I recently had a reader ask me about the pop up opt in box that I use on Next Level Blogger. He wanted to know how it was working for me and how I felt about using a pop up. He said he personally didn’t like pop ups and felt that it therefore might not be a good idea to use one on his site. I think this is a great concern, so I wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Why I Started Implementing a Pop Up to Build My Email List
I haven’t always used a pop up to build my email list. The reason was the same as what this reader suggested. I personally do not like them. Then a mentor of mine made a really interesting comment to me a few months back. He said he has NEVER clicked on a banner ad in his life. I realized that it is likely true for me too. I cannot remember a single time I’ve ever clicked on an Adsense link or banner ad. But this friend of mine makes bank on banner ads. Obviously, many people DO click on them. Just not me 
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After this conversation I realized that I’m really the last person I should use as a judge when it comes to what I should use on my site. After all, I’m not building it for me. I’m building it for my readers. I’m providing a service for others, not myself. And consequently, I should simply do what works for them!
Fact is, if a pop up opt in box generated a lot of complaints or failed to convert, I wouldn’t use it. So far, I have received ZERO complaints, and the pop up window on Next Level Blogger is the second-highest converting opt in box on the site. Clearly, it’s going to stay up for a while!
I use Aweber to generate the pop up, and I highly recommend using their service as well. It’s super-easy to design and install on your site, and it functions flawlessly for me. Anything that’s not techy and gets great results is always cool in my book
Lesson for the day: I encourage you to set aside any personal assumptions when it comes to building your online business. Don’t do what you like or think is cool. Do what works. A lot of times it’s the simplest stuff in the world that will make huge results for you.
It is a good point to do what works. I wonder if it makes a difference who your target audience is. I wonder if quality readers are like me or you, and don’t click on banners and pop-ups. Or if that’s just another assumption on my part. Good food for thought.
Thanks for the feedback Todd! Seems to me the best way to know what works for you is to test different things on your specific site. Different properties attract different types of readers. I think it’s too simple to assume that quality readers are one way and poor readers are the ones who click banners
I will eventually try banners on Next Level, after my subscriptions are up some more. We’ll see. I don’t think any method of monetizing always works for all sites. Test, retest, constantly tweak and measure results…that’s the key to getting results you’re happy with!
Awesome post Christian!
My Aweber lightbox is currently at about 21% when most bloggers are stoked with 3% from a footer or 5% from a sidebar optin. Way to go!
I found you through Katie’s blog, just wanted to connect with you here and on Facebook + Twitter as well, talk to you soon
Nicholas
“The Master of Rapid Residual Recruiting”
http://www.AuthorityNetworker.com
Hey good to hear from you Nicholas…yes I got your request on FB as well
Congrats on the lightbox conversions. Not bad at all! You got me beat right now, so it seems mine needs some tweaking 
hmm, i personally Dislike the POP-UP thing.
Am already a reader and subscribed by RSS and my email is already in the wordpress thingie when i leave a comment…. so all details are there.
so why should this thing POP-UP on me everytime i visit the site? punishing your “already subscribers” is so 1999 ;/
really annoying , try working on that, merge the databases, smart cookie or something less intrusive a la web 2.0
Fullstory: unless you get the feedback you won’t notice it and some people just close the Tab leaving you without the info of why they left or what they didn’t like.
Since i read many blogs i have most of them “Zoomed in”, specially cuz my eyes get sore quick
. So i see this “HUGE” zoomed in Pop-Up in my face and i could not get to the X to close it. Had to manually go to the menu > edit > zoom > Zoom Reset (on Firefox 3), then close it (yay!) and back to normal zoom.
Well thats all , thanks and keep up the work on this great blog
Manny, thanks for that great feedback. I have officially received a complaint about the popup! I have it set to only fire once a week, because I didn’t want it to bother regular readers too much. It’s clearly mostly for new readers. Perhaps a different setting is more appropriate. Thanks again Manny!
glad to help
anyway i think a quick way to solve (or make it hardly intrusive for future readers) would be just to play around with the javascript a bit so the Pop-up can be closed by clicking anywhere in the darken area outside the pop-up like some in those of some picture effects you find everywhere since is basically the same code (which i think is why they are implemented that way: to make life easier xD ).
i for one would not really care for the pop-up if i just started browsing (am very patient and being fiddleing with putters forever), but anyone who has an hour + browsing different sites will find the slightest intrusive thing irritating
Oh and just wanted to give you some feedback on another aspect i found kinda quirkie when i first visited your site (almost got me not to subscribe =O ! )
That is the “scrolling” posts in the front page.
I think it would be best if you added a forward and back arrow into it (yea some more javascript). That way people can see the nice amount of articles you already have + they can hit back arrow when something that cought their attention glimpses by.
Yea i almost didn’t sub cuz i thought all there was here were 2 articles (why sub when there’s no content?) XD, but then since am “kinda” a programmer and web dev, i noticed the scrolling effect after a while (o gee more nice articles ^^)
am sure other people may not notice them… so, play a bit with it but don’t over do it since the simplicity of the site is great
More content links will be coming to the home page; I agree on that actually. It’s just that most visitors don’t land on my home page, so I haven’t prioritized it, but I do agree
I appreciate your thoughts Manny; keep em coming!
Great topic,
I’m not a fan of pop ups either but do have one on my blog. I’ve tried different types and have settled for the exit pop up through Aweber. I’ll see how that converts -it’s work in progress. As long as it does not pop up on every page of the blog then it’s not annoying to me
you ‘re right; it’s always a work in progress! Let me know how the exit pop up works for you!