Last updated Tue Oct 01 2024
Discount Popup: 8 Examples & Best Practices [+How to Create]
There are many ways to share discounts…
Yet, a discount popup is one of the most popular ones in ecommerce.
Here’s why: discount popups have an unmatched ability to focus visitors’ attention on marketing offers. That’s essential for motivating them to become customers.
But it’s not just about invading the screen and getting attention. Discount popups can be a versatile tool for converting traffic with sales promos of your choice.
Here, you’ll learn how to use discount popups the right way.
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What’s a discount popup?
A discount popup is a popup window whose goal is to convince website visitors to convert (signup for a newsletter or make a purchase) by giving them a discount or a coupon. Online businesses use discount popups to motivate visitors to make purchases.
With discounts being one of the top reasons for buying online, many ecommerce stores rely on promotion popups to get sales with this incentive. Discount popups are a great tool here because they grab and focus the attention of visitors.
Why discount popups are a good strategy
Well…
Everybody loves to save.
Discounts are a tried-and-tested way to get window shoppers thinking about buying. But it’s not just the anecdotal evidence we rely on: ecommerce research gives us these insights into what customers think.
These findings mean that discount popups can:
Increase your sales 📈
Help you get new customers faster 📦
Improve customer satisfaction with shopping 🙂
So, the takeaway here is—
Offering discounts with popups encourages customers to buy and, because of the savings, many of them will even be likely to spend a bit more (because they believe they’re getting a great deal).
Now, let’s see how successful businesses sell with discount popups.
Discount popup examples
We’ll take a look at these examples of discount popups:
Email subscription discount popup
“Buy one, get one free” popup
Discount popup with segmentation form
Minimum purchase discount popup
“Free shipping” discount popup
Gamified (spin the wheel) discount popup
Product category discount popup
Customer referral discount popup
1. Email subscription discount popup
Website: MVMT Watches
Goal: Convert first-time visitors into customers
Let’s start with the most popular discount popup. It offers an introductory 15% discount for email signup, which is the simplest yet effective lead generation strategy. To make the offer more attractive, this promotional popup also mentioned access to exclusive sales and limited edition items (that’s something many watch enthusiasts simply can’t afford to miss).
Why this discount popup works:
Value-packed headline
Cool-looking original product image
The main benefit (the discount size) is highlighted by a different color
Discount popup best practice:
Offer a percentage discount if you’re not selling products for low prices. Any other discounts could have a major impact on your profits.
Here’s how to decide: if a product costs less than $100, then a percentage discount is a better choice. If the price is higher, go for the dollar amount discount. That would result in the highest perceived value for customers.
2. “Buy two get one free” discount popup
Website: Blume
Goal: Increase sales by generating a sense of urgency
Blume, a self-care brand, invites customers to buy two products and get the third one for free. Such discount popups are popular because online shoppers perceive this offer as a great value. Blume showed this discount offer popup on the homepage for one weekend to maximize the awareness of the deal.
Why this discount popup works:
Enticing headline
Beautiful design and branded color scheme
Simple explanation of the terms
Discount popup best practice:
Use discount popups for time-limited “Buy one, get one free” promotions.
Such promos are great for selling items that need regular replenishment (like self-care), and products that complement each other.
The total price of the promo should be a bit over the average order value (AOV) at your store. For example, if your AOV is $50, go for no more than $60. Because if the difference is significant, many customers are likely to pass on the offer.
Learn how Blume, a self-care brand, converts up 5% of their store visitors with popups: Blume success story
3. Discount popup with subscriber segmentation form
Website: Primal Pet Foods
Goal: Convert first-time visitors and segment them
A discount popup is also a nice opportunity to collect some information about visitors. In this example, the popup also asks to choose a pet along with their preferences—just what the brand needs to personalize future marketing emails.
