Did you know email marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage customers? In fact, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $40.
Seeing this stat, it’s no surprise that 81% of small businesses use email marketing to build customer relationships, launch new products, and drive sales.
But before you can use email marketing to do all that, you need to build your email list. And without a doubt, email popups are the best way to generate more email subscribers by catering to your target visitors.
In this article, we’ll guide you through how you can get new subscribers using newsletter popup forms and show you 34 email popup examples to get inspired.
Let’s get started!
Popups are overlays that appear on your website based on different targeting and triggering options, and they usually promote a secondary offer for website visitors, such as:
Email popups (also known as newsletter popups or email subscription popups) are the most popular type of popups. As the name suggests, email popups are used to collect email addresses from your visitors with an email capture form.
Here’s an example of a newsletter popup:
Email popups are highly effective tools for growing your subscriber list, though conversion rates vary depending on the incentive offered.
Here’s what our data shows:
Incentive-free email popups have an average conversion rate of 5.10%, proving that compelling messaging alone can persuade visitors. But Brand Growth Experts was able to achieve an 8.33% conversion rate with a simple newsletter promotion popup.
Offering something valuable like an ebook can increase this average conversion rate to 7.49%.
If you tie a discount to the signup, the average conversion rate jumps to 7.65%, with some brands achieving much higher rates. For example, Vegetology achieved a 13.8% conversion rate by offering a mystery discount.
These statistics show that email popups work best when tailored to what your audience values most.
Now that you’ve got the basics down, here are some great and eye-catching email popup examples to inspire you.
What’s great about this email popup example:
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If you’d like to create a similar popup form that promotes a coupon code, you can get started with this popup template:
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Try this popup template:
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If you don’t want to offer a discount and simply want to promote the value of your newsletter subscription, try these email popup templates:
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Reducing white and enhancing the overall design could make the popup more visually appealing and effective.
Creating the perfect email popup is both an art and a science, requiring a delicate balance of creativity and strategy.
First, take a look at the image below, which shows us what the perfect email popup example looks like:
Seems pretty complex, right? Don’t worry—we’re here to guide you through the process, breaking it down into manageable steps.
If you try to squeeze too much information into one single popup, it can cause too much noise for the visitor.
Multi-step popups are a great way to divide all that information into digestible pieces so the visitor doesn’t feel overwhelmed.
Start with a Yes/No question to increase the number of new visitor sign-ups.
This method taps into human behavior: by encouraging a small first action, you can play on people’s urge to finish what they’ve started. This can improve engagement and conversions.
Here’s an example of how the first page of a multi-step popup could look:
Email popups can be triggered at different times. The best moment to show those popups depends on your goals. While some stores blast visitors with popups right away, others choose to wait a few seconds. Often, the most effective strategy is to use exit-intent popups.
These appear only when a visitor shows signs of leaving and lead to the highest conversion rates.
This strategic timing not only catches the visitor’s attention but also provides an opportunity to entice them back into the fold.
Full-screen popups—as the name implies—cover the entire screen, causing a temporary interruption.
This attention-grabbing format allows you to get your message across, even on smaller mobile screens.
However, be careful not to cover up important information on your site to avoid disrupting the user’s experience. Moreover, when employing full-screen popups on mobile, it’s crucial to trigger them on exit-intent to avoid potential penalties from Google.
As more and more people are shopping from their mobile devices—today, mobile users account for around 42.9% of all ecommerce traffic—you should focus on optimizing the experience for them.
Make sure that your popup elements work smoothly on mobile screens. That means making the buttons easy to tap and correctly sized for touch interaction.
By tailoring your popups for mobile users, you can increase conversions among this critical group of visitors.
Adding trust-building elements like logos, badges, reviews, or media mentions is important because it helps your target visitors feel more confident about your brand or product.
When they see familiar logos or positive reviews, they automatically trust you more, making it more likely that they’ll buy from you.
Check out the second page of the popup we showed earlier. You can see that they’ve included their logo at the top and their rating at the bottom to boost credibility.
Online shoppers are used to popups. Therefore, they often click the X button without thinking twice. They can’t help it—it’s a force of habit.
Luckily, we’ve found a simple trick that can help you work around this issue and get your message across.
Delay the appearance of the X button by a few seconds (2 or 3) so visitors can absorb the content of your popup before closing.
Are you worried this might annoy your visitors? Don’t be. They won’t have time to get upset, as they’ll be too busy reading your offer!
Want to provide your visitors with a sense of exclusivity? Give them a unique discount code.
A unique discount code is a one-time-use code, and it has several benefits. First, it can prevent misuse, ensuring that each customer can only use the code once. Second, it can make sure that each offer is personalized and exclusive to the recipient.
Additionally, unique codes can help you track the effectiveness of your promotions more accurately.
Here’s how to set up automatically generated unique discount codes in OptiMonk:
Visitors often forget about their coupon codes.
To avoid this, use auto-redeeming discount codes, which will be redeemed automatically for your visitors during the checkout process.
This way, you can ensure they won’t forget about their coupon. Plus, seeing a sweet deal automatically show up at checkout can be a big dopamine boost!
To set it up in OptiMonk, just turn on the “auto redeem” feature in the “General” settings for your coupon element.
After you’ve got your visitor’s email address (or after they’ve taken the desired action) their journey doesn’t have to end there!
Take advantage of the thank you page by recommending your most popular products. By leveraging this opportunity, you can further engage your audience and potentially increase sales.
Displaying product recommendations, such as your bestsellers or items related to their interests, can pique their curiosity and encourage them to explore further.
Did your visitor choose not to fill out the form? All is not lost!
Implement a sticky teaser that activates if the visitor closes the popup without filling it out.
This feature will follow them as they navigate your website, gently reminding them of the offer until they’re ready to engage.
Ready for one last tip that will improve the effectiveness of your email popup campaign?
If your visitor is still not ready to use those coupon codes, don’t give up on them. Instead, implement a discount reminder campaign.
A discount reminder campaign is a follow-up sticky bar that reminds visitors about their unused codes and encourages them to finalize their purchases.
Give these templates a try:
OK, now that you’ve explored the anatomy of the perfect email popup, you’re probably itching to launch one of your own.
Ready to give it a go? Check out these templates:
The short answer is yes. According to our own statistics, popups with a discount offer have an average 7.65% conversion rate. But even incentive-free email popups have a 5.10% average conversion rate. And lucky wheel popups (which are also a type of newsletter popups) perform even better, with a 13.23% average conversion rate.
If a popup appears too quickly (right after the site loads, for instance), it can annoy your new visitors. Plus, they probably won’t be ready to sign up for your newsletter yet. Generally, we recommend displaying popup forms on exit intent, but for more details, check out this article.
To get started, you’ll need a reliable popup builder tool that offers customization options and templates. OptiMonk is one of the best popup builder tools out there and it offers a free plan to get you started. Begin by selecting a suitable template from our Template Library.
Then determine the targeting and triggering conditions that will prompt the popup window to appear. Don’t forget to integrate it with your email marketing tool, so you can track email marketing metrics and send email marketing campaigns to your new subscribers.
Now that you’ve seen some examples of great email popups, are you ready to build your own?
Take a look at our Template Library to see how you can grow your email list with the help of eye-catching email popups like the ones covered here.
We offer a slew of ready-to-use templates and color themes to choose from and add to landing pages, blog posts, or anywhere else on your website.
Building subscriber lists for your email campaigns has never been easier!
Would you like to learn more about popups? Check out these articles:
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Product updates: January Release 2025