List Building: Should You Time Your Opt-in Forms?
Debbi BresslerOne of the things that really irritates – and interrupts – my web surfing is to land on an interesting site and immediately have a pop-up or slide-in block my view.
My issue is not with the fact that the owner is building a list. It’s that they are asking for a commitment before I know anything about them. If you push me to make a decision too quickly, I’ll just say no.
MarketingSherpa actually tested opt-in times and found that a 60–second delay caused the highest opt-in rate. They chose this time because their analytics revealed that the average visitor stayed about one minute on a site page. (Note: Based on your own analytics, you may wish to tweak this further.)
I’m not at all surprised that they found that conversions rose. In 60 seconds, your visitor has had a change to step into your site, find a cozy place to sit, and start reading or interacting. That 60 seconds gives them a much better idea of whether they’d like to “set a spell” and come back to visit, or be on their way.
I can tell you that 99% of the time, if a slide-in or pop-up immediately crosses my computer screen, I’ll usually close it without even reading the offer, because it so aggravates me.
And this testing bore that out. The 60–second delay at Ask-Leo.com delivered an average 1000% increase in daily opt-ins vs. the other time delays tested.
What could your bottom line look like with a 1000% opt-in increase? Time to test, wouldn’t you say?
Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse
Tags
email marketing, list building
March 21st, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Good subject, I never subscribe to anything through a pop-up. When I’m
reading an interesting site I don’t want to be bothered with a pop-up. Wait
until I’m through and have a pop-under and I might subscribe if the
content I read on the site was good. Put a form on the page I’m reading
and if I want to subscribe I will, if I don’t I won’t.
I really hate these pop-ups that you can’t get rid of and those that follow
up and down, on the side of the page, as I scroll. I guess Pop-ups makes
somepople money but they make me mad most of the time.
Delton
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:09 pm
[...] Debbi Bressler created an interesting post today on List Building: Should You Time Your Opt-in Forms?Here’s a short outlineMy issue is not with the fact that the owner is building a list. It’s that they are asking for a commitment before I know anything about them. If you push me to make a decision too quickly, I’ll just say no. … [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Yes, I have read this before. Great Advice!
So why do I not have the option to change the time of my pop to anything other than the default 5 seconds in my GetResponse account?
October 14th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
opt email marketing…
Your site looks very interesting and informative! I found your blog via Google while searching for opt email marketing and your post regarding Squeeze Page Templates - 15 Minutes to Lead Generating Pages … definitely captured my attention. I have see…