Popups Have Never Been As Important As Today, with Benjamin Cahen, Founder of Wisepops

Today on the ETREND interview series where we interview the industry’s leading experts, founders, and professionals, we have Benjamin Cahen. 

Benjamin is the founder of Wisepops, a pop-up builder for websites that are used by the likes of Unilever, Vans, Virgin, Postmates, and much more.

With the recent change in privacy and how we collect data, first party data has never been as important to collect as it is today, and the good ol’ pop-up is here to save the day for many.

Ben, thanks for being with us today. Let’s get right to it.

1. As I mentioned, the landscape of digital is changing rapidly, especially in 2021. What is the #1 value proposition of a pop-up and what would you tell any website that doesnt have one (which most do at this point,) why they should have it or what is the most important thing about the pop up today?

A: I would share two data points: 1) Over 90% of online marketing budgets are spent acquiring traffic and bringing people onsite. 2) The average conversion rate in e-commerce in 2020 was 2.5%. That means,  97.5% of the people you are bringing to your website will simply go away. Engaging customers while they are on your website is THE biggest opportunity you have to drive incremental growth. It’s also the least expensive one. That’s what popups are here for. 

2. Are you seeing any shift between collecting email vs. phone numbers for SMS?

A: Only a few years ago, 100% of our customers were collecting emails. Today, SMS has become a real alternative. This market trend led us to integrate with 3 SMS marketing platforms and we’re working on adding more. 

3. What is the most successful strategy you are seeing companies do with pop-ups?

A: The most successful companies use popups to engage their customers in meaningful communication. They’re not just using popups to request information or action from visitors. For example, the best email collect campaigns are the ones that offer something unique (a special prize, etc.) to their subscribers. These campaigns are far more effective than alternatives, like giving away a coupon. People are used to being offered 10% off to subscribe. These campaigns usually get around 5% sign up (which is still way better than what you get without popups!). We work with companies who achieve a 20-40% sign up rate, by offering very unique experiences or gifts to their subscribers. (Imagine having a chance to test the next Tesla by signing up to the Tesla newsletter). This is crazy!

4. What is the most important element of the pop-up? I.E. headline? Number of fields? Or more than one, you can elaborate if you wish.

A: It’s 1) the message, 2) the offer, 3) the targeting (who will see it and when). We’ve learned that design doesn’t play a huge role, as long as the layout is clear. 

5. Is there a ‘best’ target with pop ups you are seeing, I.E. exit intent? On click? Any insight on this?

A: There is no best practice here as it all depends on the message. As a general rule, exit intent works great because the timing is excellent. Side-of-page popups appearing a few seconds after landing can also be very effective.

6. Is there a size optimization on the pop-up you’ve seen works best? Should it take a whole mobile screen?

A: For desktop not really. As mentioned before, the message is much more important. Just make sure your popup looks clean, without too much text. For mobiles, it’s good to use at least a full-screen width.

7. What’s one of the best pop-ups you’ve seen? Can you share any examples of something you are loving right now?

A: My all time favorite was the first popup I created when I was running an ecommerce store. It outlined our concept and invited people to create an account. That popup tripled our account creation rate. Since then, I keep seeing new campaigns every day that have amazing results, because their message resonates with the customer. I’m also super excited by what we’re building at Wisp. We’ve created a notification feed that complements popups, enabling brands to communicate even more messages in a nonintrusive way. The results are great and over 100 Wisepops customers have already adopted it in addition to their popups. 

8. Tell us a bit about Wisepops? Who is the ideal customer and why?

A: We’re a small team of experts coming from Amazon, Shopify, Facebook, etc. Our ambition is to revolutionize how brands engage and communicate with their customers. We work with brands of all sizes, from very small to very large companies. So far, the most represented segment is $1-10M revenue, but increasingly larger companies are becoming more and more important.  

9. Anything I may have missed that you’d like to share? 

A: I’d like to reiterate that the average conversion rate in ecommerce is 2.5%! That’s not something that we should all accept as an unalterable fact. There are many more ways to engage and convert visitors into loyal customers. 

Thanks so much for your time, Benjamin!