What's will all those annoying pop ups? Do I need one?
It seems like almost any site you go to has them. These little boxes that pop up asking you to verify your age, confirm you’re ok with cookies, or sign up or a newsletter before you can access the content you went there for. As a consumer, you can find them kind of annoying. But as a business owner, you may find yourself asking, do I need one of those?
Let’s break all the pop ups down a little, and which ones are worth investigating more.
The Cookie Pop Up - Starting about a year ago you may have noticed more and more popups asking you to acknowledge and accept the use of cookies on their site. First party cookies are tags on the website that allow the site to store data (like billing or account information), language preferences, reduce load times and other things to help make your browsing experience better. Starting around the time of GDPR and CCPA, websites were required to have a pop up that ensured that you knew that your data was being saved on the website. As a whole, this law tends to apply more to sites that are targeted European countries, so if your website deals strictly with US traffic you’re not required to include one. If you’re unsure, or plan on expanding in the future, this would be something worth adding to your site. This can be achieved with a simple bottom banner that pops up the first time a visitor goes to your site. It should explain your use of cookies, link to your privacy policy, and have a space for the user to “confirm” that they agree to it all.
Age Gate Pop Up - This one usually only applies to websites that sell products that are restricted by age (tobacco, vape pens, alcohol, etc.). In reality, age gates aren’t required by law and are instead used by many as their way of proving that they are verifying age before delivering content or product. There’s a problem with age gates, however….. they’re really easy to lie on. Because of that, most states (and countries around the world) require 3rd party age verification in order to sell age restricted products anyways. Usually this comes in the form of showing an ID at pick up or delivery. So do you really need one? I’d say no. Honestly, they’re annoying, ineffective, not required, and you still additional verification anyways.
Up-sell/Exit-Intent Pop Ups - A favorite of funnel builders, these pop ups are meant to get you to spend more money on the website. Up-sell popups do just that, attempt to up-sell an additional product or add on to the current sale. Exit-Intent pop ups work to keep a user from easily exiting if they add something to their cart or don’t finish the check out process. Personally, both of these are pop ups that I really dislike, but the stats don’t lie. In most studies they show an increase of 5-10% in conversions, which can equal big dollars. If you’re noticing a drop or lack in conversions these kind of pop ups may be something worth considering, although you may want to run through your sales content first to see if theres an issue there.
Newsletter Pop Up - This one is probably the most popular and one you see all the time. This pop up asks you to enter your name/email to be put on the email list. While these pop ups can get a little aggressive, they can be a really effective tool to build your list up fast. To make it more something people look forward to instead of an annoyance, consider offering something in exchange, like a coupon, exclusive content, special updates, or an easier user experience (like content delivered right to their inbox). People don’t mind the interruption so much when they’re getting an inside scoop. Also, it’s important that you have the pop set to ONLY come up the first time a user visits your website. To have it continuously pop up every visit is not only overkill, but is a super fast way to turn people off.