Designing B2B Pop-Ups Like a Pro

‍What is a pop up?

Pop-ups are a form of online messaging commonly deployed on a website's foreground presenting an offer to generate an action from a visitor. This marketing channel first became common in the 90’s in the form of advertisement, but quickly gained a bad reputation from web visitors for being annoying. However, pop-ups quickly regained popularity as more advanced contextual deployment methods became available in addition to better design methods utilized on a company's website. Now, pop-ups are typically timely and offer visitors relevant offers instead of appearing randomly and interrupting a web visitor’s session on your website.   

Why use pop-ups?

The short answer is pop-ups work. Yes, there are a lot of variables that will help increase your pop-up conversion rate, but we’ll dive into that later. For now let’s take a look at a few key stats on why pop-ups are relevant for your ABM strategy. 

• According to research conducted by SUMO, the top 10% highest-performing pop-ups averaged a 9.28% conversion rate. 
• The average conversion rate for a pop-up is 3.1%
• At Triblio, we’ve seen customers have 5x increase in meetings booked through Triblio web overlays (pop-ups)

Source: SUMO
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With conversion rates like that, it’s important to not overlook incorporating pop-ups into your B2B marketing strategy or improving your current pop-up strategy. So, what makes a good pop-up? 

Design

A good pop-up starts with sound design followed by a solid deployment strategy so your design doesn’t go to waste. Let’s discuss the key design tenets that make a pop-up stand out to web visitors. Then we’ll follow up by providing some great pop-up examples from B2B companies and discuss best practices for your pop-up deployment strategy. 

Imagery

If you’re going to use imagery for your pop-ups, there are a few things to keep in mind. First and foremost, to save yourself time and avoid hassle, use imagery that translates across all pop-up sizes. If you have a great offer that you want to use across various pop-up sizes, make sure your imagery can be scaled or altered to fit properly on all of your deployment sizes. Additionally, the design should match the offer. If you have an exciting, limited time offer, go bold! On the contrary, maybe your offer is more subtle, so a muted design would make more sense. 

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You want to use a design that stands out on a webpage. A pop-up becomes the centerpiece of your website for a brief moment, and when your pop-up is deployed, you want it to be eye-catching. Remember, It’s important to match your design around your offer. You can match your offer with visual information like color, boldness, and a layout that brings life to the offer. Below are a few tips to bring your pop-up to life. 

1. Color: Adding colorful imagery that stands out will grab attention. Don’t be afraid to be bold, but also keep in mind that your color and imagery should match your offer. However, don’t stray too far away from your brand guidelines with color. It’s best to alter color combinations within your brand guidelines instead of using something bizarre like neon pink if your company colors are muted earth tones. 

2. Bold: Use imagery that’s bold. We are not just talking about color here. Instead we are talking about an image or supporting graphics that’s eye-catching and brings your design to the forefront of your ad. Below you’ll find examples from Poptin that do a great job of showing this element with their parrot. 

3. Clean: Don’t get too carried away! Color and bold imagery have their limits. If you're using too much color or using imagery that creates too much visual noise, you’ll completely drown out the offer. If your brand identity is more subtle and muted, a clean look makes more sense over something vibrant and bold. 

4. Simple: This might seem like it erases everything mentioned above. However, sometimes simplicity is key. Bold color and imagery isn’t always needed. Oftentimes, a straightforward pop-up with clear copy is the way to go. Again, match your design to your offer. 

Exciting? Go bold. Subtle? Go simple. 

Copy

 Similar to the design of your ad, the copy needs to support the offer in the clearest and most efficient way possible. There isn't an exact science to this, and you may need to adjust your copy and test what works best. However, there are a few tenets to follow when crafting copy for your B2B pop-ups. Keep these things in mind when writing copy:

• Get to the point: Time is of the essence, and there is no room for fluff. Clear and concise messaging is a good rule of thumb when it comes to drafting copy. Get rid of unnecessary words. Consumers are oversaturated with marketing messaging, the copy will be processed quickly and needs to be easily digestible. The example below does a great job of getting to the point and highlights a lot of the visual design elements discussed above.

• Don’t be afraid to get creative: This point may seem contradictory to the point above, but don’t be mistaken. You can get to the point without sounding like ChatGPT wrote your copy. This also doesn’t mean incorporating copy that’s totally off the wall. Instead you can find originality with your word choice and adjust the whole tone of a pop-up to support your offer in a creative manner.

• Shock Factor: If you do want to try something that stands out, take note of this example below from Neil Patel. This combines creative copy with shock factor. As B2B marketers we certainly are more limited than B2C marketers, and oftentimes this is to our own fault. This is a good example of copy that will catch your web visitors eyeballs. 

CTA

The last but certainly not the least important design element we will discuss is CTAs. The strongest CTAs tie all of your visual elements together and present your offer in the most efficient manner. The two most essential elements of a good CTA for pop-ups are:

1. Strong Action Verbs. Like but not limited to… 

1. Contact
2. Try
3. Buy
4. Join
5. Watch

1. That clearly communicate the offer

1. an expert
2. (insert product name)
3. now, today
4. our newsletter
5. the video

A CTA is not the place to beat around the bush. Your web visitors need to know exactly what they’re getting and when they’re getting it. With that said, don’t be afraid to experiment with CTAs until you find one that supports your offer, and ultimately gets more clicks.  

