6 Black Friday & Cyber Monday popups for 2023

In the frenzy of Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) marketing preparations, it’s easy to pay little attention — if any — to website popups.

Don’t let that happen, Shopify merchants. Popups provide an extra edge when given thought and love. 

Email popups and their popup cousins can majorly enhance your Black Friday email marketing strategy.

Read on to explore why you should work popups into your BFCM mix, six ways to do it, and the increasingly crucial step of making popups mobile-friendly.
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Strengthen your Black Friday marketing strategy with popups

You already know that Black Friday and the surrounding days qualify as a mega-shopping event. 

When we examine overarching holiday shopping trends — BFCM included — 44% of consumers say they intend to complete more than half of their shopping online. Twenty percent will do so for at least three-quarters of purchases. 

If website popups were human and knowledgeable about the volume of site visitors, they’d plead, “Don’t you see that I can help? Put me in the game!”

Email popups and other varieties of website popups have the power to: 

1. Build your audience by expanding your email subscriber list 
2. Increase conversion rates
3. Guide visitors down a path and create an inviting experience  
4. Nudge shoppers to act quickly

6 popups for elevating your BFCM performance 

The first step to creating any popup is identifying your goal. Do you want to grow your subscribers? Snag shoppers with an enticing deal? 

The beauty is that you can accomplish multiple goals simultaneously with planning and precision. 
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Read our beginner’s popup guide for all four essential steps in creating a popup.  

Use the six email popup examples below to envision what’s possible. (Two are ready-to-go Seguno popup templates.)

Just don’t create and launch all of them. Half a dozen popups operating on one site equals an overwhelming and annoying experience. We wouldn’t blame visitors for bolting.

Handle website popup timing with care as well, or you also risk driving shoppers away quickly.
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1. Email popups: Build your subscriber list

No popup is as ubiquitous as the email popup. 

There’s a good reason for that. It’s not very likely that someone will convert when first discovering your brand. Email popups capitalize upon initial interest and open the door to repeated brand exposure. 

Savvy marketers work at collecting email addresses to feed their email marketing programs. They know email is the best tool for transforming an interested shopper into a customer.

Get your email popup polished well ahead of BFCM. A Google study indicates that 29% of Americans completed their 2022 holiday shopping by the end of October.  

Our tips for creating an email popup that converts visitors to subscribers: 

1. Focus on a user-centric design by keeping it simple and focused
2. Offer an incentive, such as a discount or exclusive content
3. Give prominence to the call to action (CTA)
4. Clearly state that subscribers give your brand permission to send them marketing emails

Hold any discount codes for your welcome email. For those who only want to save money on a purchase, including them in the email popup eliminates their reason to subscribe. 

If offering a Shopify discount isn’t your thing, plenty of email popup examples incorporate other incentives.
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Tip: Planning a bold BFCM offer? Make your email popup match it for the duration of the deal.

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2. Countdown timer popups: Create urgency

If there’s a time to use a ticking clock to spark action, it’s during BFCM.

The countdown timer is no stranger to emails. Since they’re not as common in web popups, why not embrace them to enliven your site and capture attention? 

Reinforce that time is slipping away for snatching up an opportunity — whether a steep discount, shipping cutoff, flash sale, or any other deadline. 

It’s FOMO 101. Scientifically speaking, countdown timers play upon the loss aversion principle whereby people would rather avoid losses than acquire gains.

Our tips for creating a countdown timer to motivate shoppers: 

1. Simplicity rules; don’t complicate with unnecessary text or graphics
2. State the offer clearly so shoppers understand what the timer applies to
3. Use contrasting colors within the timer for readability; ensure the timer contrasts with your site for visibility 
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3. Exit-intent popups: Prevent abandoned carts

We all have experienced a popup that appears when attempting to close out of a website. The message is akin to, “Wait! Don’t leave yet.”

Brands classically use the exit-intent popup as a last-chance email popup for enlisting subscribers.  

But list growth is not its only use. Exit-intent popups are perfect for catching shoppers about to abandon their carts. It’s an intervention tactic to make them pause and reconsider. 