Why this discount popup works:
Visitor info collection form
Creative format thanks to an awesome image of pets
Quick to fill out—it takes only two clicks to answer the two questions
Discount popup best practice:
Use discount popups to also collect information about your potential customers. You can ask about their product preferences just like the example above. This info will be super helpful for your email marketing team to move visitors down the website conversion funnel.
Related: What is a website conversion funnel?
4. Minimum purchase popup
Website: CODAGE Paris
Goal: Get more orders over €100 in value
This discount popup example helps the brand upsell and increase the average order value. To motivate visitors to buy, it offers a 100% discount on a specific product. The choice of a product (a travel kit) is also right: it would introduce customers to multiple products.
Why this discount popup works:
Limited-time, enticing offer
Easy navigation thanks to the “Discover” button
Convenient addition of the free product to the cart
Discount popup best practice:
Apply a minimum purchase discount or a free product for items that need to be regularly replenished or refilled. Add this offer to your discount popup and place the campaign on your homepage to raise maximum awareness.
Lead generation tip: Besides emails, you can also collect phone numbers with popups.
5. Free shipping popup
Website: Venus ET Fleur
Goal: Increase the number of purchases from first-time visitors
Extra costs like shipping are the top reason why online shoppers leave even after adding a product to the shopping cart. You can encourage your customers to buy with a free shipping discount popup like this.
Why this discount popup example works:
Question-based headline with a clear benefit
Signup form contains a field for an email and a phone number
CTA button has a clear message about the value for customers
Discount popup best practice:
Try writing the headline of your discount popup as a question.
Question headlines generate up to 257% more engagement compared to declarative headlines. Those with self-referencing cues, e.g. “Is this your new favorite thing?” perform the best according to research.
Discount strategy tip: Combine free shipping with seasonal discounts.
This tactic will make the offer in discount popups more attractive.
More ideas: Discount pricing strategy with examples
6. Gamified (spin the wheel) discount popup
Website: Bold Socks
Goal: Increase sales with discounts
Enter, spin, and win. That’s what spin-the-wheel popups are all about. A great thing about them is that you can choose to share any kinds of discounts or include perks like free shipping. Also, these discount popups can be extremely effective, converting up to 30% of visitors.
Why this discount popup example works:
Gamification is a unique way to engage shoppers
Colorful and eye-catching popup design
Very easy to participate (only email required)
Discount popup best practice:
Use a spin-the-wheel discount popup to gamify the shopping experience on your website.
It’s a proven way to generate leads. For example, this wheel popup campaign, generated 5,000 emails in one month. No worries about discount cheating, too: you can just limit the number of spins per visitor.
More content from our blog:
7. Product category discount popup
Website: Shutterstock
Goal: Generate more sales of a product category
This discount coupon popup motivates customers to buy a particular product category. A campaign like this can drive traffic to that category and encourage visitors to explore more of your website. Note that this promotion popup requires no signup.
Why this discount popup works:
Clearly stated benefit in the headline
Brief but comprehensive description of the offer
Easily available discount code
Discount popup best practice:
Use discount popups to drive visitors to specific pages, product categories, or products.
When visitors click Redeem now in the Shutterstock popup, they go straight to the product category. It’s an effective way to help your business grow by driving visitors to explore more pages from the homepage.
8. Customer referral discount popup
Website: Saint Jane Beauty
Goal: Encourage customers to refer friends
Want to build a popular customer referral program? You can drive referrals with a discount popup like this example from Saint Jane Beauty. This way, you can let every visitor know about this offer and get sales on autopilot.
Why this discount popup example works:
Clear description of the benefit
Makes friend referral easy with the share link
Encourages customers to advocate for the brand
Discount popup best practice:
Use discount popups to motivate your loyal customers to spread the word about your business. It’s a win-win, really: both shoppers will get a nice discount coupon and you will also get two more orders (and possibly more loyal customers).
How to create a discount popup
Let’s create an email subscription discount popup, the most common campaign.
I’ll be using Wisepops, a popup software rated 4.9 stars on Capterra and Shopify (see who uses Wisepops).