Examples of Good Pop-Ups

1. Wishpond 

This exit intent overlay pop-up from Wishpond is a unique example of a pop-up that is only deployed when a web visitor is showing exit intent. The idea is to present an offer to the forefront of a webpage that may be too good of an offer to pass up, or potentially spark more interest in your product or service before a visitor bounces off your website. This pop-up does a good job of being timely and uses minimalistic design with bold copy to convey its message. 

This pop-up gets right to the point and actually loops a video of Wishpond’s AI-powered website builder in action. The CTA also presents an exclusive offer while showing and telling visitors exactly what they are getting. 

2. CoSchedule

What sticks out the most with this pop-up from CoSchedule is its less invasive manner with the lower banner, and its use of numbers in the copy. The copy is appealing and the CTA tells you exactly what you’re getting.

3. Poptin

This slide in pop-up from Poptin is another great example of copy that’s to the point and features a CTA that clearly states the offer. This is a unique pop-up, since Poptin specializes in pop-ups, you’re actually seeing exactly what you’re getting in real time. 

This Poptin pop-up hits on a lot of the bold design and copy elements discussed above. The pop-up is colorful, and the graphic is exciting to complement the offer and Poptin’s brand identity. 

4. HubSpot

Like we discussed above, sometimes straightforward design is the best option. Especially if it fits your brand. HubSpot stays true to their identity with this design by relying on copy and not incorporating over-the-top imagery. This pop-up clearly states what they’re offering and how you can subscribe to their offer. If sleek, copy heavy, and clean fits your brand, then try designing an offer like HubSpot’s. You don’t need to clutter your ads with unnecessary visual noise if it doesn’t fit your brand identity. 

5. Mailmunch

The overall design of this Mailmunch pop-up is good. The copy is nicely tied to a pain point, though it could be more concise. However they do incorporate unique elements such as emojis and numbers that can be a great alternative to get your message across when applicable. 

Want to see more B2B creative inspiration? Check out How to Make B2B Ads That Aren't Boring.

B2B Pop-Up Best Practices

Now that we’ve discussed design elements and looked at examples of well executed pop ups, let's talk about the best practices for deploying your pop-ups. 

1. Don’t irritate your audience 

Pop-ups are great, but they have a time and a place. Web visitors are saturated with content and having pop-ups that deploy too frequently can irritate prospects. To do this, make sure you set limitations on the number of times a pop-up will deploy during a visit. You can access and set limitations in whichever software you're using to deploy your pop-ups. Additionally, make sure your pop up has a visible X to close the pop up window. Without this, your pop up can feel like a trap to web visitors. 

2. Contextually deploy pop-ups where they make the most sense

This is important. If you have a pop-up deploy on a webpage with an offer that is not related to the web page’s content, chances are your conversion rate won’t reach its full potential. If your offer matches the content on the web page you’ll more than likely be reaching the right audience. 

3. Set Your Deployment Criteria 

Setting your deployment criteria helps take out the randomness of pop-ups. Below you will find common criteria you can attribute to your pop-ups for a sounder strategy.

• Exit intent - consists of actions a web visitor takes that signals them leaving your website. For example, if a visitor hits the back button on a browser this could signal exit intent. If exit intent is detected, you can set up a trigger to deploy a pop-up.

• Opacity - Test your opacity and find what works best for you. High opacity will feel less intrusive but also cause more distraction from your offer because the background is visible. On the contrary you could try low opacity that brings your offer front and center while blocking out the background, but this may feel more disruptive to the user experience. 

• Visited x number of pages - If you don’t want your audience to have pop-ups appearing like a jump scare around every corner, you can set up criteria that limits deployment only when a visitor clicks on a number of pages. 

• Scroll % - Your website content is there for a reason. You want your audience to see the most important website messaging on a page. This is typically the content on the top of your page. Enabling scroll % deployment allows you to effectively present your offer without blocking out important website content.

• After x number of clicks - A lot of clicks are a good sign and a good opportunity to deploy a pop-up with an appealing offer. This is another solid deployment criteria to keep your website content at the forefront while teeing up the perfect opportunity to present an offer with a pop-up.

• Personalization - You can also create personalized offers for known web visitors with pop-ups. This is a great way to engage with your audience, and a tactic you can incorporate into your ABM strategy. Try adjusting offers based on industry, titles, and other relevant firmographics to get the right offers in front of the right accounts. 

Pop-Ups' Role in an ABM Strategy

Pop ups are a great personalization tool for your ABM strategy. The ability to customize overlay CTAs with offers that speak to your prospects' pain points is a powerful way to engage with your target audiences and supplement existing website content. Taking this a step further, you can segment your audience based on topics an account is showing interest in, and deploy overlays with offers relevant to an accounts surging topics. This keeps your messaging timely and provides your web visitors a personalized experience.   

One of our customers at Triblio utilized a combination of single and multi-location deployments that provided downloadable resources relevant to a web page’s content. Ultimately, this led to a 5x increase in first meetings booked from users downloading webinars and ebooks. 

Conclusion

If there is one thing to take away from the above information, it’s to make sure your design, copy, and deployment strategy all match your offer. Combining these three elements to support your offer while sticking to your brand identity will lead to better conversion rates on your pop-ups. Try incorporating these design tactics into your strategy and test your deployment criteria until you find out what works best for you. 

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