5 ms·

I own an ecommerce company, and while I can't tell you the why, I can tell you that ~6% of people fill mine out. Is it annoying? Yup. Would it absolutely, unequ

I own an ecommerce company, and while I can't tell you the why, I can tell you that ~6% of people fill mine out. Is it annoying? Yup. Would it absolutely, unequivocally, be a bad business decision to take it down? Yup. You know what else I've got on the site? One of those annoying little notifications that comes up in the bottom right to say "Someone bought this four hours ago!" I hate those things! I swore I'd never put them on my site! The problem is, when I swore that, I was making the same mistake that you are here - assuming that I was the target and that everyone is like me. The reality is they are not, and these things work well. They're ubiquitous on ecommerce sites for a reason.

calvinmorrison 3y ago
People understand the value prop with e-commerce when they put in their email
dexterdog 3y ago
So 6% of people fill yours out meaning 94% of the people either ignore it, block it or get angry and leave the site. How many of the 6% fill it out because they think they have to? How many just give you a garbage email address? If somebody wants to be part of your email list, most of them will find a place to sign up for it and nobody will see your site as a slimy sales gimmick.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  See the problem here is you're projecting your feelings about popups (which I totally get, to be clear) onto my business. From a business perspective that's a bad thing to do. What I've done (and what countless other website owners have done) is operate based on data. I've done a lot of A/B testing of my email capture popup - I've tested content, timing, and whether or not it's there at all. "How many of the 6% fill it out because they think they have to? How many just give you a garbage email address?" Sub 3%. That one's easy to validate, and I've done so. You're calling it a "slimy sales gimmick" (which I think is somewhat harsher language than necessary), but the reality is most new users who hit my site come in from Facebook ads. I would wager that you and folks of your same mindset about the popup probably see advertising on social media as slimy as well. The people who come to my site clearly don't. What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world is not like HN and does not share the beliefs of the typical HN user vis a vis digital advertising, sales tactics, websites, etc.
  - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
    "My customers don't see it as a problem, so it's not a problem" is probably exactly how tobacco companies and casinos justify their practices as well.
    - idopmstuff 3y ago
      If you think a popup asking someone to give their email address in exchange for a discount is the same as an advertisement convincing people to smoke, then I don't think we're going to have a productive exchange here.
      - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
        Things can be conceptually similar without being equivalent in degree, you know.
    - rchaud 3y ago
      Works for Amazon. Been on their search results page recently?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > You're calling it a "slimy sales gimmick" (which I think is somewhat harsher language than necessary) I actually don't think that's overly harsh. > the reality is most new users who hit my site come in from Facebook ads. And, once again, we see the corrosive effects of Facebook actively making things crappier for the non-FB-using world. > What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world is not like HN I suspect that the vast majority of HN is fully aware of this. That doesn't make our complaints any less valid, though. What's alternative? "Shut up and take it"?
    - idopmstuff 3y ago
      > That doesn't make our complaints any less valid, though. What's alternative? "Shut up and take it"? I have been very clear in my comments here that these complaints are perfectly valid and reasonably. The alternative is obviously not to "shut up and take it" - it's to do what you're doing and leave sites that do things you don't like. Vote with your digital feet. My point remains that popups asking people to sign up for an email newsletter exist, and will continue to exist, because a significant enough portion of the population does find them useful (as evidenced by the fact that they give their emails and then later make purchases based on emails they receive), even if folks on HN think that they are slimy or evil or what have you.
dazc 3y ago
'I can tell you that ~6% of people fill mine out.' 94% of people don't though.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
IMSAI8080 3y ago
What percentage of people immediately bounce off your site as soon an aggravating interruption like this appears? I know I do. Have you measured if customers stay longer if you don't display the interruption? Of that 6% how many actually read the newsletter as opposed to sending it to spam? Is that percentage more valuable to you than keeping people on the site?
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  > Have you measured if customers stay longer if you don't display the interruption? That's not the right metric. I care about whether people buy things, and since I can measure that directly, it's better to do so than to measure intermediate metrics like time on page. Revenue is meaningfully better with the popup than without. > Of that 6% how many actually read the newsletter as opposed to sending it to spam? Is that percentage more valuable to you than keeping people on the site? Open rates vary from 20-40% depending on the type of email. Yes, it is more valuable. I'll reiterate something I said in another comment, which is that there are a lot of people who don't think of this kind of thing as an aggravating interruption. Most of my new users come in because they click on Facebook ads, which are anathema to a lot of folks on HN but a normal, reasonable thing to look at and maybe click on to a much broader swathe of the world. I'm optimizing for those people, not HN folks.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Out of curiosity (I really believe the popup increases your total revenue), have you tried other similarly emphasized but non-blocking prompts? Like sliding it down from the title, or a block in the middle of the text?
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  I've tried sliding it down from the top and up from the bottom, as well as a persistent email collection bar anchored to the top. All inferior in terms of form completion as well as revenue generated within three months for the cohort of people exposed to the form. Haven't tried a block in the middle of the text, but that's because most folks are landing on my product page, and that's had a lot of testing to ensure it's optimized for sales, which are naturally more important than email collection.
Timwi 3y ago
Nobody here is “assuming that [they are] the target”. Everyone here knows everything that you said. Your behavior is still scummy. Just listen to yourself: > Is it annoying? Yup. Would it absolutely, unequivocally, be a bad business decision to take it down? Yup. Translation: given the choice between making the website even remotely pleasant and making more money for yourself, you choose the money every time. Everyone else can suck it. We are not criticizing your decision because we don't understand your circumstance or context. We are criticizing the decision precisely because we understand it. It's selfish, scummy, and it's the reason the entire web sucks ass now.

