list populated (at least in part) by pop-up subscribers. I don’t find this surprising: people who subscribe on impulse (i.e. those handed the option of subscribing vs. those who enjoy the content and actively seek out to sign up) are also the people most likely to ignore on impulse. His numbers tend to bear this out, though there might be other variables at work like a natural flattening of interest over time, etc.

Here’s another theory: could the small rise in email subscriptions be attributed to less tech-savvy readers believing that they must subscribe in order to continue to the content they are trying to access?

The two issues I have here then are (1) the quality of the list seems to go down as you try to capture “impulse buyers”, and (2) this campaign might have negative effects on other aspects of your operations (for example, the possibility some people might not come back due to pop-ups).

Neither of these two issues are measured here. But what is empirically true is that most people find pop-ups annoying. Yes, people may say one thing and do another, but I think in light of this you need to be sure of what you are doing before you do it. In other words, you need to be sure that pop-ups will get the results you are looking for without taking away from results elsewhere.

I think that marketers need to review their end goals before deciding pop-ups will work for them. If a bigger list of lower quality leads is all you are looking for, pop-ups seems to be the ticket. But if it is part of a bigger plan, make sure the small gains here don’t negatively impact you in other places of your operations.

IMHO,

~Graham

Something has been bugging me about this since I first read the post days ago. As Michael Martine says: the numbers don’t lie.

But then I realized, what are the numbers really telling us?

If your end goal is solely to get newsletter subscribers, then this is a great tactic. Who cares who you piss off, because ultimately if they don’t sign up, they don’t matter anyway. You’ve just qualified your own leads.

However things like blogs have a greater purpose in mind. As Michael pointed out, his open and click rates have declined using a list populated (at least in part) by pop-up subscribers. I don’t find this surprising: people who subscribe on impulse (i.e. those handed the option of subscribing vs. those who enjoy the content and actively seek out to sign up) are also the people most likely to ignore on impulse. His numbers tend to bear this out, though there might be other variables at work like a natural flattening of interest over time, etc.

Here’s another theory: could the small rise in email subscriptions be attributed to less tech-savvy readers believing that they must subscribe in order to continue to the content they are trying to access?

The two issues I have here then are (1) the quality of the list seems to go down as you try to capture “impulse buyers”, and (2) this campaign might have negative effects on other aspects of your operations (for example, the possibility some people might not come back due to pop-ups).

Neither of these two issues are measured here. But what is empirically true is that most people find pop-ups annoying. Yes, people may say one thing and do another, but I think in light of this you need to be sure of what you are doing before you do it. In other words, you need to be sure that pop-ups will get the results you are looking for without taking away from results elsewhere.

I think that marketers need to review their end goals before deciding pop-ups will work for them. If a bigger list of lower quality leads is all you are looking for, pop-ups seems to be the ticket. But if it is part of a bigger plan, make sure the small gains here don’t negatively impact you in other places of your operations.

IMHO,

~Graham

Although I also do not enjoy the pop-ups, there does seem to be a small population that obviously is positively affected by them.

This seems to be a funny paradox…..just like with obtrusive adsense ads, although most people hate them, it seems that the more obtrusive they are, the higher the conversion rate.

We can be tempted to follow our intincts with this, and yet, like Michael put it, the numbers do not lie. In the end…its all just numbers, right? I hate to say this, but what good does credibility do without numbers backing it?

Although I also do not enjoy the pop-ups, there does seem to be a small population that obviously is positively affected by them.

This seems to be a funny paradox…..just like with obtrusive adsense ads, although most people hate them, it seems that the more obtrusive they are, the higher the conversion rate.

We can be tempted to follow our intincts with this, and yet, like Michael put it, the numbers do not lie. In the end…its all just numbers, right? I hate to say this, but what good does credibility do without numbers backing it?

do you really want to upset that many people? i think for a marketing-type blog especially you have to be careful about using pop-ups. many of us immediately associate that with a spam site. i’m not interested in the number of people who sign up, im interested in the number of people i upset who never return again.

its a good topic, im not saying you cant do it, i just wouldnt do it on one of my blogs…

do you really want to upset that many people? i think for a marketing-type blog especially you have to be careful about using pop-ups. many of us immediately associate that with a spam site. i’m not interested in the number of people who sign up, im interested in the number of people i upset who never return again.

its a good topic, im not saying you cant do it, i just wouldnt do it on one of my blogs…

The numbers don’t care, but some of us do.

There are also other numbers (the numbers of people annoyed, which some of us care about, and numbers that may not be in yet – long term costs and benefits).

The numbers don’t care, but some of us do.

There are also other numbers (the numbers of people annoyed, which some of us care about, and numbers that may not be in yet – long term costs and benefits).