Loading tutorials…
Loading tutorials…
Popups and sticky bars are the highest-leverage conversion mechanic Unbounce offers. Done right, they lift CR 15-40%. Done wrong, they annoy visitors into bouncing 30% faster. The line is thinner than most marketers realize.
Who this is forMarketers running paid traffic to Unbounce landing pages who want to capture leads who didn't convert on the main form. Also relevant for content sites adding lead capture to blog posts.
What you'll need
Step 1
Three formats: popup overlay (center of screen, highest CR), sticky bar (top/bottom of viewport, lowest disruption), exit intent (only when leaving, salvage mode).
Popup overlay: appears center of screen, dims background. High visibility, high disruption. Best for: high-value offers, exit intent.
Sticky bar: fixed to top or bottom of viewport. Low disruption, always visible. Best for: announcements, free shipping bars, persistent CTAs.
Exit intent popup: triggers only when mouse moves toward browser close/back button. Salvage mode — capture leads who would've left.
On-scroll popup: triggers when visitor scrolls 50-75% of page. Captures engaged readers.
Time-delay popup: triggers after 30-60 seconds. Avoids interrupting fast scanners.
Best practice: mix formats. Sticky bar for always-on announcement + exit-intent popup for salvage + on-scroll for engaged readers.
Step 2
Popups & Sticky Bars → New Popup. Pick template, edit copy, design.
Unbounce Admin → Popups & Sticky Bars → 'New Popup' (or 'New Sticky Bar').
Pick a template: Unbounce has templates for newsletter signup, ebook download, discount offer, webinar signup, exit intent salvage.
Edit copy: same rules as landing page. Headline = specific promise (8-12 words). Subhead = address objection (12-20 words). CTA = action verb + outcome.
Form: minimal. 1-3 fields max (email is typical). Popups should have FEWER fields than landing page forms.
Design: match the brand of the page it'll appear on. Trust signals (1-2 testimonials, security badge if relevant).
Save as draft. Don't publish yet — configure triggers next.
Step 3
Triggers tab → set conditions: time delay, exit intent, scroll percentage, click trigger, after page interaction.
Triggers tab → 'When should this popup appear?'
Options: On Load (rarely good), After Delay (e.g., 30 sec), On Scroll (e.g., 50%), On Exit Intent (when leaving), On Click (when clicking a specific element), After Conversion (post-form-submit upsell).
Recommended starting triggers:
- Lead magnet popup: 'On Scroll 50%' OR 'On Delay 45 sec.' Captures engaged visitors.
- Exit intent popup: 'On Exit Intent.' Salvages departing visitors. Highest-converting trigger for popups typically.
- Cart abandonment popup (ecommerce): 'On Exit Intent' on cart page.
- Sticky bar: persistent — no trigger, just 'Show always.'
Test on mobile + desktop. Mobile exit-intent is unreliable (no mouse), so use scroll or time-delay on mobile.
Step 4
Targeting tab → choose which pages, audiences, devices, and times the popup appears on.
Targeting tab → 'Where should this popup appear?'
Page targeting: specific pages, page contains URL, by domain. Most popups: specific pages (e.g., your top 3 landing pages).
Device targeting: Desktop, Mobile, Tablet. Often: mobile popups have shorter triggers + minimal copy (small screen real estate).
Audience targeting: visitor type (new vs returning), location, referrer (Google ads vs direct vs social).
Time targeting: appear only during business hours, or only during a campaign window.
Frequency: 'Don't show again for 30 days' if user already closed the popup. Critical — repeated popups = bounce rate killer.
Step 5
Form Settings → email notification, CRM integration, redirect after submit.
Same setup as landing page forms.
Map form fields to CRM. Add UTM hidden fields. Configure email notifications.
After submission: redirect to a thank-you page (better) OR show inline 'Thanks!' message (acceptable).
If redirect: same thank-you page as main landing page for unified tracking + post-conversion offer.
Confirmation email: send to lead with their lead magnet (PDF link, video link, discount code). Use Unbounce's auto-responder or trigger via your ESP.
Step 6
Publish the popup. Monitor: impressions, conversions, conversion rate over the first 14-30 days.
Click Publish. Popup is live on your selected pages.
Reports tab → Popups & Sticky Bars → see impressions (how many visitors saw it), conversions (how many submitted), CR.
Healthy popup CR: 2-8% (overlay popups), 0.5-2% (sticky bars), 5-15% (exit intent overlay).
If CR is below benchmark: copy is weak, offer isn't compelling, or trigger is wrong. Iterate.
Bounce rate check: after enabling popup, monitor overall page bounce rate. If it spiked > 10%, the popup is hurting more than helping. Reduce trigger aggressiveness.
Step 7
After 30+ days, A/B test the popup copy + offer for incremental lifts.
Once popup has consistent traffic + conversions, A/B test the headline, offer, or trigger timing.
Same rules as landing page A/B testing: one change per variant, run for sample size + 2 weeks, 95% significance.
Common winning hypotheses: better headline (specific to audience), better offer (more valuable lead magnet), better trigger (exit intent often beats time-delay).
Document results in your testing log. Compound learning across popups.
Common mistakes
Page-load trigger ("show immediately")
What goes wrong: Visitor lands, popup pops up before they've read anything. Closes immediately. Bounce rate +20-40%. CR drops.
How to avoid: Never use on-load. Minimum: time delay 30 sec OR scroll 50% OR exit intent.
Same popup on every page (no targeting)
What goes wrong: Visitor lands on Page A, closes popup. Visits Page B, same popup again. By Page 3, leaves frustrated.
How to avoid: Target popups to specific pages. Use 'Don't show again for 30 days' frequency cap. Different offers per audience segment.
Form with 5+ fields in popup
What goes wrong: Popup CR drops 50-70%. Visitors expect quick captures in popups, not main-form-level commitment.
How to avoid: Popup forms: 1-3 fields max. Usually just email. Capture more data in follow-up email or progressive profiling.
No frequency cap (repeats every page view)
What goes wrong: Visitor closes popup, navigates to next page, same popup again. Closes again. By page 3, leaves. Bounce rate +30%.
How to avoid: Targeting → Frequency → "Don't show again for 30 days" (or 7 days minimum).
No mobile-specific configuration
What goes wrong: Desktop popup fits the screen. Mobile popup covers the entire viewport, can't be closed easily, blocks content. Mobile users bounce.
How to avoid: Configure separate mobile popup (smaller, fewer fields, easier-to-close). Or disable popup on mobile if no mobile-specific version.
Disregarding bounce rate after launch
What goes wrong: Popup boosts conversions 5% but bounce rate spikes 20%. Net effect on revenue: negative (you lose more sessions than you gain leads).
How to avoid: Monitor bounce rate weekly after launching popups. If it spiked > 10%, reduce trigger aggressiveness or remove popup.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to build a high-converting Unbounce landing page
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Popups can be the highest-leverage CR mechanic OR the worst — depending on trigger + targeting + offer. A CRO specialist at $14-16/hr can design + ship 3-5 popups + sticky bars across your funnel in 1-2 weeks, typically $300-600 total. Pays back in incremental leads within 30 days.
See specialist rates
Yes — Build plan includes Popups & Sticky Bars. Unlimited popups, all trigger types, full targeting.
Overlay popup: 2-8% typical, 10-15% top quartile. Exit intent popup: 5-15% typical. Sticky bar: 0.5-2%. Depends heavily on offer quality + trigger timing.
Google penalizes intrusive interstitials on MOBILE that block content. Avoid: full-screen mobile popups on landing, popups that block 30%+ of mobile viewport. Use exit intent or scroll triggers on mobile to stay compliant.
No. Target popups to specific pages where the offer is relevant. E.g., ebook popup on related blog posts, not on contact page. Page-level relevance lifts CR 30-50% vs blanket popups.
Popups capture leads who weren't going to fill the main form. They're additive. Inline forms convert at 5-15% of page traffic; popups add another 2-5%. Use both; don't replace one with the other.
Unbounce
Unbounce's drag-and-drop builder makes shipping a landing page in 3 hours feel doable. The harder question: does the page actually convert? Most DIY pages launch at 1-3% CR. Specialists routinely ship pages at 8-15%.
Unbounce
Unbounce makes A/B testing easy — too easy. Most marketers ship 'A/B tests' that lack statistical significance, test trivial changes, and conclude prematurely. Here's how to test like a CRO professional.
Unbounce
Unbounce captures leads. CRM closes them. Without integration, leads die in the Unbounce admin no one checks. Most DIY integrations are partial — leads sync but fields don't map, UTMs are lost, lead routing is manual. Here's the full integration.
Unbounce
Page launched, traffic flowing, conversions flat. The diagnostic sequence below is what a CRO specialist runs in their first 90 minutes on the account. Usually 1-2 of these unlocks the CR lift you've been chasing.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
The HubSpot tracking code is what makes every other piece of Marketing Hub work — forms, workflows, lifecycle stages, lead scoring. Get this wrong and half of HubSpot quietly stops attributing what it should. Here's the install path most guides skip.