calvinmorrison 3y ago

People understand the value prop with e-commerce when they put in their email

dexterdog 3y ago

So 6% of people fill yours out meaning 94% of the people either ignore it, block it or get angry and leave the site. How many of the 6% fill it out because they think they have to? How many just give you a garbage email address? If somebody wants to be part of your email list, most of them will find a place to sign up for it and nobody will see your site as a slimy sales gimmick.

idopmstuff 3y ago
See the problem here is you're projecting your feelings about popups (which I totally get, to be clear) onto my business. From a business perspective that's a bad thing to do. What I've done (and what countless other website owners have done) is operate based on data. I've done a lot of A/B testing of my email capture popup - I've tested content, timing, and whether or not it's there at all. "How many of the 6% fill it out because they think they have to? How many just give you a garbage email address?" Sub 3%. That one's easy to validate, and I've done so. You're calling it a "slimy sales gimmick" (which I think is somewhat harsher language than necessary), but the reality is most new users who hit my site come in from Facebook ads. I would wager that you and folks of your same mindset about the popup probably see advertising on social media as slimy as well. The people who come to my site clearly don't. What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world is not like HN and does not share the beliefs of the typical HN user vis a vis digital advertising, sales tactics, websites, etc.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  "My customers don't see it as a problem, so it's not a problem" is probably exactly how tobacco companies and casinos justify their practices as well.
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    If you think a popup asking someone to give their email address in exchange for a discount is the same as an advertisement convincing people to smoke, then I don't think we're going to have a productive exchange here.
    - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
      Things can be conceptually similar without being equivalent in degree, you know.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    Works for Amazon. Been on their search results page recently?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > You're calling it a "slimy sales gimmick" (which I think is somewhat harsher language than necessary) I actually don't think that's overly harsh. > the reality is most new users who hit my site come in from Facebook ads. And, once again, we see the corrosive effects of Facebook actively making things crappier for the non-FB-using world. > What a lot of HN fails to realize is that the overwhelming majority of the world is not like HN I suspect that the vast majority of HN is fully aware of this. That doesn't make our complaints any less valid, though. What's alternative? "Shut up and take it"?
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    > That doesn't make our complaints any less valid, though. What's alternative? "Shut up and take it"? I have been very clear in my comments here that these complaints are perfectly valid and reasonably. The alternative is obviously not to "shut up and take it" - it's to do what you're doing and leave sites that do things you don't like. Vote with your digital feet. My point remains that popups asking people to sign up for an email newsletter exist, and will continue to exist, because a significant enough portion of the population does find them useful (as evidenced by the fact that they give their emails and then later make purchases based on emails they receive), even if folks on HN think that they are slimy or evil or what have you.

dazc 3y ago

'I can tell you that ~6% of people fill mine out.' 94% of people don't though.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

IMSAI8080 3y ago

What percentage of people immediately bounce off your site as soon an aggravating interruption like this appears? I know I do. Have you measured if customers stay longer if you don't display the interruption? Of that 6% how many actually read the newsletter as opposed to sending it to spam? Is that percentage more valuable to you than keeping people on the site?

idopmstuff 3y ago
> Have you measured if customers stay longer if you don't display the interruption? That's not the right metric. I care about whether people buy things, and since I can measure that directly, it's better to do so than to measure intermediate metrics like time on page. Revenue is meaningfully better with the popup than without. > Of that 6% how many actually read the newsletter as opposed to sending it to spam? Is that percentage more valuable to you than keeping people on the site? Open rates vary from 20-40% depending on the type of email. Yes, it is more valuable. I'll reiterate something I said in another comment, which is that there are a lot of people who don't think of this kind of thing as an aggravating interruption. Most of my new users come in because they click on Facebook ads, which are anathema to a lot of folks on HN but a normal, reasonable thing to look at and maybe click on to a much broader swathe of the world. I'm optimizing for those people, not HN folks.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Out of curiosity (I really believe the popup increases your total revenue), have you tried other similarly emphasized but non-blocking prompts? Like sliding it down from the title, or a block in the middle of the text?

idopmstuff 3y ago
I've tried sliding it down from the top and up from the bottom, as well as a persistent email collection bar anchored to the top. All inferior in terms of form completion as well as revenue generated within three months for the cohort of people exposed to the form. Haven't tried a block in the middle of the text, but that's because most folks are landing on my product page, and that's had a lot of testing to ensure it's optimized for sales, which are naturally more important than email collection.

Timwi 3y ago

Nobody here is “assuming that [they are] the target”. Everyone here knows everything that you said. Your behavior is still scummy. Just listen to yourself: > Is it annoying? Yup. Would it absolutely, unequivocally, be a bad business decision to take it down? Yup. Translation: given the choice between making the website even remotely pleasant and making more money for yourself, you choose the money every time. Everyone else can suck it. We are not criticizing your decision because we don't understand your circumstance or context. We are criticizing the decision precisely because we understand it. It's selfish, scummy, and it's the reason the entire web sucks ass now.