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<\/p>\nIt’s one of the most common questions web site owners have…what’s the best way to capture email addresses and build a list?\u00a0 The first part of the answer is simple.\u00a0 Use popup software.\u00a0 Yes, people universally hate pop up windows.\u00a0 But they are without a doubt the most effective way to capture email addresses.\u00a0 Which leads us to the second part of the answer; what popup software should you use?<\/p>\n
And this answer is more complicated because it really all comes down to testing and tracking.\u00a0 Most people simply use whatever all the big guys use or whatever they saw on some other site that looked cool.\u00a0 Or they’ll ask someone else “hey, what’s your opt-in rate with that software” and if it’s good, they’ll use the same thing.<\/p>\n
But here’s the rub<\/strong>.\u00a0 What works best on one site may not work best on another.\u00a0 What works best in one market may not work best in another.\u00a0 And what works best for someone else may not work best for you.\u00a0 That’s why you must test different variables, with different popup software, and find what works best for you, on your site and in your market.<\/p>\n Which leads us to what software you should test.\u00a0 There seems to be a mountain of titles available, but here are 3 that are worth your time to look at.\u00a0 Some are free, some are not.\u00a0 All work with WordPress and some also work with regular HTML.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n UPDATE<\/strong> – Since making this post I have begun using\/testing a new popup plugin for WordPress that does some things others do not. \u00a0 Specifically, it allows you to run just about any type of popup (lightbox, header, footer, exit, in-post, sidebar, etc.), you can run multiple popups on a single page and it provides tracking so you can split test all the different popups and their variations. \u00a0Full details are available here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n Popup Domination<\/strong><\/a> Popup Domination comes both as a WordPress plugin and standalone script (meaning you can use it on regular HTML pages).\u00a0 The WordPress plugin is probably the easier of the two to use.\u00a0 In either case, you have already-done, nice-looking templates that you build your popups from.\u00a0 It accepts opt-in code from all major email services.\u00a0 And you can set the frequency of when the popups should appear.<\/p>\n Popup Domination costs $47, so it is a pretty good deal.\u00a0 I tested the software for a while on this site before starting a new round of testing with the next product.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Super Popup Pro<\/strong><\/a> Header and footer popups are less obtrusive popups that appear at the top or bottom of a web page.\u00a0 If you haven’t visited this blog in the past 30 days (and assuming I’m still testing it), you would have seen a black header popup appear at the top of this page.<\/p>\n As I mentioned, this is the software I’m currently testing (at least as of May 2011).\u00a0 And here again are the links to the free<\/a> and paid<\/a> versions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nThis software probably has the most buzz around it as it’s the software most commonly used by Internet marketers.\u00a0 It creates lightbox popups, which means the screen darkens and a popup appears.\u00a0 The user must subscribe to the offer or manually close the window.\u00a0 Because this type of popup gains the full attention of the viewer, it’s typically the most successful (but again, you must test!).<\/p>\n
\nThis software is available in both free and paid versions.\u00a0 And it’s only available for WordPress.\u00a0 The free version<\/a> is pretty limited.\u00a0 But the paid version<\/a> is pretty flexible.\u00a0 For example, it will allow you to do lightbox popups just like Popup Domination (although it doesn’t come with the pretty templates), but in addition, you can also use it to create header or footer popups.<\/p>\n