Tanner Larsson  0:00  

Hey, guys got a real quick video for you today, something I just had to show you because it just completely blew my mind. I want to show you something that you should never ever, ever, ever do. And that I just found it’s ranked number 26 In terms of traffic being sent to the store, and Shopify. Okay, so a top 26 store, one of the top 26 stores out of Shopify is doing something the craziest asinine thing I think I’ve ever seen on a homepage. And I want to show it to you so that you make sure that you never ever, ever do it in your store. Alright, let’s hop over. Let me show you what’s up. Alright, so I’ve got an incognito window loaded to make sure that it loads exactly the way it loads. For me the first time I saw it, I showed my partner Matt, and his eyes just bugged out. He’s like, seriously? Wow. So let me load it for you and let you guys see what’s going on. And then we’ll go from there. Alright, so here we go. Can you believe that? Do you see what happened? I loaded the site, I didn’t do anything, the mouse stayed right in the center of the screen. So it wasn’t an exit thing. Before the site could even finish loading. A pop-up comes up that not only gets in your face, but it also blocks out the entire rest of the screen. So I can’t see anything else, and there’s no branding, there’s nothing else. I didn’t even get to see what this site was about before they hit me with an offer. This is insane. 

Tanner Larsson  1:27  

So let’s break this down real quick. Okay, first of all, I clicked on a URL to go to ElementalKnives.com. Cool, that’s all I know. I’m guessing by the title of the site that they sell some kind of knife, probably by the ad that I would have clicked on, it would show that they sell knives. But I don’t necessarily know if they have the things that I like, do I think the site is trustworthy? Do they sell cookie knives, hunting knives, tactical knives, who knows what they sell? Then I go to the site, and before it even loads all the pictures behind it. And any of this stuff that goes along with it, I get a blocked-out screen and a pop-up that takes up all space. Now, from a mobile perspective, you might think there’s an error going on because there is so much block, and the whole screen gets blocked out by this pop-up. Not only is there a pop-up, which I don’t want, because I haven’t asked for it, nor have I even shown any interest in your site yet. But it also blocked out the whole screen which could create a navigational nightmare on mobile. So here’s the thing, this pop-up, let’s break down the pop-up itself. And I’ll kind of give you some more things as we go along as to why. So the pop-up itself says, become a VIP for instant savings, join via email and get 10% off your order, and then ask for their first name and their email address. That in of itself is not a bad thing. We’re a big proponent of using a 10% offer or something like that as an exit offer to try to save a sale or save someone who’s about to bounce from the page. Notice what I said there, exit offer, bounce from the page. I didn’t try to bounce, I tried to load the website. And before I could see anything, it hit me with this offer. 

Tanner Larsson  3:13  

So it’s not a matter of the offer being bad. It’s a matter of the offers at the wrong time. Let me at least see what you have to offer. Let me at least look around your site. Let me give you some kind of intention that I would like more information or I’m over it. Don’t let me not see what you have. You don’t even have a logo on here to show validation of your site. So the next thing is first name and email. Honestly, if you’re saying, join via email and get 10% off your order, you really only care about their email address. And what we know from lots and lots of testing is that each additional form field that you add to a form, be it a form field or the things that you input data, reduces conversions. So every additional field dramatically reduces conversions. Asking for a first name and email address when all you really need is an email address dramatically increases the abandonment rate of this form. But not only that, this form gets even worse, because first of all, we have this get 10% off. But the most important thing that you can see on this page has a green button that says Sign Up. And a white bold text that says, Become a VIP, the actual offer in terms of what’s in it for me as the customer is in very, very small white text, get 10% off, that should be promoted heavily, that should be big and prominent because that’s what’s important here. What’s in it for me, the customer, not what’s in it for the store owner or the vendor. 

Tanner Larsson  4:37  

Anyway, we go from the first name to the email address, and then we end the form thinking there’s going to be a button, but no fake-out, hey, get an upgrade, join via email and SMS and guess what? We’ll upgrade you to 12% big whoop dee frickin do. From 10% you’re going to give me an extra 2% to also give you my phone number that extra 2% discount isn’t worth it, you’re better off just saying, hey, get a 10% discount to give us your email and phone number, or give us just your email, this two-step quasi upgrade type thing, not worth it. Because here’s why, it requires cognitive load on the part of the customer, me, I have to go through and think this through. And then my brain, and most customers’ brains, don’t see much of a difference between 10 and 12%. It’s two, we don’t see that as a big enough difference. So it’s like, hey, I already gave you my email, my phone number, which is more precious to me than my email for 2% more, maybe I don’t want to even give him my email address. So what this does, is gonna cause confusion, cognitive load, and an issue with the customer wondering what the heck is going on? 

