As a popup software company, we have access to a large dataset of popup stats: our clients display more than 100 million popups per month…
To help you evaluate your popup’s conversion rate, we thought we’d share some stats to let you see how you’re doing.
Let’s get rolling!
What Is a Good Popup Conversion Rate?
Let’s have a look at some stats from our clients to help you answer this question.
Average Conversion Rate for Email Popups
Earlier this year, we analyzed the results of our top 50 clients’ popups.
The average conversion rate of their email subscription popups was 3.75%. The lowest conversion rate of the sample was 0.88% and the top conversion rate was 10.01%.
The best popup conversion rate we’ve ever seen across all our clients’ accounts was 16.3%. It was for this popup that was displayed after 2 page views:

An email popup achieving 16.3% Conversion Rate
Average Conversion Rate for Exit-Intent Popups
We were also wondering what the average conversion rate on exit popups is. So we pulled out a huge sample of exit popups created by our clients. It turns out their average conversion rate was 3.93% (source).

An exit-intent popup on Flipkey.com
What Factors Affect Your Popups’ Conversion Rate?
After reviewing hundreds of popup A/B tests run by our clients, I would say that the conversion rate is mainly affected by 3 elements: the incentive, the timing and your copy.
The Incentive
Whenever we talk with marketers complaining that their popup’s conversion rate is too low, the first question we ask is: “Did you add an incentive to your popup? What do new subscribers get when they join your list?”
Most marketers think that promising to receive “The latest offers and exclusive news” is enough. Well, it’s not.
Incentives (or offers) have a major impact on the conversion rate. Here’s an illustration with our top 50 clients’ stats.
The average conversion rate for popups that include an incentive is 4.24%, almost three times higher than the ones that don’t include an offer.

A sweepstake popup on Wildbird.com
Next time you create a popup, think about an incentive you could add to boost your conversion rate!
The Timing
The timing of your popup also has a direct impact.
Here’s an A/B test run by one of our clients:
By delaying their popups to display after 2 pages, they doubled their email popup’s conversion rate.
And that’s not an isolated example. All the timing A/B tests we’ve ever reviewed confirm this finding: the longer you wait, the better your popup’s conversion rate will be.
The Copy
Let’s be honest: out of the three elements listed in this article, the copy is the least important.
But good copy can make a difference. Here is a good example from one of our clients.
They tested a short copy and a longer copy:

Short and long trial samples of a popup offering the same discount
The shorter copy outperformed the other variant by +5%.
Not bad for an edit that takes less than 2 minutes to implement!
Wrap-up
I hope you found this article useful to give you an idea of how you’re doing with your popup conversion rate – and how you can improve it!
Are there any stats you’d like us to add to this article?
Please let us know in the comments!