Lightbox popup

A lightbox popup is a popup that appears over a webpage, dimming or blurring the background content to draw users' attention to a focused message in the center. By reducing distractions, this type of popup enhances user engagement and increases the likelihood of conversions.

In this article, we’ll uncover reasons for using lightbox popups and their benefits, show how to create an effective lightbox popup, and provide some excellent tips. We’ll also share examples of successful lightbox popups.

Why should you use lightbox popups?

Using lightbox popups allows businesses to catch customers’ eyes and focus entirely on a specific marketing message. Whether brands request users’ email addresses, provide enticing offers, or share valuable resources, lightbox popups enable marketers to encourage action and boost engagement with target audiences.

While using lightbox popups for subscription forms, businesses collect email addresses and build mailing lists. By adding a lead magnet, they reach more people and obtain their emails for direct communication. A strong call-to-action button, typically positioned on a lightbox popup, enables entrepreneurs to encourage more conversions, resulting in higher sales, signups, and engagement.

Lightbox popups, usually appearing when users are about to exit the page, prevent site visitors from leaving by providing a special offer, a discount, or a free trial. Businesses can also remind prospects about items in their shopping carts, encouraging more people to complete their purchases. It leads to lower bounce rates and reduced cart abandonment, and it positively influences various businesses.

Now that you understand why it’s essential to use lightbox popups, let’s move on to the next section to review their perks in more detail.

Benefits of Lightbox Popups

Lightbox popups carry numerous benefits for marketers, especially for driving attention, engagement, conversions, and overall business growth. Lightbox popups bring the following pros:

• Higher conversions and sales. By driving immediate attention to your message, lightbox popups enable you to reduce distraction and encourage the desired action. This type of popup usually includes a visible CTA, allowing users to instantly sign up for your email newsletter, receive a special offer, or get a free trial. It contributes to higher sales and overall business success.
• More email sign-ups. When you use overlay popups, you can grow your mailing lists easily. By adding lead magnets such as free eBooks, exclusive content, or discounts, you can encourage more people to sign up for your email newsletter. As a result, you’ll have a reliable and direct channel for communication with potential customers who are interested in hearing from you.
• Promotion of special events, offers, and sales. Lightbox popups are excellent tools for informing site visitors about upcoming events, sales, or special deals. By focusing all the attention on a single message, you can be sure that users will notice your information and keep it in mind when they are interested.
• Lower bounce rates. Overlay popups that appear for users with exit intent can encourage potential customers to stay on your website longer. Popups offering a discount will entice these visitors to take the deal. Additionally, you can use these tools to remind prospects about items in their shopping carts and decrease the number of abandonments. More people will leave your website after completing a specific action, whether it’s signing up, redeeming an offer, or requesting a free trial.
• Better engagement. With popups, marketers can create better interactions with potential customers. Polls, surveys, giveaways, and content recommendations in these popups help grab attention and boost engagement with your target audience. By inviting them to participate in a survey for a chance to win a discount, you can effectively encourage action without disrupting their experience with your company.
• Targeted messaging. Analyzing user behavior, location, and browsing history enables you to tailor your message to prospects’ needs, preferences, and pain points. By reviewing custom data, you can effectively reach users with relevant offers and messaging. For example, you can provide returning visitors with a special discount on their first purchase to encourage them to make their first move.

Now that you understand the benefits, let’s discover how to craft an effective lightbox popup for your company to achieve its primary business goals.

How to create an effective lightbox popup?

To reach your conversion goals, you should have a well-structured plan and an intuitive tool at your fingertips. Below, we’ll provide a guide on creating an effective lightbox popup.

1. Determine your key objectives. Since popups serve different purposes, it’s essential to identify your goals. You can gather email addresses for your mailing lists, increase your social media followers, promote events, sales, and special offers, and enhance engagement with your content, among other things. Your objectives should be clear so that your team can create the appropriate offer.
2. Develop a visually appealing design. Your popup design should encourage site visitors to explore the offer you provide. Consider adding a striking headline, keeping the layout clean, including proper visuals, and using contrasting colors to ensure users can easily notice it.
3. Provide site visitors with valuable and relevant offers. When you want to grab site visitors' attention, you should offer something irresistible. To drive engagement, provide a clear benefit people will instantly see. Discounts, freebies, and exclusive access will provide users with more reasons to become customers. Offering prospects discounts for signing up for your email newsletter can attract more subscribers to your business and allow for effective nurturing.
4. Use an intuitive popup builder. You can easily create overlay popups using a special tool without any coding knowledge. Typically, these platforms provide a library of templates for various events and activities, allowing you to set them up in just minutes. When using SendPulse, you can display conditions based on whether users move their cursor to close the tab or scroll through the page. This service enables you to personalize your popups according to visitors’ behavior.
5. Identify the perfect timing for your message. If you add a popup to your webpage, consider waiting 10 to 30 seconds before displaying it to users. You can implement an exit-intent popup to capture the attention of site visitors before they leave your site. Scroll-based popups can help encourage engagement after visitors explore 50% of your webpage. You can display a scroll-based popup inviting users to subscribe when they check out your products and present a better offer when they attempt to close the tab.
6. Include a strong CTA. Your call-to-action button should be clear and compelling. Make sure it’s visible to users so they can immediately take the desired action. Persuasive words, phrases, and language will help you achieve conversions more quickly.
7. Keep it short and simple. Make sure your popup requests the most essential information. Offering an appealing deal in return for visitors’ email addresses is more effective. It only takes prospects a few seconds to enter their email and claim the offer. The fewer fields your subscription form contains, the greater the chance of conversion.
8. Add a visible close button. Each popup should have a clearly visible close button to allow users to dismiss it without frustration. Avoid compelling site visitors to undertake actions they are not interested in. It’s better to let them exit without hindrances. This will help prevent dissatisfaction with your company.
9. Personalize your popups. To enhance engagement and relevance, consider creating distinct popups for new and returning users. Additionally, utilize their location to offer site visitors location-specific deals. By analyzing browsing behavior, you can lower cart abandonment by providing exclusive discounts to visitors.

