When websites interrupt people reading mid-way through to ask for an email address, does that actually work? To me it's an obnoxiously needy behavior to want associated with a brand, but I assume someone has crunched the numbers.
scoff you dare challenge such marketing tactics on ycombinator without fear of shadowban?! my dear man, do you forget this realm might as well be a cousin to product hunt!!
Yes, it’s worth it in that you get more, highly engaged readers of your content with email signups. Some of them are web readers who read more because the reminders prompt them, but many are email readers who don’t really want to visit your website but want your content. It makes a lot of sense to offer a free subscription to someone instead of making them search for it.
There are also readers like you and me who look everywhere on a site to find what we want. They don’t need a pop-up and may resent it.
Of course you need to do the additional work of sending good email. That’s part of the appeal, that you’ve done additional work for the reader and are inviting them to enjoy more.
Why so much of our economy and society is driven by people asking other people to do things for them is a good question but above this particular consultant’s pay grade. ;)
If it makes you hit the close button without even focusing on the text, why not assume the general population does the same thing?
I was going through the Ant Design guidelines out of curiosity and comparing it to Material Design. Not a designer, but I was struck by how there was a principle intended to directly address this: "Stay on the page."
I get that using popups rather than inline CTAs might juice first order conversions, but I wonder if it inhibits second order ones. I guess I wonder if these kinds of pushy techniques ever work or are they more for the peace of mind of the site owner than the visitor, but I also wonder if the average visitor is really that bothered by it.
>If it makes you hit the close button without even focusing on the text, why not assume the general population does the same thing?
It's hard to know, my gut feeling is that since I've seen this ALL over the place, they are A-B testing it and realize it works (sort of like market forces). i.e. The same reason we still get spam email is becz there ARE some people/idiots clicking on those links titled: "1 Sip of This Reverses Type 2 Diabetes as You Sleep" and buying stuff.
Now it's hard to know if what I'm seeing is just everyone copying everybody else and those that HAVE A-B tested it are no longer doing it. :)
>but I also wonder if the average visitor is really that bothered by it.
Maybe.. Another example is that I really don't understand how anyone reads web pages without an adblocker and yet I see it all the time.
Accept cookies, sign up for newsletter, half pages being covered by "you have 2 articles left this month", banner ads that take over the page etc. It would drive me mad.
I remember once when I went home and was watching TV with my mother and the ads came on (with a big increase in volume) and automatically clicked the mute button. After several times doing this, she said "What are you doing? am I supposed to sit here in silence waiting for the show to come back".
the great thing about offering consulting in heavily regulated spaces is that it takes 100 hours to learn/ understand/ complete the process the first time, but only 1 hour every other time. Business's are heavily incentivized to just pay a consultant to deal with the regulatory paperwork than try and deal with it themselves.
There are two broad classes: changing regulations and clarifying/improving existing ones.
The former are the easier ones, a shift in regulation can create new markets (and destroy others). Let's say there's a new mandated requirement for banks, if you can provide them with a solution then you have a very captive market. Conversely, sometimes new possibilities arise, e.g. instant transfers. The changing regulatory framework create vacuums to fill, and contrarily to new technologies, you don't have to be on top of the game to fight in those spaces, just on point and on time.
As for the latter, sometimes things are done one way because navigating the regulation is so complex that no one really wants to do it. There's already a solution, it works decently, why bother. However, as time goes by, cruft accumulates, or maybe technology makes it now easier to solve the problem or circumvent regulation. If you're willing to do the work, then you can disrupt the existing market. I would class Uber and Airbnb in this category. It doesn't have to be illegal though, it's just that regulation is often unclear, especially if you go into the details, or in some new situations that did not exist when it was written.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] threadThere are also readers like you and me who look everywhere on a site to find what we want. They don’t need a pop-up and may resent it.
Of course you need to do the additional work of sending good email. That’s part of the appeal, that you’ve done additional work for the reader and are inviting them to enjoy more.
Why so much of our economy and society is driven by people asking other people to do things for them is a good question but above this particular consultant’s pay grade. ;)
I was going through the Ant Design guidelines out of curiosity and comparing it to Material Design. Not a designer, but I was struck by how there was a principle intended to directly address this: "Stay on the page."
I get that using popups rather than inline CTAs might juice first order conversions, but I wonder if it inhibits second order ones. I guess I wonder if these kinds of pushy techniques ever work or are they more for the peace of mind of the site owner than the visitor, but I also wonder if the average visitor is really that bothered by it.
It's hard to know, my gut feeling is that since I've seen this ALL over the place, they are A-B testing it and realize it works (sort of like market forces). i.e. The same reason we still get spam email is becz there ARE some people/idiots clicking on those links titled: "1 Sip of This Reverses Type 2 Diabetes as You Sleep" and buying stuff.
Now it's hard to know if what I'm seeing is just everyone copying everybody else and those that HAVE A-B tested it are no longer doing it. :)
Maybe.. Another example is that I really don't understand how anyone reads web pages without an adblocker and yet I see it all the time.
Accept cookies, sign up for newsletter, half pages being covered by "you have 2 articles left this month", banner ads that take over the page etc. It would drive me mad.
I remember once when I went home and was watching TV with my mother and the ads came on (with a big increase in volume) and automatically clicked the mute button. After several times doing this, she said "What are you doing? am I supposed to sit here in silence waiting for the show to come back".
So you might be right... sigh
LOL
Edit: I hate it too, by the way.
Step 1: find the "Regulortunities"
What is that? Like any tax avoidance scheme as in legal but unfair/unethical??
There are two broad classes: changing regulations and clarifying/improving existing ones.
The former are the easier ones, a shift in regulation can create new markets (and destroy others). Let's say there's a new mandated requirement for banks, if you can provide them with a solution then you have a very captive market. Conversely, sometimes new possibilities arise, e.g. instant transfers. The changing regulatory framework create vacuums to fill, and contrarily to new technologies, you don't have to be on top of the game to fight in those spaces, just on point and on time.
As for the latter, sometimes things are done one way because navigating the regulation is so complex that no one really wants to do it. There's already a solution, it works decently, why bother. However, as time goes by, cruft accumulates, or maybe technology makes it now easier to solve the problem or circumvent regulation. If you're willing to do the work, then you can disrupt the existing market. I would class Uber and Airbnb in this category. It doesn't have to be illegal though, it's just that regulation is often unclear, especially if you go into the details, or in some new situations that did not exist when it was written.