12:24pm
Saint Paul
Most people hate marketing… unless it’s something they’re interested in.
Then—when it’s done right—it’s not marketing.
It’s useful.
And without a doubt, one of the most annoying methods of digital marketing is the Pop-Up.
You know what I mean. You’re on a web page, engaging with the content, when suddenly there’s something blocking your view.
Infuriating, right?
Well, marketers hate them too.
Except that… they work.
Now, over the last few weeks I’ve been tweaking pop-ups to squeeze more juice from them.
I’ve been aiming for a minimum of 3% response, and usually it’s a bit higher.
(I love it when they’re over 5%… but I don’t get there with every one.)
Recently a fellow marketer suggested the CTA—call to action, the button on a pop-up—be made shorter.
Well, a great thing about digital marketing is the instantaneous feedback you get.
And, you can TEST—something most marketers (sadly) don’t do.
So I said, let’s test it!
The CTA button went from:
[ Free Session, Register Now! ]
with a 3.99% response, to just
[ Register Now! ]
That pulled 3.97%. So not quite as good, but not bad either.
But… that went contrary to my direct-response-trained brain.
Why?
Because there’s no benefit in that CTA.
So, I tested another variation.
Something even more direct response than the Free aspect.
I created a variation that read:
[ Click Here To Register Now ]
Yep. It directs their response, aka tells them what to do.
And that ad pulled 4.16%.
Which, across thousands of viewers, brought in a few dozen interested people.
Now, the lesson here is NOT to copy this approach.
The lesson is to TEST what you think will work.
And maybe test what you think will NOT work, because you never really know.
And then, when you have a winner, to iterate on it.
(In fact… I tested 10 variations on this ad.)
Meanwhile, start preparing the next ad, because the first one will fatigue and start to fail.
Do you use pop-ups? I’d like to hear how they convert for you. Maybe my >4% is trash—if so, let me know!