Kinds of Pop-Ups

A key element of any pop-up strategy is deciding the best time and place to have them appear. There are benefits to each type, but it's important to use the right kind for the goal you're trying to accomplish. Having a pop-up appear as soon as visitors arrive at your site will grab their attention right away, so it's a good strategy when there's something you want all of your visitors to be alerted to or do, like subscribe to your newsletter.

When people first come to your site, they may not notice your opt-in form, contest, or survey on your homepage. Or they may see it and plan to fill it out later. By the time they leave the site, though, they may have forgotten about it. An exit pop-up can serve as a gentle "before you go" reminder to opt-in before they leave your site. You can design your pop-ups to appear a specific length of time after someone comes to your site.

This gives them the chance to explore on their own before you introduce the pop-up, much like a salesperson might let them browse before making a suggestion or offering them assistance. You can also set up delayed exit pop-ups, like Jermaine does, so you can continue communicating with your customers even after they've left your site. It's important to test these carefully, though, to make sure the delay isn't so long that visitors end up wondering where the pop-up came from.

You may not want pop-ups to distract people from your main site. In these cases, a "pop-under" is the perfect solution. It can be launched the same way as a regular pop-up, but it sets itself behind the main browser window. That way, your visitors will see it only once they close their current browser window. One of the things that makes many pop-ups annoying is their repetitiveness. By using cookies -- small files that track specific visitors -- you can make sure you don't subject visitors to pop-ups they've already seen or offers they've already responded to. You can also set cookies to make sure it only pops once per visit.