Popups have become extremely popular and necessary in this day & age. They are very effective to engage visitors, provide information, capture leads & drive conversions.
In this blog, we will explore what Popups are, their significance and dive into the Top 5 WordPress plugins available, their features, customization options and pricing plans to achieve your marketing goals.
Fun Fact
Many WordPress popup builders provide pre-designed templates created by conversion experts. These templates are optimized for high conversion rates and are based on proven design and copywriting techniques
What are Popups?
Popups are interactive elements that appear on website, usually in the form of an overlay with the intention of grabbing visitors attention and conveying a specific message or CTA (call to action).
Popups are triggered on fulfilling various conditions, such as
- Time spent
- Scroll behavior
- Entry based
- Exit intent
Why do we need to add Popups on our website?
Popups play a crucial role in capturing visitors attention in a cluttered space. They can be shown/displayed at the right time to deliver your message effectively.
By strategically placing popups you can:
- highlight your products/services
- show your offers with a CTA
- offer a free e-book download
- increase your email subscribers
Unlike static elements on the website, popups demand immediate attention and compel visitors to take action.
Features
Popups offers a wide range of features to engage & interact with website visitors. Here are some common features of website popups:
- Display Options: Popups can be triggered on various actions that a user takes on your website such as scroll depth (when a user scrolls 50% of your page), entry (when a user lands on your site and stays for x amount of time), exit intent (when the user is going to leave your site), click triggers & more
- Design Customization: Popups allow you to customize the look/appearance to align with your brand. You can choose fonts, colors, images, videos & more to create visually appealing & beautiful popups
- Content Types: Popups allow you to add different kinds of content, including text, images, videos, buttons, countdown timers, & more. This allows you to deliver different messages & CTA’s
- Targeting: Popups can be used to target to specific segments of the website visitors based on factors like location, referral source, device type, cookie value keyword, site re-visitors & more. This kind of targeted popups increase relevance and improve CTR
- A/B Testing: Many popup plugins allow for A/B testing (comparing different variations of the popups) and then declaring one of them as the winner in terms of engagement, clicks, CTR, revenue etc. This allows you to test and display the best popup removing any confusion
- Email Lists: A common practice of using popups is to build Email lists by offering free Newsletters, e-books or brochure in exchange for critical user information like name, email, phone number, city etc. The popups can be can be integrated with CRM & Email Marketing tools and organically grow the subscriber list
- Responsiveness: Popups should be designed to be responsive & mobile-friendly, i.e. they should display properly across all devices and screen sizes
- Exit Intent: Exit Intent popups are triggered when a visitor tries to leave the site. Based on this, popups displaying offer, discount, can be shown to entice visitors and gain attention
- Social Proof: Some popups incorporate social proof elements like customer reviews, rating, testimonials etc to increase credibility & trust with visitors
- User Engagement: Popups can be set up to engage users on the website through interactive elements like quizzes, surveys, polls, gamification. This feature can help collect data, gather information, increase user interaction and most importantly the visitors spends more time on your website which is a positive signal
Top WordPress Popup Plugins
Now that you know what a popup is, and its features, let’s discuss the top WordPress website popups available.
If you look up the WordPress plugins repository you will find dozens of popups. But you need to use only 1 that fits your requirements.
So, lets see the best options that you have:
- OptinMonster: This is one of the most popular lead generation plugin available. OptinMonster was one of the oldest plugins to popularize the concept of popups in the marketing space. Its drag & drop feature makes it easy to use. You can choose from a variety of pre-built templates or create one of your own from scratch
The canvas feature allows you to create any type of popup with the use of custom HTML & CSS codes.
OptinMonster offers some powerful features for targeting which allows you to create full screen welcome mats, floating bars, scroll boxes & more.
The Targeting feature allows you to target website visitors based on the page they are visiting, location, referral source, site activity & more
OptinMonster is a Saas application that doesn’t use WordPress hosting resources. So, it doesn’t slow down your website. This is crucial not just for user experience but also for SEO purposes.
Installing OptinMonster is quiet easy. You can directly install their WordPress connector plugin without having to edit any WordPress files or add any code to the website.
WPBegginer’s founder Syed Balkhi is the co-founder of OptinMonster. He now serves as an advisor to the company.
2. Hubspot: This plugin by Hubspot allows you to connect your WordPress website to your Hubspot account for seamless integration.