Our tips for creating an exit-intent popup that persuades shoppers to complete the purchase: 

1. Deploy it only on the cart page 
2. Offer something to combat hesitation; for example, 85% of shoppers would “prioritize ecommerce platforms with free or flat-rate shipping”
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4. Data-gathering email popups: Fuel segmentation

Form fields are an excellent avenue for elevating your email popups and ultimately help you deliver more value.

Here’s how it works. Imagine your Shopify store sells toys, and you want a better idea of your subscribers’ profile. Are they buying holiday gifts for infants? Are they on the hunt to fulfill a 10-year-old’s wishlist? 

So you add a popup form field with a choice list, and voila, you have a mechanism for collecting data on subscriber preferences.

Our tips for creating an email popup that collects subscriber preferences:

1. Outside of the contact field, limit your form to one question; no one wants to fill out a multi-part questionnaire 
2. Formulate the question according to your segmentation goals 

Once you start collecting data with the popup, you have insights for determining what content might resonate with whom. 

Now it’s time for segmented email marketing. It’s a worthy endeavor when launching promotional campaigns — over 70% of consumers expect personalization; you’ll frustrate 76% if your brand never delivers it.
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5. Informational popups: Be of service

Popups can show another dimension of your brand: your customer service. 

BFCM and the holiday season are a stressful time for many people. Use a popup to alleviate common pain points or address concerns, and you'll build trust.

Here are a few examples of how you can use popups as a problem-solving opportunity or a means for communicating messages:  

• List deadlines for your shipping options
• Warn shoppers about unexpected shipping delays
• Explain your returns policy
• Guide shoppers to an FAQ page for common BFCM questions

Our tips for creating an informational popup that serves customers:

1. Be concise; steer visitors to a landing page for issues with complexity  
2. Be proactive; it’s better to get in front of potential problems than have to do damage control
3. Be selective when triggering the popup; reserve it for matching/related site content where possible 
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6. Social proof popups: Influence purchase decisions

Sometimes, shoppers need a boost of confidence before making a purchase. Most of us want validation that what captures our eye is the right solution and worth the money. 

Social proof provides reassurance. If we see that someone else endorses a product, then it’s got credibility.

Cue the user-generated content (UGC) and weave it into a popup. 

Promoting a particular collection as part of your BFCM strategy? You could insert a glowing review and direct visitors to it. Want to amplify a best-seller? Weave in a review and trigger the popup for the corresponding product page only.  

Or, in the example below, the popup steers visitors to the brand’s repository of social proof.

Our tips for creating a social proof popup that fosters trust: 

1. Incorporate a concise, high-quality review or testimonial (it speaks to product benefits)
2. Use customer-supplied images that show off your product in use

You’ll also need permission from the UGC creator to use their content. 
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Reach on-the-go shoppers with mobile-friendly popups

Online sales via mcommerce — shopping done through a mobile device — are growing at double the rate of desktop-driven online sales. 

So, you must optimize all popups for mobile, especially for BFCM. We expect similar behavior as in 2022, when mobile shopping accounted for most Cyber Week sales for the first time. 

There’s no room for a clunky popup user experience. Be intentional. Your design should work equally well on a laptop and phone. 

Our tips for creating a mobile-friendly popup: 

1. Stick to simplicity; a concise message works best
2. Ensure font size makes for legible text
3. Make the CTA stand out with proper padding and contrast

Most popup platforms, Seguno included, handle the technicalities behind responsive design. Regardless, always preview and test for mobile. You may need to make subtle adaptations. 
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Get your popups ready for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Among a landscape of brands shouting for attention, popups are often the forgotten channel that can help you rise above the BFCM noise. 

Don’t neglect them. 

Identify your goals and determine what type of popups you need. Think through timing and where they’ll trigger, especially if you’ve got more than one on deck. And don’t be afraid to experiment by making tweaks or swapping in a different popup strategy.  

Make it happen with the best Shopify popup app by Seguno. Almost 50 popup templates — plain-text and visual-led designs — await your customization.