Tanner Larsson  5:47  

Now let’s take it from an even bigger perspective. This pop-up shows up before the rest of the site loads, you didn’t give me a chance to even look at the site. And this pop-up shows up. Okay, what happens in the buyer’s subconscious brain? Well, first of all, this is not prototypical, meaning what the customer is expecting or used to seeing on normal websites, normal stores. So it throws up a red flag there. Whoa, this is weird! Second of all, I can’t see your product, I haven’t even had a chance to peruse your site. And now you’re already telling me before I had a chance to see anything on your site, you’re saying, Hey, let me give you a discount. So what does that do? Well, number one, from a vendor perspective, that screams of desperation. But from a buyer’s perspective, a shoppers perspective, this happens a lot subconsciously. So think about this. I haven’t seen their product yet. The first thing I see after I try to load their site is hey, let me give you a 10% discount. No, no, wait, let me give you a 12% discount. So what’s going on in my buyer’s mind, subconsciously, or possibly, partially consciously, I’m thinking, why do I need to get a discount already are you telling me that your products are overpriced, and that the only way I will buy one is if I get a discount, or that I’m not going to like your products, but if I get a discount, I might like your products? You’re basically causing a dialogue to happen in the customer’s mind that’s not at all what you’re intending as the store owner, the store owner here is using this because they want to build an email list and an SMS messenger list and they’re willing to give away a discount to get that.  Cool, I am okay with the intention. I love SMS lists and email lists too. It’s the way it’s going. It’s the way it’s been done. This is a self-serving type of offer where the vendor cares more about what the vendor needs than what the customer gets. This pop-up and the way it comes up is not about the user experience. It’s not about making sure the customer gets what they need. And they have a great experience on the site. This is 100% about what the vendor wants. And what’s more important to the vendor. 

Tanner Larsson  7:53  

Customer user experience is what matters in an e-commerce store. You need to optimize that user experience design and optimize for a better user experience. Me the customer is the user, not you the store owner. Simply, even if this came up at a different time, the simple verbiage of how it works, and how it’s written tells me again that this is a self-serving thing for the store owner. It’s not being offered with the intention of actually helping the customer. Because again, what’s in it for the customer is not being promoted or made prevalent. It’s not leading. Now, you could just say, oh, it’s just the way we set up the copy. Yeah, well, the way you do things is also based on your intentions and the way you’re thinking. So actions in line with thoughts and all that kind of stuff. So this is not a good thing to do, because again, I haven’t seen the site, I haven’t had a chance to check it out. Now you’re making me wonder, are you guys seem desperate? And I’m wondering now, are all of your products overpriced, and that they’re at least 10 to 12% overpriced so that I need a discount in order to feel comfortable buying whatever product it is? Not to mention the fact that it interrupts the buyer’s journey creates a red flag because it’s not prototypical. And it just gives the shopper an uneasy feeling. It’s not what they’re expecting. It’s not what they want. It’s not how they want to be treated. And guess what? Store owners. I’m a store owner. It’s not how I want to be treated when I go to another store. I get irritated by stuff like this as a consumer, just like you get irritated by it as a consumer. So if you don’t want it done to you, and you don’t think it’s the best user experience for the way you would want to go through a site, why would you make your customers go through it? Now, this is clearly a good store, they’re getting a ton of traffic in terms of daily traffic, they’re ranked number 26 out of all current Shopify stores as of the time of me making this video. They’re doing some stuff right. And you know what, they’ve got some cool stuff on their site. The site’s not very highly optimized, but they’re getting traffic. They’ve obviously got a customer following. But again, this is very painful for the customer. It’s hurting conversions. Most people are going to bounce off the site, this site probably has a massively higher bounce rate because of this pop-up. Now, I’m not going to go into the rest of the site guys, this pop up alone is what I wanted to make this video about. Because I want you to understand there is a right way and a wrong way to do a pop up, use a pop up, and this is 100% the wrong way, and I don’t want you to emulate it. If you want to use a pop-up like this, great, make it about the user what’s in it for the user, and then have it show on exit or after a predetermined time based on the average page time for the sites or for that page. If you know that the average user spends a minute on your page, then maybe you have this set on a timer to trigger at 55 seconds or 50 seconds or 60 or 55 and a half seconds or whatever, so that it loads right before the average bounce time. But you don’t want to just have it pop up just because you want to collect the email address like that. Because again, now you’re doing the customer, the people who are going to give you money a disservice.

Tanner Larsson  11:00  

Guys if you enjoyed this video, and you want to learn about more things you should and shouldn’t do about your store. Watch these two optimization videos right here and then also, click the link below to subscribe and also that little bell icon to make sure that you get notified when we release a new video. See you next time.