The tool is highly intuitive to setup and easy to use. You can create and edit the forms from both inside the plugin (in WordPress) or from the Hubspot portal.
While setting up, you will be prompted to select the type of pop-up you want (box, banner, slide-in) and then taken to the customizer where you can add text, images, form fields, and even design your own Thank you page.
When it comes to Targeting, you can select the pages you want to customize your message, add exclusion rules, trigger popup based on page scroll, exit intent & entry.
Additionally, you can also show popups based on Browser language, country, CTA clicked, days since last visited, device type & more.
The best part is that Hubspot Forms is absolutely Free.
Sign up for a Free Hubspot account here
3. Elementor Popups: If you are using Elementor theme & page builder for your website, consider using Elementor popup builder feature. Elementor popups use the same interface as the page builder allowing you to apply the same style across all popups. You can be consistent in branding elements like fonts, colors, buttons, countdown timers, email opt-ins & more.
Elementor Popup builder provides more than 100 beautiful templates to choose from, along with several triggers like page inactivity, exit intent, time, scroll etc
The downside of Elementor popup builder though is that it doesn’t come with A/B testing & in-built analytics. Additionally, although the Elementor page builder is free to use, the Popup tool is only available when you buy the pro version which costs $49/- for 1 website & up to $199/- for unlimited sites
The Elementor Popup plugin is a great choice for advanced designers.
Sign up for Elementor Pro here
Fun Fact
Hubspot provides Free popup plugin which integrates with all its Marketing, Sales & Service tools
4. Sumo: This is a free popup plugin which allows you to add popups on your website. They too offer versatile popup types, such as lightbox, slide ins, welcome mats, etc ensuring that you have the right popup for every scenario.
Sumo positions itself as the “Number 1 Free Email Capture Tool”.
It is extremely easy to install the Sumo in just 2 easy steps:
Step 1: Install Sumo Email capture
Step 2: Activate the form. No coding required
Sumo popup includes A/B testing, stats of your forms & connects with popular email & CRM platforms.
Sumo integrates seamlessly with WordPress websites but you’ll need to manage your account and use the Sumo dashboard to design and launch your campaigns.
Sumo is available for Free offering good features but if you really want to take it to the next level, then sign up for their Pro plan which costs #39/- per month if committed annually.
Check out their pricing here
5. Ninja Popups: This is one of codecanyon’s top selling plugin which is extremely feature-rich. For just $24/- you get access to Ninja popups and all their features with over 70+ templates and animation effects to choose from.
Ninja popups was released in 2012 and has been regularly updated with new features, including new popup templates and integrations with Email Marketing tools.
Ninja popups allows you to create all types of popups, including video displays and social sharing buttons.
The plugin offers a user-friendly interface that allows you to create pop-ups with ease. With advanced targeting options & triggers like time delay and exit intent, you can target your site visitors with precision to increase your chances of generating leads or creating a sale.
One of the most important feature that a popup tool should have is Analytics and Ninja popups doesn’t disappoint! It also allows for A/B testing which is a must have if you want to experiment.
Ninja popups also integrates with social media platforms like
A regular license costs just $24/- & includes 6 months of support. You can extend the support for an additional 6 months by paying an extra $7.13/-
You can also add extra add-ons like Optin Bars Pack, Extra Widget for an additional price.
Buy Ninja popups here
Here is a compilation of all the popup builders we’ve listed in this blog along with their use-case and pricing.
Conclusion
We hope this article provided you with information on the different types of popups available and what features you should consider when selecting a popup.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A WordPress popup builder is a plugin or tool that allows businesses & website owners to create and customize popups on their WordPress websites.
These popups are overlay windows that appear on the website designed to capture the attention of the site visitors & encourage specific actions like Newsletter sign, making a purchase etc
WordPress popup builders are typically installed as a plugin in WordPress or directly from the builder's dashboard. They don't require the user to have any coding knowledge as they provide the drag & drop functionality.
Users can select from different pop-up types, and add text, brand colors, fonts, images, even videos
Popups offer several benefits such as:
- Increased engagement
- Lead generation
- Provide information on offers/promotions
- Build email list
By strategically displaying popups you can grab the attention of your site visitor and guide them towards desired action
Yes, most contemporary popup builders are responsive & mobile-friendly. All popups adjust their sizes as per the screen size
Yes, many WordPress popup builders offer native integration with popular Email Marketing & CRM tools like Hubspot, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Getresponse, Sendinblue
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