How to Use Scroll Triggered Pop-Ups on Your WordPress Site and Increase Conversions

If you’ve ever scrolled to a certain point on a web page and suddenly been presented with a targeted message, you’ve experienced scroll triggered pop-ups firsthand. This technique enables you to offer exactly what a visitor needs or wants to see, right at the moment when it’s most relevant.

An introduction to scroll triggered pop-ups

A scroll triggered pop-up is a message that is programmed to appear when a user scrolls to a specific part of a page. It might display when someone reaches a certain line or section, or simply when they hit the bottom of the page:

These pop-ups enable you to customize your message to harmonize with the visitor’s experience. For example, you could set a pop-up to appear with a purchase button when a visitor scrolls to a specific product section, or offer a blog reader related posts to browse.

We’ll discuss these use cases and more below. Before moving on, however, it’s worth noting that too many pop-ups can be annoying to visitors, and if they’re intrusive, you can be penalized by search engines. With pop-ups, less is more!

How to use scroll triggered pop-ups to increase conversions (four methods)

For this type of pop-up to be effective, it’s vital they convey the most important information at precisely the right time. Here are four strategies for using them effectively.

• Provide a targeted call-to-action
• Build an email list
• Funnel visitors to your contact page
• Present related posts to encourage engagement

1. Provide a targeted call-to-action

A Call To Action (CTA) is an element on your site that prompts visitors to do something specific. This could be purchasing a product or service, signing up for a membership, or simply clicking through to a specific piece of content.

Scroll triggered pop-ups can help make your CTAs more effective because they can present them at the moment when a visitor is in the best position to make a decision. Instead of merely having a purchase button on your page, you can use a scroll triggered pop-up to display it when someone views a product or finishes reading its description. This is a powerful way to use your knowledge of what the user is doing to affect their decision-making.

2. Build an email list

Email marketing is a smart tactic for just about any type of website. Through targeted emails, you can attract more traffic to your site, increase conversions, and more. Before you can create awesome email campaigns, however, you’ll need a list of people to send your messages to. Fortunately, your website is a powerful tool for building an email list.

Again, scroll triggered pop-ups can help you with this task. You can encourage subscriptions to your email list by presenting a sign-up form at key times – such as when a visitor finishes reading a piece of content, or scrolls to information relevant to your latest email campaign.

3. Funnel visitors to your contact page

There are a lot of scenarios in which you want your visitors to contact you. They may wish to ask questions, get support, make a purchase, or even collaborate. You can (and should) add a link to your contact information in a prominent place on each page. However, you can make it even more effective by creating targeted reminders.

This process requires thinking like a user and predicting the moments when they’ll want contact details. For example, you can use scroll triggered pop-ups to remind people to contact you when they reach the end of a page, when they scroll to a particularly complex or potentially confusing section, and so on.

4. Present related posts to encourage engagement

The longer your website visitors stick around, the more of your content and branding they’ll see. Most people leave a new site very quickly – but if you can grab their attention, you’ll increase the chances of them remembering you and taking action (by purchasing your products or sharing your content, for example).

Pop-ups can be used in a number of ways to promote engagement. One smart strategy is to present more content for the user to peruse. Using scroll triggered pop-ups, you can display links to related posts or other content right when a visitor has finished a page or section. In turn, this will encourage the visitor to keep reading.

Choosing the right scroll triggered pop-up plugin

At this point, you may be wondering how to actually implement the above techniques. While WordPress doesn’t provide the functionality required by default, you can add it easily using plugins.

There are a lot of pop-up plugins, but you’ll want to look for one that specifically offers a scroll triggered feature. You’ll also want to check out how customizable the triggers are. The more control you have over exactly when your pop-ups appear, the better your results should be.

Here are a few plugins that can get the job done:

• Popups by OptinMonster: This handy plugin lets you create email opt-in forms and insert them into scroll triggered pop-ups. Plus, you get a lot of options for customizing their location and timing, as well as optimization tools like A/B testing. The only thing to consider is that to get those extra features, you pay a monthly fee.
• Boxzilla: A simple, lightweight plugin, Boxilla lets you create customizable pop-ups that can appear at any trigger point. You can decide where on the page the pop-up will display, and personalize its style. Best of all, the plugin supports scroll trigger targeting for free.
• WP Popups: For a quick and simple solution try this plugin. It has an easy to use popup builder and comes with a number of display filters and popup triggers.

We’d recommend trying out a few of the above options, to see which best matches your needs and style. While each plugin has its particular advantages, all of them should be able to perform the four techniques we described earlier.

Conclusion

To recap, here are four excellent ways you can use this type of pop-up on your website: