What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear about popups? That they are spammy, intrusive or ruin the shopping experience of a visitor. In fact, there are many marketers and industry experts that claim popups are a dead conversion strategy. But truth be told, the Shopify pop up isn’t dead. It is your strategy that died long ago!
Why email popups are still effective?
The typical attention span of an internet user is decreasing by the day. While they are browsing products on your site, there is a high chance that they have at least two more stores open alongside. They also use browser extensions and web apps to make price comparisons.
So no matter how optimized your product pages are or how good your products are, there’s always something that can distract them from making the purchase or lure them away.
A Shopify pop up is actually your last chance to re-engage the visitor and stop them from walking away without making a purchase.
Status quo – Email popups are overdone
No matter which store you visit or what blog you’re reading, you’ll be targeted with an email popup at one point or the other. It’s either going to be just as you load the website, when you have spent about a minute on one of the web pages or when you’re leaving the website.
Pretty predictable and considerably ineffectively.
But it isn’t really the timing of the Shopify pop up that isn’t working. It is the usual approach to popups that makes them boring.
Think about it. How many times have you seen the following email popup?
All they ask you to do is keep in touch, promise you a first-time discount or commit to sharing deals on email. While this approach worked beautifully in the beginning, it is now overdone and often goes unnoticed or is ignored by the online shopper.
Missing the first-time deal? It’s okay, they’ll find one on another store.
Missing a special coupon? That’s okay too, they’ll just find it on an affiliate or a coupon site.
Now, what if we said there is a way to capture the fleeting attention of online shoppers, make them subscribe to your newsletters and at the same time offer instant gratification with a coupon?
We’re talking about gamification.
Driving better engagement and more sales with gamification
According to the co-author of Gamification by Design, Gabe Zichermann, gamification is all about 75% psychology and 25% technology.
Gamification taps into the psychological behaviors that govern a typical online shopper’s day-to-day decisions, providing a platform for competition, that engages them on a deeper level with the brand they are interacting with. All this resulting in an increase in the number of emails your Shopify store is able to collect from online shoppers.
And we’re not the only ones saying this. Stewart Agency doubled their email subscriptions in just three months with gamification.
A successful gamification strategy works because:
- It gives your shoppers the motivation to do something – be it a chance to win a coupon, a reward or even a shoutout on your social media channels
- It gives shoppers the ability to carry out a task by initiating it and breaking it down into simple steps – instead of asking for a bigger commitment by directly demanding an email address, you can first ask them to win a coupon that will then be sent to their email or vice versa
- It gives the shopper a trigger to complete the action – that is, complete the purchase on your Shopify store
But how do you bring all that to a Shopify pop up?
By reinventing your email popup strategy to include games that don’t just get you the shopper’s email address, but makes the experience of getting a coupon, fun.
That’s impossible – NOT.
Here’s how you can use a Shopify pop up to get more email subscriptions and drive more sales with personalized coupon games.
Games that make email popups convert higher
1. Card dance
Who doesn’t like playing cards? While most of your shoppers are enjoying playing poker on their phones already, throw in another challenge to show you know all about it. With card dance, you let your shoppers play a game in which they switch cards to reveal coupons that might not win them chips but would bring them massive savings!
2. Wheel of coupons
Quit relying on exit intent to hook the shopper’s interest again. Keep your shoppers hooked to your site, watching the wheel whirl to win exciting prices. The game is a super simple version of a long time favorite game – ‘spin to win’. Offer personalized coupons, added in-store cash and more to your shoppers!
3. Pick a gift
Imagine walking into your office and being given a gift suddenly. Pure joy, right? Bring the same strategy to your email popup with the game, pick a gift. Here your shoppers get to choose from the five gifts you have to offer to them. The only surprise element to keep things interesting – each gift has a different coupon discount!
4. Reel of coupons
Ever walked into a gaming arena to play the reel to win more tickets for getting matched elements? Keeps your heart racing, right? Well, you can now bring the game to your Shopify pop up too. Let your shoppers spin three wheels to align the columns. The better the result, the more the discount!
Turn your Shopify store visitors into customers
While your Shopify store visitors come in and get to play a game that makes it fun to get a discount coupon, you get to make them feel valued and special. After all, you did make the effort of making their online shopping experience as interesting as in-store shopping!
Ready to reboot your Shopify pop up strategy? It’s time to play the first game with your shoppers.