Get an account to begin:
Zero commitment, unlimited free trial.
Learn more about Wisepops popup builder.
"We've increased our signups by 10x, very easy to integrate with our website and email platform, too"
Wisepops review from Capterra
Step 1: Choose a popup template
Once in Wisepops popups dashboard, choose Create Campaign.
Next, you’ll see a selection of popup templates:
For this tutorial, I chose this one:
We have more templates for you to choose from. Feel free to check out more of our templates for promotional popups here:
Get a head start on designing discount popups. Browse our library of designer-made popup templates.
Step 2: Customize discount popup design
Of course, we need to make our discount popup look natural and good-looking. It’s easy thanks to the drag & drop popup editor in Wisepops: just click the element and start customizing.
Here’s how my final design looks after customizing:
For that design, I used:
#000000 for color
Arial for text font
This free image by Olof Nyman
Also, note that I've added the terms of service and privacy policy links under the button. Do so, too, by adding a text block and then adding the links to the text like you'd do in a text editor.
Discount popup design tips
Spell exactly what your offer is. Be brief, to-the-point, and mention the benefits for customers (the discount, exclusive deals, etc.)
Use fonts and colors of your brand. They will make the discount popup look like a natural extension of your website
Add an image of a product(s) from your store. Popups with images get up to 74% more conversions than those without
Step 3: Add the discount code in the thank-you window
A thank-you window appears when the visitors submit their emails and click Get my discount in our campaign. That’s where you give the discount to them.
To customize this window, go to the Step 2 tab.
Once there, write the message and add the discount code. Here are discount code ideas (also you can use unique Shopify discounts):
How to write compelling texts and get more conversions:
Step 4: Choose where to show your discount popup
You should show your discount popup at the right time to maximize conversions.
By default, Wisepops will display your campaign:
Only one time
To every visitor
On all website pages
After they spend 8 seconds on your site
But you can make any changes: with Wisepops, you can trigger any visitor category and when the discount appears.
To change who will see your discount popup, go to Display Rules > Audience.
There, you can leave the default setting if you'd like to show the campaign to desktop visitors:
To define when the discount popup will appear (on landing, on exit, on click, etc.), go to Display Rules > Trigger:
To see how your campaign looks on your website, click Preview. To exit the editing mode and finish, hit Done Editing.
Tips for displaying popups
Experiment with timing and location. You can schedule your offer popup to be shown only on a specific day or period (like a weekend sale), on particular pages (like a sale page), and to specific visitors (new or returning)
Read more about popup scenarios. We have guides for new popup software users to quickly choose the target audience and pages for the campaign to appear on: Display Scenario Settings
Show your popup after shoppers spend at least five seconds on your website. Give your visitors some time to browse around
Step 5: Publish your discount popup
Once you click Done Editing, Wisepops will take you to the campaign overview.
There, click Publish to activate your discount popup.
To actually add the campaign on your website, just insert the Wisepops code snippet with a few clicks.
Additionally, if you prefer to have the gathered emails sent directly to your email application, you can easily set up the integration through Wisepops: Integrations.
If the initial discount popup version didn’t live up to your expectations or you want to try different discount offers, try A/B testing.
If you want to have the gathered emails sent directly to your email app, you can easily set up the integration: Integrations.
Also, if you need any help while creating your discount popup, visit our Knowledge Base or drop a message to our support team.
Want to make your discount popup display on mobile devices only? Hit Display on mobiles in the Display Rules > Audience.
Discount popup: your next steps
Want more info about how to create and use discount popups to get sales?
We got you covered.
Detailed instructions for your website:
If you prefer a plugin, here’s our WordPress popup plugin for you.
Also, see more useful posts:
Oleksii Kovalenko
Oleksii Kovalenko is a digital marketing expert and a writer with a degree in international marketing. He has seven years of experience helping ecommerce store owners promote their businesses by writing detailed, in-depth guides.
Education:
Master's in International Marketing, Academy of Municipal Administration