Websites are one of the most important assets of businesses right now. If there’s anything you need to improve upon, it should be that. You can add more content, fill it up with pages, but it won’t do any good if you can’t gather people from there.
That’s what OptinMonster is for. Struggling to increase your email list? Can’t convert people through your content alone? Those are probably not enough. OptinMonster provides you a popup so you can attract attention and give users a reason to join your email list. In this post, I’ll discuss what makes OptinMonster the best option for this feature.
What is OptinMonster?
OptinMonster is a WordPress plugin and lead generation and conversion optimization software that helps businesses and entrepreneurs with collecting leads, building up email lists, and converting users into customers.
It’s an easy-to-use builder that allows amateurs to design their own pop-up campaigns and create interactive forms to invite website visitors to sign up to an email list, buy a product, or be directed to a piece of content they might be interested in.
Those pop-up messages that you see on a new website when you get redirected from a post or ad? Those are examples of pop-ups. It’s also highly likely that you’ve encountered a website that uses OptinMonster because hundreds of thousands of website owners use it.
What can OptinMonster do?
OptinMonster is widely popular for two main reasons: lead generation and improving conversions.
It started with a problem (you know a product is a good one when it does). Actually, there were problemS—plural. As all businesses do, there’s a big struggle in getting customers which also affects revenue.
When you operate mostly online, the competition is for people’s attention first and brand awareness second. Capturing customers is not easy, but OptinMonster made it more doable with pop-ups.
I imagine the name for OptinMonster is because these pop-ups creep up on users when they least expect it, like a monster, which takes them by surprise and catches attention.
There was also the problem that other similar tools that existed then were either too expensive or too complicated to use. In a way, OptinMonster was also the answer to entrepreneurs and businesses’ need for an accessible, easy-to-use, yet powerful tool for catching people’s attention, collecting emails, and converting them into paying customers.
This first benefited mostly small independent businesses grow their customer base and increase revenue, but it also now serves even Fortune 500 companies.
Best of OptinMonster
I will preface this by saying that the features are the breadth and life of OptinMonster. It is what gives it the value it has for businesses today. And all of these features answer the title of this post. The best of OptinMonster are available in their most affordable plans, and if you know how to maximize these for the best results and revenue, then I’ve done my part in sharing this amazing tool.
Drag & Drop Optin Builder
The drag & drop feature is what makes OptinMonster such a big hit. For something that doesn’t involve coding of any sort, the popups turn out extremely visually appealing. It’s designed to be even when you just click and drag elements.
It allows very flexible customization of colors, texts, fonts, and so many other elements that you put in or take out of the popup. You can edit it in a way that’s consistent with the branding of the rest of your website to make your messaging more cohesive.
Types of Campaigns
When you create a drag & drop builder, you’ll be asked to choose what type of campaign to create. There are plenty to choose from, with lightbox as the main theme included in the base plugin. The others you can get when you pay for a plan. Here are the types of campaigns all in all:
- Lightbox - Lightbox is the most common popup that shows up at the center of the screen. This is what usually displays once you enter a website to sign up to an email list.
- Fullscreen - The Fullscreen campaign shows the message and takes up the whole screen. It’s hard to miss since it blocks the entire website, which is good for minimizing distractions.
- Slide-ins - This type of campaign creates a small box that shows up on the lower right of the website. It can still get attention but doesn’t seem too pushy, especially for new users.
- Inline - Inline campaigns are popups that appear on a specific area of the screen. It’s typically used when you want to show an opt-in popup to a user when they reach the bottom of an article or post. It doesn’t take up the whole screen, which makes it seamlessly integrated into your blog posts and other page content.
- Floating bar - Floating bar can be found either on the topmost of the website or on the footer. It doesn’t disappear even as the user scrolls through any page, which reinforces the message on every navigation.
- Countdown Timer - Add some scarcity to your offer by using the countdown timer. It gives users some sense of urgency because your offer is limited.
- Coupon Wheel - Forms are already interactive, but the coupon wheel gets users more involved because it gives them a reason to stop their browsing and actually look at your popup for longer.
Mobile-Optimized Optins
OptinMonster has mobile-specific campaigns that can be set from the builder itself. You can create and design popups with specific dimensions for mobile and tablet view. You can also edit this campaign to contain messages that are specific to mobile users. You can get them to download an app or deliver a mobile-specific message. This is optimized to be displayed at the right time and to the right audience.
Exit Intent Technology
The exit intent technology is the pride of OptinMonster. It’s a targeted campaign that detects users’ behavior using a smart behavior technology and only shows them a popup just when they’re about to leave your site. More than half of users that go to your site and leave usually never come back.
The exit intent technology has reduced that by about 2 to 4 percent and instead converted that percentage of users for websites that use OptinMonster. Of course, this is combined with an irresistible offer like a huge discount off a person’s order to make them rethink their decision to leave your site. This has reduced cart abandonment for e-commerce sites and bounce rates in general.
Yes/No Forms
According to OptinMonster, users are more likely to finish a form and sign up to an email list if they click a “Yes” button. Likewise, they’re more likely to decide yes if they’re given a choice. They would know because their Yes/No forms are one of the best features, measured by frequency of use.
There are also button actions that allow you to set what happens when a user clicks on any of the buttons—redirected to a different page, reloads a page, or simply closes the popup. This has been used for various purposes: segmentation without asking users to fill out another form, give product demos or other offers, or redirect people to a relevant piece of content.
