1 in 10 B2C Marketers Using Lightboxes for Email Signups

More prominent email signup forms and links perform better. In-your-face lightboxes take this logic to the far end of spectrum and are enjoying growing popularity, particularly among retailers.

Unlikely the justly vilified pop-up and pop-under, lightboxes or popovers don’t launch a new window. They are a part of the page you’re already viewing and require you to complete the form or close the lightbox to regain access to the rest of the webpage, which is usually greyed out in the background, as you can see in this Ann Taylor example.

Ten percent of marketers are using lightboxes for email signups, according to ExactTarget research involving more than 160 B2C brands, including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality, and nonprofits. With more than 13% of retailers using an email signup lightbox, they are more than three times more likely to use this tactic than non-retailers. A few years ago hardly any marketers were using lightboxes.

The risk with lightboxes is that they are interruptive and therefore potentially annoying if they pop up too often. To minimize this risk, most brands set limits on how often lightboxes can be triggered for a particular visitor and some only trigger them for first-time visitors. Some also delay the launch of the lightbox for five or more seconds to give visitors a chance to start engaging with the site.

While all the talk lately has been about lightboxes for email signups, roughly as many marketers use them for post-signup confirmation instead. This is particularly true of brands like Brooks Brothers that have an email signup form in the footer of all their webpages. Their post-signup lightbox thanks the new subscriber for signing up and also asks for some additional information and preferences to improve their email experience.