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Popups aren’t bad. Bad popups are bad.

Jeff Kershner

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Ilana from AutoLeadStar published an article over on the DealerRefresh blog titled "Popups aren’t bad. Bad popups are bad." I recommend clicking the link and reading the article, then come back over here.

As the title suggests, the article is about those WONDERFUL Popups (that many of us currently have hosted on our dealer websites) - something we've discussed many many times here in the forums; chat popups being the most popular in the discussions and gripes.

Ilana takes a slightly different approach in her article and suggests that popups are NOT the issue, rather bad popups are the issue.

What makes for a bad popup?

1. Bad design
2. Too many form fields
3. Irrelevance

A few examples of no so good popups are even provided.

I tend to agree with Ilana that popups, when executed properly, are an effective tool. However, most popups (especially in our industry) are just BAD. My biggest peeve is number 2 on her list - Too Many Form Fields. The example used in the article is one that I'm personally very familiar with. :dunno:

First name
Last name
Email
Phone
Zip

Then let's add some more fields by asking what vehicle they're interested in - who cares what vehicle they are interested in, we can get that information once on the phone or in the store. Too many fields scares the poop out of most of us, yet we have popups with 8+ fields and expect them to convert. Sometimes we have to thank someone on the OEM level for such thinking.

It's 2017 - What has been your experience with popups on your dealership website?
 
Popups should only be on the pages where they belong.
The homepage is not where they belong.

Find out the user's intent, then pop up things they won't hate you for.
Most sites I'm looking at right now are about 40-60% used vehicle traffic, and yet I almost never see used vehicle popups.
Looking at 2 sites that have popups right now, both of them have < 10% new vehicle traffic, and yet they each have a popup promoting a single financing rate/payment for a single vehicle.

I agree with the article, but even a good popup that only caters to 1% of your website traffic is a bad idea.
Popups with intelligent prompts are the solution - if someone searches for Camry, popup the Camry promotion.
 
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Reactions: Alexander Lau
It's impossible for the likes of Google to police what constitutes a bad pop-up versus what is good, so they've put the clamp down on them in general (with SEO penalization factors). I would agree there are plenty of lightboxes or "pop-ups" that are effective. I suppose it comes down to what Google and their minions deem "usable."

I suppose if a pop-up is converting, use at your own risk.

I completely agree with @craigh on relevancy.