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Ask HN: Do those “sign up for our newsletter” pop-ups actually work?

16 points by skewart ↗ HN
Over the last few years a lot of websites have started showing pop-ups a few seconds after the visitor arrives asking them to sign up for the site's email newsletter. Often these take up the entire screen or otherwise make the site unusable until the user dismisses them.

Do these pop-ups actually lead to more sign-ups than, say, a little widget off to the side? Are the sign-ups good quality - i.e. are they people who are likely to stay engaged and/or generate revenue for the site?

I ask because I typically see these on sites I get to from a Google search. I'm usually visiting these sites for the first time and I know very little about them. I would never sign up for a newsletter before I even know what they do and if they have useful content.

I would guess these popups are targeting repeat visitors, but even then it's still annoying and just makes me dislike the site.

So, if anyone has any experience working with these newsletter pop-ups, do they work?

16 comments

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programming
Of course these work. I am using them on my website so that visitors keep getting new updates.
Zuider
On the one hand, the 'subscribe' pop-ups are intrusive, and I am reluctant to clutter my inbox with notifications, but on the other hand they provide a subliminal advertisement that the website is a source of material that is actually worth signing up for, along with implicit peer pressure from the implication, justified or not, that there is already a community of people who have signed up. It is a psychological nudge, and you seem to be saying that the benefits outweigh the downsides?
seanwilson
Do you have any statistics on how many sign up from pop-ups vs less intrusive prompts?
codegeek
It depends on the timing of the pop-up. If I open a site's homepage and it immediately pop-ups that form, I ignore it. If I am browsing for a few seconds or even minutes and then it pop-ups when I try to exit, I may sign up if the content was interesting.

Oh and a big pet peeve. Lot of these forms try to be cute by saying something like "No I don't want to make more money" etc for the decline option. Don't do that. Just because I am not signing up for your newsletter does not mean you need to tell me I am making a mistake.

veddox
> It depends on the timing of the pop-up.

Yes, definitely. A huge pop-up before I've even finished reading the title? Get lost. A smaller pop-up when I've read the whole article? Well, maybe I'll think about it.

The first is just plain rude. I probably won't sign up for the second either, because I don't want to give away my email address to all and sundry - but I've benefited from your content, so you have a right to at least ask.

wingerlang
> "No I don't want to make more money"

This is one of the "tips" that is usually in "increase conversion rate" lists. Are you sure it is not actually worth writing it like that? Just because you can see through it doesn't mean the general public will.

Just take the top post as an example, me personally a popup is an instant close - but obviously it isn't looking at his chart.

ardaozkal
As an end user of web content, popups don't work for me, but if it is a small box at end of page, article etc, and if the content is good, I usually subscribe.
cm2012
All big companies that do these use extensive ab testing to determine if they work.
jaredsohn
As an aside, I think the slash (or at least capital letters) is pretty important to use when writing out A/B testing. (My initial reading of the parent post gave me a different interpretation.)
unsquare
It's night and day.

http://i.imgur.com/WW0uF8n.png

user5994461
Just a reminder that a marketing practise may aggressive and unwelcomed by some users while also being statistically successfully on some other users and bringing significant revenues.
achairapart
Of course they work. They also provide terrible UX.

They work in a "quantitative" manner, it will grow your list but many users like me will close the entire tab at lightning speed.

I think they work mostly because of naive users who think they need to enter their email in order to view the actual website.

So, depending on your targets, you can choose to fast grow your list with random and candid users or have a sharper base of people actually interested in your content.

asdfasdfa11112
OTOH, if a site monetizes primarily through its email list, they may not care if people who don't sign up see their content.

There are similarities in the selection criteria used by 419 scammers.

ohgh1ieD
It does work, I usually never ever visit them again.

They successfully lost a potential customer.

zer00eyz
Your not asking all the questions.

Do you want email list signups or customers who convert to cash.

Is your email marketing effective enough to cancel out the increase to your bounce rate?

For most people email signups aren't a direct correlation to money in the bank, you need to market to these folks. If you don't have an effective email marketing then its automatically a bad idea.

sharmi
Most of the comments here are the experiences of highly tech savvy end users, not webmasters who employ the pop-up technique on their site. They are not representative of the general population. So the feedback should be taken in perspective. That said, I have learnt a lot about usability from these discussions and that has shaped how I design my own site. Kudos to hners.