Popup Doomsday Crash Course

Navigating through Google’s update with a mobile-first solution

Your presenter

Peter MessmerDirector + Growth at

AddShoppers

I. Google’s announcement

II. Current state of popups

III. Industry Chatter

IV. Other issues from this update

V. AddShoppers Solution

VI. Solution Beta Results

Summary

Google’s AnnouncementWhy are they killing popups…

and what does it mean for you?

Here’s what’s up.

“Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible.” - Google

“After January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.” - Google

Straight from the horse’s mouth...

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html

“Showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user navigates to a page from the search results, or while they are looking through the page.”

What’s an “intrusive interstitial”?

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html

Delayed modals too!

Some visuals:

Image courtesy of Googlehttps://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html

“Our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site” - Google

Then, another announcement

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html

Causing a sceneWho else is talking?

“MozCast detected a major (106°) spike on November 10th and another on the 18th. Industry chatter was high during both periods, with some suggesting that the second spike was a reversal of the first update. Google has not confirmed either event.”

Moz

Source: https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

“...checking pages that dropped across sites negatively impacted by the November 10, 2016 update, I saw a lot of mobile problems...included popups, interstitials, render problems, UIs breaking, thinner and disorganized content on mobile urls, and more.”

GSQI

Source: http://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-algorithm-update-november-10-2016-mobile-first/

“With the mobile-first index, Google will index the mobile page as the canonical url, and if you’re providing a popup or interstitial, Google can see that as your primary content.”

HubSpot

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/mobile-first-google-index

“While it seems that Google may continue to build a separate mobile index...they will flip the indexing from desktop-first to mobile-first.”

“User experience and engagement have become increasingly important signals for search engines...In a mobile-first world, consider the experience of that one page, but also how users travel between pages and their experience between each step.”

This isn’t just a mobile ranking problem

Knock knock, here are some more issues.

What’s at stake

1. SEO rankings -- desktop AND mobile

2. Traffic

3. Email subscribers & revenue

(Remember, you’re already losing 22.5% of your email subscribers each year, on average.)

1

2

3

Enough doom and gloom already...

What’s the solution?!?!

So what can you do?

Remove your mobile popups and suffer from lower email capture rates.

Keep your mobile popups and suffer from lower Google rankings.

Introduce a solution that provides the UX Google is looking for, but doesn’t sacrifice email capture

1

2

3

1. What happens if you remove popups?

Loss in email subscribers and sales.

Current list growthLook up your current average email list growth per month. (Example: 5,000)

List growth from modalsLook up how many of those come from mobile modals. (Example: 2,500)

CalculationDivide #2 by #1 to get the percentage of your list growth that’s driven by your entry modals.

Example: 2,500 / 5,000 = 50%

1

2

3

How much? Calculate it:

2. What happens if you do nothing?

Potential traffic loss -- remember Panda/Penguin?

3. What happens if you implement a solution?

No traffic loss, no email subscriber loss, potential to IMPROVE your mobile conversions.

Average Conversion Rates by device type

Desktop 4.66%

Tablets 3.89%

Smartphones1.43% (2.3x lower than desktop!)

What does a solution look like?

The Shopper PortalKnowing that Google is making changes to mobile SEO rankings Jan. 2017, we created a solution, not a work-around.

The Shopper Portal is a single solution for all AddShoppers campaigns to enable “developer free” promo launches.

With lightweight implementation, it is still just as pain-free as our other Applications.

Why it works

(it’s a bigger solution than just “replacing mobile popups”)

User controlledGesture based swipe & scrolling. Gives users control of when they see promotions.

Personalized + Mobile FriendlyBuilt with 1:1 personalization. Also has mobile styled alerts & notifications.

Google friendlyWhen expanded, the portal only covers 49% of a webpage. The webpage content is still the main focus.

1

2

3

Shopper Portal Beta Results

Client AInstead of popups, this clients’ customers were greeted by an expanding portal entry message that prompted them to explore a holiday gift guide.

Over 5 days the Shopper Portal…

- Lifted their conversion rate 27% - Made them an extra 47% in total

revenue.

Client BThis client used the Shopper Portal for their 2016 holiday shopping season promotion to grow their database through email acquisition + increase social engagement to spread brand awareness.

The Portal helped them…

- Reach over 140k individuals- Grow their email list by over 5k.

Client CA week prior to the 2016 Black Friday + Cyber Monday holiday shopping weekend, our international client A/B tested different methods for email capture.

The result?

The Shopper Portal captured 8.28% MORE emails than the popup.

Recap

January 10th = D-Day for mobile popups

Google has switched over to mobile-first index

1

2

Solution: Remove popups, replace with non-intrusive platform3

To learn more about AddShoppers, visit our website:

addshoppers.com

Additional Questions? Follow Up?

peter@addshoppers.com@TheBigCatSays