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As disrespectful and annoying as it is, don't sites do this because it's a net gain in conversions for them? I think we're a minority here. At scale, do not the

As disrespectful and annoying as it is, don't sites do this because it's a net gain in conversions for them? I think we're a minority here. At scale, do not the masses submit to these popups and end up converting into sales?

tentacleuno 3y ago
To echo another person in the thread, surely the best time to engage someone is at the end, when they've finished reading a (hopefully) substantive article, and want to stay engaged with the writer. Not after a few paragraphs.
- Tehnix 3y ago
  Aren’t you assuming most people finish the full article? I find that quite unlikely, especially for longer articles. I would definitely imagine a sweet spot between “they are now engaged” and “they haven’t given up or gotten distracted yet” is optimal, especially given people’s attention spans these days :)
- hansvm 3y ago
  You'd be shocked at how varied people can be and what effects your actions will have on them. The cumulative effect of those actions can be especially counter-intuitive when there are multiple orders of magnitude at play (like the 100:1 or 1000:1 odds substack must have on anyone interacting positively with the popup). It wouldn't surprise me at all if any of the following effects (or hundreds of others) are enough to make a difference. - The people most likely to pay for in-depth tech articles are also high earners with large demands on their time, and they're likely to be interrupted before they finish the article or bounce before the conclusion because they've internalized the meat of the content already. Asking early is annoying, but if it's even 10% as effective then it might overcome the bounce rate. Optimizing total revenue might happen by targeting those people, even at the expense of ruining the sign-in conversion rate. - Their A/B testing treats sign-ups and subscriptions as information-independent funnels. They're optimizing sign-ups, hoping to therefore optimize revenue, but the sort of person most likely to sign-up after being afronted with a pop-up is also the sort of person who doesn't care that the pop-up appeared before they finished. - Sign-ups are dominated by people who are hooked on a single article after then first paragraph or three and who can't stand to put it down. After the psychological investment of making an account, they're more likely to stay. - Sign-ups are roughly orthogonal to the current article. People sign up when they think doing so will have enough value over time, and they have enough signal from the article to figure that out well before they've extracted all the benefit they'll get from the article. The pop-ups only capture people who were about to convert anyway, and the pop-up just made the conversion easier.
dahart 3y ago
You’re partly right. If anyone signs up at all, then it’s a net gain in ‘conversions’. But it’s not a majority at scale, and it doesn’t have to be anywhere close in order to work. Typically only a small minority of visitors convert to being email subscribers, and then only a small minority of those email subscribers convert into paying customers. It’s not uncommon for the paying customers at the bottom of the funnel to be in the single-digit percent of visitors, or less, and the people annoyed by popups who leave to be the overwhelming majority.

tentacleuno 3y ago

To echo another person in the thread, surely the best time to engage someone is at the end, when they've finished reading a (hopefully) substantive article, and want to stay engaged with the writer. Not after a few paragraphs.

Tehnix 3y ago
Aren’t you assuming most people finish the full article? I find that quite unlikely, especially for longer articles. I would definitely imagine a sweet spot between “they are now engaged” and “they haven’t given up or gotten distracted yet” is optimal, especially given people’s attention spans these days :)
hansvm 3y ago
You'd be shocked at how varied people can be and what effects your actions will have on them. The cumulative effect of those actions can be especially counter-intuitive when there are multiple orders of magnitude at play (like the 100:1 or 1000:1 odds substack must have on anyone interacting positively with the popup). It wouldn't surprise me at all if any of the following effects (or hundreds of others) are enough to make a difference. - The people most likely to pay for in-depth tech articles are also high earners with large demands on their time, and they're likely to be interrupted before they finish the article or bounce before the conclusion because they've internalized the meat of the content already. Asking early is annoying, but if it's even 10% as effective then it might overcome the bounce rate. Optimizing total revenue might happen by targeting those people, even at the expense of ruining the sign-in conversion rate. - Their A/B testing treats sign-ups and subscriptions as information-independent funnels. They're optimizing sign-ups, hoping to therefore optimize revenue, but the sort of person most likely to sign-up after being afronted with a pop-up is also the sort of person who doesn't care that the pop-up appeared before they finished. - Sign-ups are dominated by people who are hooked on a single article after then first paragraph or three and who can't stand to put it down. After the psychological investment of making an account, they're more likely to stay. - Sign-ups are roughly orthogonal to the current article. People sign up when they think doing so will have enough value over time, and they have enough signal from the article to figure that out well before they've extracted all the benefit they'll get from the article. The pop-ups only capture people who were about to convert anyway, and the pop-up just made the conversion easier.

dahart 3y ago

You’re partly right. If anyone signs up at all, then it’s a net gain in ‘conversions’. But it’s not a majority at scale, and it doesn’t have to be anywhere close in order to work. Typically only a small minority of visitors convert to being email subscribers, and then only a small minority of those email subscribers convert into paying customers. It’s not uncommon for the paying customers at the bottom of the funnel to be in the single-digit percent of visitors, or less, and the people annoyed by popups who leave to be the overwhelming majority.