Chat with a CRO specialist made me rethink my email popup strategy

She told me her client saw a 40% drop in bounce rate just by delaying the popup by 8 seconds, and now I'm wondering if my urgency-driven approach is actually pushing people away instead of converting them - has anyone else tested timing windows and seen better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_murray261mo ago

Makes sense, 8 seconds is like letting someone get comfortable before you ask them a favor.

the_joseph1mo ago

Yeah "letting someone get comfortable before you ask them a favor" is exactly how I'd put it. I ran a similar test on my own site a few months back. Had my popup set to fire at 5 seconds and was seeing a decent click rate but awful conversion rates from those clicks. Switched it to 12 seconds instead, and the click rate actually went down a bit but the people who did click were way more likely to buy. The delay filters out the folks who would have just closed it anyway and only hits the ones who are actually interested. Timing isn't about catching people off guard, it's about catching them when they're already in a good headspace to say yes.