Should You Use Popups on Your Landing Pages?
Today's question is whether you should remove email signup popups from landing pages when sending paid Meta traffic to them. Popups don't technically violate Meta's rules, but they can contribute to bad post-click experiences that drive up your costs if they hurt bounce rate or dwell time. Jon explains how Meta measures ad quality through landing page experiences, when popups become a problem versus when they might be fine, and why you should test a version without the popup to see what actually works.
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Question
Hey Jon, this is Jon Simmons. I have a Pubcast Question about email forms. On my e-commerce site, I use an on-page modal that offers a discount in exchange for email signup. So when I send paid meta traffic to a landing page, that form still appears by default. So, as a best practice, should you remove email signup forms when sending paid traffic? Thanks so much.
Answer
Great question, Jon!
Jon’s another long-time member of my PHC - Elite community. If you’d like to join us, go to jonloomer.com/elite.
Now I haven’t heard this question in a while, so I really appreciate getting it.
Whether or not you use popups on your landing page contributes to ad quality and what Meta calls post-click experiences. Meta has a number of ways to measure ad quality, including things like people hiding your ads, reporting your ads, landing page bounce rate, and landing page dwell rate.
There are some landing page experiences that violate Meta terms, but pop-ups don’t technically break any rules. But still, low-quality landing page experiences, even if they don’t violate any rules, can drive up your costs.
Meta wants to show high-quality ads to people, just as they want to show high-quality organic content. So if they’re getting signals that your ad is low-quality, you can expect to pay more to show it.
While Meta isn’t specific on the point of landing page pop-ups, I look at it like this.
Does your pop-up negatively impact bounce rate or dwell-time? Especially if a pop-up immediately appears or takes up the entire screen, I could see that being a problem.
The key point is whether the pop-up negatively contributes to a bad user experience. Excessive pop-ups, windows you can’t close, or immediate pop-ups would surely be examples of problems.
But in theory, a pop-up that only appears when there’s exit intent may not be an issue. It didn’t interrupt the user experience, at least until they decided to leave.
And as long as it’s easy to close out and avoid, it may not hurt your costs.
As a user, I hate pop-ups, but I also understand that they can be very effective. So part of the answer to your question is how effective these pop-ups have been for you.
I think it’s also worthy of a test to send users to a separate landing page when they come from ads. Try it without the pop-up and see what happens.
As always, you need to find what works for you. While there are risks and rewards for pop-ups, there also aren’t any clear restrictions on them either.
Thanks for your question, Jon!