Optin Cookie Duration
This determines when users are going to see your optin popup again after they’ve exited it the first time. This is so that users don’t have to see your optin every single time they go on your page.
You can set it to 0 days if you want that, but you might risk losing potential leads or customers if they get annoyed with it. The default is 7 days to make sure they got ample time to explore your site without the interruption of an Optin popup and have stronger ties to say yes to your offer when they see it again.
Other Features
The features above may be some of the best and most popular and coveted features of OptinMonster, but there’s more to be aware of. It’s better to familiarize yourself with all that OptinMonster could do because all these features used in conjunction can make your business turn 180.
Trigger/User Behavior Technology
- Scroll Detection - The scroll detector displays the popup when the user has shown ample interest in your content. That is when they’ve scrolled through a significant part of the page, usually more than half of it.
- MonsterLinks - MonsterLinks are a type of popup that shows up when the user clicks a link, whether that’s a text or image. This follows the psychology that when a person initiates something, they’re more likely to follow it through to completion.
- Inactivity Sensor - This is like the exit intent technology for mobile users. The inactivity sensor targets users right when they’re about to exit your website. Mobile users are typically the ones that don’t complete an order and this is when OptinMonster shows them a targeted popup with an irresistible offer.
Campaign Settings
- Campaign Scheduling - If your customer base is international, campaign scheduling lets you set a time-sensitive campaign for a certain timeframe. This is applicable for holiday or event-based promos for customers in different timezones.
- Time Display Control - For most people, popups have become annoying and intrusive. It can negatively affect user experience, but not if you implement the best practices for showing popups, which is right in the sweet spot between the excitement of coming to your website for the first time and then slowly losing interest in it.
- Custom Success Message - Custom thank you popup, Adds a bit of Personalization, Also use this to send a message for your users to whitelist your email so they will receive your updates straight to their inbox, Or direct them immediately to another offer or product.
- Referrer Detection - OptinMonster has some tracking set in place to determine where users visit your site from. With this information, you can set up a campaign that’s specific to what they’re looking for.
- Adblock Detection - OptinMonster isn’t detected by adblockers, so it can continue showing your popups without interruption.
- Page-Specific Targeting - When a user clicks on a specific page on your site, they will be shown a relevant popup message or offer. This increases the chance that they will bite the bullet and convert.
- Geo-location Targeting - This is important for any kind of business, whether it’s a small local business or an international brand, because you can target people based on local happenings and concerns specific for their location, culture, etc.
- On-site Follow Up - Not everyone will sign up the first time. That’s why it’s important to have a smart follow-up automation system to target users with more specific offers that are likely to get them on-board. That’s what this feature does.
Reports and Insights
- A/B Testing Module - With OptinMonster, you can try out different headlines, images, offers, content pieces among many other elements included in your popup to test out which one works best. This also allows you to make decisions based on facts and data from what the module has gathered.
- Conversion Analytics - OptinMonster’s Conversion Analytics feature is integrated with Google Analytics, but it gives you a less complex view of the stats to make it easier to understand. You’ll see the views, clicks, and conversion rates.
- Smart Success - Popups don’t have to go away to users who are already in your email list. Smart Successs lets you show them new offers to upsell your other products or services.
Integrations
OptinMonster is definitely accessible to anyone because of its integrations with plenty of hosting providers and email marketing platforms:
Hosting providers
Email marketing platforms
How to Install OptinMonster
The OptinMonster plugin is available to be added onto your WordPress as long as it’s on a Business account. As you can see, you can access it from the admin panel and upload the plugin from there.
However, you still have to create an account on the website itself. Unfortunately, you can’t enjoy the full experience of creating popups and all the features that come with OptinMonster if you don’t buy a plan. Don’t worry, they have a 14-day free trial so you can test out whether it’s the right fit for your business and website.
Here’s a complete guide for how to get started with the software, how to create a campaign, and how to embed it to your WordPress site using the plugin.
Pricing
As for the cost, OptinMonster has 4 plans available with different sets of features associated with each one. Here are all of the plans: Basic, Plus, Pro, and Growth. It really depends on your business’ standing and how many features you need to expand it. Honestly, each plan is tailored to be enough for what a business needs based on what they can afford at a certain time.
Advantages of OptinMonster
If the features aren’t enough to convince you of the superiority of this plugin, I don’t know what will. In addition to those, I just have to add these major advantages that stand out in almost all the feedbacks and reviews I’ve seen online.
Interactive forms
OptinMonster has all the tools to get you started on creating your popups. As long as you have the capital to invest in it, you don’t even have to have design or coding skills to get started. This has given entrepreneurs and businesses the competitive advantage that allows them to rise above competitors.
Results-driven
The success of OptinMonster popups is a combination of data-driven decisions, implementation of the best email opt-in and conversion practices, integration with other efficient tools, and the continuous evaluation of strategies. There’s nothing about OptinMonster that relies on luck, and that’s why it’s one of the best investments especially if you’re a beginner entrepreneur.
Tried and tested
OptinMonster serves both small-scale businesses and Fortune 500 companies, which makes it truly one of the most accessible and powerful softwares at present. It’s deeply embedded in what we know is a very important aspect of businesses nowadays—websites. If you can make it even more efficient in collecting leads and building your email list, why would you not invest?
Final Verdict
Popups have been around for quite some time now. If you’re just starting now, start immediately. If you’ve been using it for a while without any significant results, you’re probably doing it wrong. OptinMonster is the easiest tool in the game that provides the easiest way to implement popups without the hassle of coding but still delivers efficient results.