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Your Guide To Turning Pop-ups Into Personal Shoppers

Your Guide To Turning Pop-ups Into Personal Shoppers

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Last Updated:  
October 15, 2024

What comes to mind when you think about a pop-up? Probably that they can be annoying. Or that they are hard to sell your boss on. Why is that? Was it enough bad experiences that did the trick leading to this dismal view of pop-ups? Or that news outlets and blogs tend to let pop-ups live in a Wild West world? At this point, it’s common knowledge that brands should do better when it comes to pop-ups on an ecommerce site. 

But what you’ll find out there today does not reflect this common knowledge. Whether it’s because marketers are unaware of a trustworthy tool (Justuno passes the vibe check on this one) or because they can’t make it make sense to the rest of the team, I’m here to guide you to pop-up conversion excellence by using the website and visitor data that is right at your fingertips. All ya gotta do is read along. 

A world with no pop-ups 😱

This world is out there. It’s the one where shoppers browse aimlessly through your omnichannel and never quite get to the hallelujah moment where they convert into a customer. This sad world is avoidable when you address three key touchpoints on a website: 

  1. Welcome Journey
  2. Browse/Cart Abandonment Journey
  3. Return Visitor Journey

When you break down the onsite journey like this then you open the door to endless engagement opportunities via pop-ups. In the case of the cart abandonment journey. Let’s say you don’t try to keep them on site at that exact moment (and i’m not talking about your email or sms flows here, because at this point they are just too late). In the case of Tipsy Elves below, we see 11% conversion rate for those that DON’T see the cart abandoner pop-up on mobile. But when visitors do end up seeing/engaging with the pop-up we see that the conversion rate rises to 33%—while also contributing to ~5+% of revenue. Now imagine all the carts being abandoned this holiday season that you could be saving with a simple incentive + urgency + trust signals juuuuuuuust as they are breaking your site barrier. This proactive approach with messaging is where conversion magic happens. Basically you are enabling a personal shopper mode on site that allows you to address any friction or pain points head on. 

     

Touchpoint #1: The welcome journey

Typically this welcome journey will prioritize lead capture over everything else. Even user experience! That’s a no-no that we find brands eventually growing out of. Meaning they understand that a user needs to be warmed up to your brand/site before you should go wild with the questions and offer. We have to give visitors a reason to want to subscribe outside of the discount or else you're going to end up building a list that is more about quantity over quality. And that just means more work for you in your segmentation process later on to filter out those that are not interested. 

So the welcome journey scene should look like a lead capture that gives the visitor some time (8-10 seconds is a sweet spot, but please test this for yourself!). And in this lead capture you want to provide quick trust signals or value. A solid example of this is the Bento design by Justuno. You get to use all the space a pop up has to provide and add in reviews or UGC, video. Pair this with a couple questions that are relevant to your brand or industry and you will be winning the lead capture game! There’s never enough inspo so checkout the template library that delivers new and CX-focused lead capture design. 

Touchpoint #2: The browse/cart abandonment journey

This is a touchpoint that we’ve mentioned already. But not only is this a key touchpoint onsite. It’s also a segment that you know more about than you might expect. 

The way to create and present the most effective browse/cart abandonment pop-up is to first identify which abandonment flow the visitor falls into. It’s either browse or cart abandoner. 

  1. A browse abandoner will be someone that is attempting to leave your site without having added items to their cart.
  2. A cart abandoner is obvious—they are leaving the goodies in the bag and hustling out of your store. 

Your goal = show them your hustle too! Every site will have their main reason for cart abandonment occurring so finding the right incentive relies on you knowing your customers best. Since I hear so much about NOT wanting to discount, I'll share these non-discount incentives that move the needle too. These incentives can be plugged right into any pop-up design and inserted into a workflow like the one below. The beauty of automation, amirite!?

If someone were to leave you hanging in real life at the checkout you’d probably have a look or two to give them. Thankfully, pop-ups have no face and just aim to be helpful personal shoppers 😊

Touchpoint #3: The return visitor journey

A return visitor falls under two bigger segments. They’re either an existing customer or they are not a customer yet. These are two different segments that hold different value, therefore your offer and messaging should be in sync with their expectations. An existing customer is expecting a little more of a red carpet experience, or at least some acknowledgement when they arrive onsite. Versus a return non-customer that may be trying to fly under the radar while they’re in research mode. This lack of segmentation for return visitors is a common missed opportunity for brands to improve customer lifetime value and time to conversion. So what should they see in a pop-up? Let’s break down what to show these segments when the goal is conversion. 

  1. Return customer - If they aren’t subscribed to your newsletters or text then get them signed up. Don’t worry, a tool like Justuno can help you identify who is identified and who is anonymous. We also know what they’ve purchased at this point. So if we have their email and phone number then pivot to greeting them with the best bundle option or add-on product you have + trust signals and UGC! Combine this messaging with a special offer like expedited shipping or a free gift for the ultimate pop-up. 
  2. Return non-customer - start with identifying if they are subscribed or not to your email or text and then turn up the heat. Don’t serve up the same lead capture over and over. After about 3-4 times of seeing the same pop up you’ll want to call that a loss and serve up another variation to capture their attention again. If they are an identified visitor then lean into helping them navigate your site with helpful product quizzes or site navigation pop-ups that prioritize your top-converting pages or educational content.  

And don’t forget that your source data (aka UTMs) will be able to provide you with direction for your pop-up variations. Just like you’d have different ad variations, the same approach to creative will apply to your pop-ups. 

Return visitors are driven to your site by multiple sources. And that source data should be your best friend because it’s going to tell you all about the reason they clicked through. For example, if someone is coming from a paid campaign then you want to make sure you get your money back for acquiring that visitor. You do that by meeting their click-through expectation with an offer they expect, a link to the page or content they’re expecting, or even a better VIP-like offer. Now look at a return visitor coming from your owned channel of email or SMS. This visitor has experienced your brand in a more 1:1 manner and is already warmed up to the idea of buying with you. You still want to make sure you match the offer or products you are highlighting in your owned channel to the website journey. It’s not enough to say “these products will work for you”. The website is where you really get to drive home that message by building trust and authority with your audience. 

Lambs & Ivy does a fantastic job at combining unique creative with on site targeting and segmentation to serve up a cart abandoner that targets visitors showing intent to buy. That’s how you do it! 

Campaigns past the lead capture

What these three touchpoints end up creating is an experience combining learnings from dashboards with your personal shopper touch. You will know what resonates with visitors best in terms of creative, messaging and incentives. And tools like Justuno and Triple Whale are around to help you ask the right questions that allow you to learn all the important zero and first party data that makes 1x1 personalization possible. Happy converting! 

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