Popups - the best converting Opt-in Tools

Learn how to activate Recart's Popups in order to grow your subscribers list.

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Popups are proven to be one of the most effective Opt-in Tools with Messenger Marketing. With just a few clicks, your customers will become subscribers of your brand, and you can immediately begin to engage, convert, and increase your sales opportunities with this audience.

Recart has two types of Popups: Desktop and Mobile Popups. For more information on how this opt-in works, read our article on Opt-in via Popups.

How to create a new Popup

  1. Go to the Opt-in Tools page, click Create New, and select Popup
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  2. Name your popup and select your settings
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  • Channels - Used for collecting subscribers Select SMS only, or Email and SMS
  • Steps - If you have chosen Email and SMS, decide whether you would prefer the details to be captured in one step or two separate steps. Using one step, the Email field can be made optional, meaning subscribers can skip submitting their Email address and subscribe with phone number only. You can also set it up as mandatory. In the case of two steps, your subscribers will have to provide an email address before they submit a phone number and subscribe. The Email field is mandatory and cannot be skipped.
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  • Platforms - Decide whether you want to create a popup for mobile devices or desktops. These need to be created as separate popups.
  • SMS opt-in type - For some countries and phone number types, you can select whether you would like customers to go through a double opt-in or a single opt-in

How to edit a Popup

In case you would like to customize an existing Popup, click on the Popup’s name on the Opt-in Tools page.

Either after creating a new Popup or clicking on an existing one you will be redirected to the General Settings in the Popup Editor. On the left side of the editor, you will see each section of your Popup. Once you choose a section, you can customize the settings of that section on the right side.

1. General

For each Popup, you will have a General setup section.
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Here you can set the following:

  • Connect your popup to a welcome flow (mandatory)

  • Triggered - select when the popup should be triggered (upon entering the site, or users exit intent)

  • Pages - decide which pages of your website you would like the popup to appear or not appear

  • Geotargeting - the countries the Popup should appear - we recommend keeping the default setup, showing in all countries

  • A/B Testing - add your popup to an A/B experiment
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2. Layout

Under the Layout section, you can:

  • Select the popup size and border
  • Add an image or GIF and place it where you want it (to the side or on top of the popup)
  • Adjust the background
  • Edit the close icon in the top right corner
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The close icon is set to only appear after a slight delay- a default of 2 seconds. You can adjust this time to make it longer or faster, or enter 0 seconds if you wish for the close icon to be displayed immediately. 

Popuup CI

👉  tips for adding images to your popup:

  • Add GIFs to your Popup

    • Similar to adding images to the sides or on the top of the popup, you can now add GIFs to juice up the customer experience with some animation.
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  • Upload transparent PNG images and choose a background color

    • If you would like to have a unified background color you can use PNG images with a transparent background. Uploading a PNG image to the sides or on the top will let you choose a background color to apply on the whole Popup. With this method, the Popup will not be divided into two sections.
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3. Teaser

The teaser step allows your customers to first answer Yes or No to a discount offer before being asked to add their contact information.

You can edit the teaser by:

  • Adding an image
  • Editing your headings
  • Adjusting the color, background, border, and placement of the confirm and decline buttons
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👉 We highly recommend turning this step on, as testing has shown an increase in overall conversion rates with the Teaser in place.

4. Email opt-in

The email opt-in and SMS opt-in are edited separately when selecting a two-step popup.

In this section, you can edit the appearance of the popup:

  • Add a logo or image
  • Edit the headings
  • Add a form item (read more about using this to collect subscriber details)
  • Customize the email input field
  • Adjust the CTA (call to action) button
  • Customize the legal paragraph displayed before opting-in
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5. Errors

Shows the message that appears should a customer enter an invalid number or email.

  • You can edit the error message.
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6. SMS opt-in

The SMS opt-in is separate from the email opt-in if you choose to build a two-step popup.

The settings you used for your email opt-in will be copied over to this section.

Should you wish to customize the SMS opt-in differently than the email opt-in, simply uncheck the “use form email” box.
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7. SMS success

Once your customer has successfully entered their details, the SMS Success popup will show, instructing them to check their phone.
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If you have selected “double opt-in”, the success text will direct customers to confirm via SMS that they would like to receive messages. The legal message and first welcome message of your connected welcome flow will only be sent after they have confirmed this.

The “single opt-in” success text will provide the customer with the legal message and first welcome message of your connected welcome flow immediately.

In this section, you can:

  • Replace the icon if you want to
  • Customize the Heading and the Paragraph
  • Customize the call-to-action button

8. Minimized view

If a customer clicks the close icon on your popup without entering their details, you can decide whether you would like the popup to display in a minimized view for easy access.
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In the minimized view section you can customize:

  • The behavior of the Popup - whether the full screen or the minimized view is the default
  • The position of the minimized Popup
  • The button properties - such as text, font, color, and background.

Mobile Popup editor

The mobile popup editor works in the same way but will preview as it would on a customer's mobile phone.
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Messenger subscribers

If you are collecting Messenger subscribers, you can select “Messenger” or “Messenger and Email” as your chosen channels.

The Popup Editor for Messenger (desktop or mobile) works the same way as the above instructions for other channels.

If choosing Messenger only, there will not be any input fields to edit.
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Website preview

While setting up your Popup you have the option to see how it will look like on your website by activating the Website Preview.

Click on the setting icon in the editor and switch the toggle On. By default, your website will be added but you can enter any URL you would like to check the Popup on and hit Enter to see the preview.
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The examples below show the minimized version of a mobile and a desktop popup👇
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And that’s it! 🚀 You have created your own popup.

Once you have customized your Popup to your liking, do not forget to save it in the upper right corner of the editor. You can save it as a draft, or activate it immediately.
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You can activate/deactivate, rename, or duplicate a popup from the opt-in tools page.

  • click on the three dots next to the popup you would like to edit
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✏️ Things to note

  • When duplicating a popup, you will be redirected to a simplified creation wizard, where you can name your duplicated Popup and choose the device type it should appear on.

  • There is no option to modify the opt-in channels. For example, if the original Popup was collecting email and SMS subscribers, the duplicated version will collect subscribers via the same channels.

  • Once you named the Popup and chose the device type you need to click on the Continue to editing button. You will then be redirected to the Popup editor, where you can customize the look of your duplicated Popup and attach a Welcome message to it as described in the first part of this article.
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Checklist to build effective, high converting Popups

Take a look at the below checklist and make sure you follow the recommendations to stay compliant and convert as many visitors as possible.

✔️ All text on the Popup is easily readable, and the background image does not interfere with the text.

✔️ The offer is clear, your visitors understand what they get in return for the subscription.

✔️ Your images or GIFs are of good quality, including your logo.

✔️ Your page targeting is set up properly when having multiple Popups, they do not appear on the same page.

✔️ Your legal language is compliant with text marketing regulations.

✔️ Your legal documents are linked within the legal language.

Next, read our article Popup Best Practices to make sure your popups shine! ✨

Please let us know if you have questions, we are happy to help. 😊