There are different ways how a visitor ends up on your website – from ads to word of mouth, and so on. Irrespective of how they land on your site, your goal should be to maximize user engagement. This is important as it will drive them to explore your site and may have a reason to come back in the future.
With the limited amount of time a user spends on your website and the stiff competition, achieving this is a hard task. This is where popups are useful. They allow you to convey things that are sure to help with lead generation and increase conversion rates.
We will explore how popups can be useful, the things you need to be careful of along with the best WordPress popup plugins out there.
The Dual Nature of Popups: Pros and Cons
Having popups on your WordPress website is useful but at the same time, it can also have negative impacts. Let’s start with the pros. Once a visitor lands on your page there is no guarantee that they will explore the website, which in turn limits them from knowing all your offerings. They might not need it now, but maybe in the future, they will.
Unless and until they explore, you cannot see a great improvement in your business. In such cases, you can use WordPress popups to give them a reason to stay longer on your website. Let them know about the offers or discounts or about an upcoming sale or even about subscribing to your newsletter to stay updated.
By using a popup on your WordPress website, you can convey this to the users as they explore the page at hand. By doing so, you can convey a lot without making the users leave the current page, thereby increasing your chance of growing your leads and your business.
On the other hand, popups can also backfire. Not all users are fond of these popups when browsing a page, especially the ones that load immediately. This is because they get in the way of what the user came for. So, planning when to trigger the popup is crucial to negate a bad user experience. Also, multiple popups on a single page are a big no.
Also read: WordPress Automation Plugins and Tools to Streamline Workflow
The Best WordPress Popup Plugins
1. Popup Maker
Popup Maker provides you with all the necessary features and customization to create popups that help you increase your leads and fuel your growth. Various types of popups can be created with this such as email opt-in, e-commerce-specific ones, contact form popups, and so on.
This popup plugin for WordPress also lets users determine the different types of triggers. Various integrations are also available, such as Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms, Formidable Forms, and so on. If needed, the popups can also be targeted to specific pages, posts, categories, products, browsers, and more. There is also an inbuilt tracking feature that helps you keep tabs on conversion rates.
This by default uses the text editor, but users have the option of using the block editor. There is also support for linking to Google Fonts with the help of an API key. The other notable setting is the ability to turn the bypass ad blockers which hopefully allows your popup to show up even when a user has an ad blocker installed. The premium version starts at $99/year.
2. Popup Builder
Popup Builder is a simple and flexible solution to create various categories of popups with versatility. There are various display rules (entire website, specific pages, categories and tags, and more) and triggers to play around with to make sure the popups don’t lead to a bad user experience.
There’s also an option to make the popups multisite compatible and the availability of multiple extensions (paid ones) that users can use as per the requirements. This is a freemium plugin and the pricing starts at $49.95.
3. Hustle
Hustle is a well-known WordPress popup plugin created by WPMU DEV. This comes with several pre-defined templates that provide a base foundation for several scenarios and are fully customizable and responsive. This can also be integrated with Google ReCAPTCHA so as to ensure no bots end up signing up.
With this users can also predefine specific start and end dates for the marketing campaigns and can control the styling of the popups to the tiniest detail. The usual set of triggers and integrations are also available and the plugin advocates that it can show ads even when the user has an adblocker installed. The ability to create unlimited popups is available only with the premium version and it starts at $3/month.
4. Popup Builder by OptinMonster
Popup Builder by OptinMonster is one of the widely used WordPress popup plugins out there. With its seamless drag-and-drop builder combined with pre-built templates creating a popup to drive your business is an effortless task. The popups can also be personalized based on the targeting feature of the plugin, thereby making the visitors feel more special.
This plugin also offers an A/B testing feature, analytics, and insights, and several integrations. There are several targeting features present to help the users maximize the outcomes of the campaigns. The popups are mobile-friendly and there are various types of popups that the users can opt to use with a full set of customizations. The pricing starts at $16/month.
Also read: Must-Try WordPress AI Plugins and Services to Boost Productivity
5. WP Popups
WP Popups is a simple-to-use popup plugin that covers everything a user would need and want. There are prebuilt templates that users can make use of or start from scratch and configure the popup with the various styles and animations on offer.
The premium features include A/B testing, analytics, email marketing, exit intent, and several add-ons. The users can also make use of the various inbuilt shortcodes if needed. When it comes to editing the popup styles, almost all elements can be fine-tuned as per the need. The premium versions do offer a bit more flexibility in terms on the total number of site licenses, and other add-ons and the pricing starts at $35/year.
6. Popup Box
Popup Box is a quick and intuitive popup plugin for WordPress. Besides the normal set of integrations, the plugin offers multiple popup types and the notable ones are support for iframes and Google Maps. The plugin also comes with a coupon generator.
The free version provides enough features to display the popup, but if more features and control are needed one needs to opt for the premium version. The iframe and the video popups, restrict by OS and a few other features can only be used if one opts for the premium version. The pricing for the premium version starts at $49.
7. Brave
Brave uses a modern drag-and-drop popup builder that is quick and easy to use and makes the experience a whole lot better. The plugin offers various tools that the users can use to increase the leads and conversion rates and there is support for over fifty integrations and analytics built in. There are several widgets for reducing cart abandonment rates and also for engaging visitors with the help of feedback widgets and chat initiators. The other set of tools focuses on promoting your blogs, increasing your social media presence, customer care tools, and so on.
With the premium version users can insert elements from Pixabay and Giphy, access to 100 presets, advanced animations and targeting, and more. The premium plan starts at $59/year.
Also read: Best Abandoned Cart Recovery Plugins for WooCommerce
8. Firebox
Firebox is an excellent choice for those who want to use the block editor for creating popups. The analytics are built in allowing one to see the total views, conversions, conversion rates, and performance. A few of the analytics features can only be accessed if you opt for the premium version.
There are multiple trigger points and various behavior settings can be controlled instantly with a focus on accessibility. If needed users can enable the test mode, RTL, and prevent page scroll settings. There is no compromise when it comes to the design aspect as all the elements can be configured. Other notable features include precision targeting, template library, various integration, and ad blocker detection. The pricing for the premium version starts at €39/year.
9. Pop ups by Potin
Pop ups by Potin bring a strong value proposition to the table, allowing users to create popups in less than 2 minutes. However unlike other WordPress popup plugins, in order to use this straightway, one needs to create a Potin account to access all the features.
Once the signup process is completed, the users can make use of the drag-and-drop builder to create popups of any kind. Combined with the templates, multiple integrations, A/B testing, analytics, and various other features, engaging the users is an effortless task with this popup plugin.
10. BoostBox
BoostBox is a fairly new popup plugin for WordPress that works with the block editor and is completely free. The main area of focus for this plugin was to allow the users to create popups without having to go through a steep learning curve.
Besides controlling the content settings from within the block editor, the users can configure the display location, animations, triggers, and the close button placement. Unlike the competition, there are no analytics and integrations built in.
Also read: Top Google Analytics Alternatives for WordPress
Wrapping Up
Popups are a great way to increase your leads by engaging more with website visitors but do remember to stay relevant and not too intrusive.