Now that you know how to create an effective lightbox popup, it’s time to explore some useful tips to enhance your marketing efforts.

10 Tips to Create Popups that Convert

Popups can become a valuable asset for every online business when incorporated right. To do it, you should discover the best practices we’ve prepared for you below. So, let’s explore.

1. Add a lead magnet. When users show no interaction with your website, you can boost it by adding a lead magnet to your overlay popup. Offering free eBooks, statistics, infographics, reports, PDFs, and other valuable resources can encourage site visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter. In addition to these resources, you can also attract new leads by presenting them with an enticing discount, free shipping, or a special deal. These incentives will provide prospects with compelling reasons to view your products as solutions to their problems.
2. Provide an enticing offer. If visitors return to your website but don’t take any action, you should encourage conversions by offering something enticing. Sometimes a discount or a free trial can motivate prospects to start engaging with your brand. By providing a special price or a complimentary product, you can accelerate purchasing decisions or conversions in other areas of your business.
3. Include a visible CTA. Your popup should include all the essential elements to help prospects conclude the session with their desired action. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your lightbox popup features a clear call-to-action button. It should direct users to the necessary information, resources, trials, materials, and more. Everything must be quick and straightforward to avoid distractions.
4. Use colors wisely. Think about selecting a suitable color scheme that helps site visitors notice the most important popup elements. Utilizing contrasting colors and an appealing design that aligns with your branding will strengthen the connection between your popup and your brand.
5. Craft your message based on the traffic source. Since site visitors come from various marketing channels, backgrounds, and sources, you should develop distinct messages for these segments. This way, you can personalize your popups effectively, addressing prospects’ needs and requirements.
6. Consider using a reminder sticky bar. When you use a popup to notify prospects about upcoming discounts, sales, and special deals, consider adding a sticky bar to make the promo code readily accessible. This reminder doesn’t interrupt users’ browsing and allows them to take advantage of the offer whenever they choose.
7. Use fewer fields. When inviting new site visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter, it’s advisable to use as few fields as possible. Typically, users don’t want to spend a lot of time entering their information just to opt in. To prevent churn, it’s best to ask site visitors to subscribe by initially providing their email addresses. Later, you can gather the necessary details while communicating with these prospects through emails or other channels.
8. Make it mobile-friendly. In a world with an increasing number of mobile users, it’s essential to ensure your lightbox popup is mobile-responsive. This means that the popup appears well on various screen sizes. When using a platform like SendPulse, you can rest assured about how your popups will look on different devices because the service manages this for you.
9. Use different messages for new and returning visitors. Consider creating two scenarios for your messages aimed at new and returning site visitors. The communication, offers, discounts, and content in your popups should differ to align with these individuals' current needs. This approach will help you avoid generic messages and appear more personal to these site visitors.
10. Avoid using entry popups for new site visitors. If users land on your website for the first time, it’s no use interrupting them with an entry popup. Let them explore your site and the products you offer. To make a positive first impression, create a personalized popup that appears after prospects browse your products. Tailored offers will capture visitors’ attention and encourage them to think about purchasing from you in the future.

Now that you understand how to achieve the best results with popups, it’s time to explore how well-known brands have already implemented these practices in real life. Let’s get inspired.

Examples of Lightbox Successful Popups

There are many examples of effective lightbox popups that drive conversions for businesses. We will share some examples from well-known companies you may have come across to inspire you.

MAC Cosmetics

When new users arrive at this beauty brand’s website and intend to leave, they will immediately notice a popup overlaying the main content. Before visitors close the tab, MAC encourages them to sign up for its email newsletter. To increase signups, the brand offers a lead magnet in the form of a 15% discount. Joining MAC’s loyalty program enables new customers to receive a discount on their next purchase and free shipping on upcoming orders. The brand also gives prospects the option to receive SMS updates about the latest news, product launches, exclusive offers, and more.

HubSpot

HubSpot has another example of a lightbox popup encouraging customers to take the desired action. The company invites site visitors to join its community of marketers and gain valuable resources, content, and access to interviews with industry experts through an exit-intent popup. This allows users to thoughtfully review the offer and accept it by supplying their email addresses when they wish to receive content in their inboxes.

OptinMonster

OptinMonster uses lightbox popups to make users consider getting started with OptinMonster once more. The popup has all the reasons for site visitors to do it. The company lists all its benefits, including statistics to make customers use its service to keep more visitors on their businesses’ sites. Better yet, OptinMonster offers new clients to save costs by providing 60% off.

Simply put, lightbox popups are extremely effective when you aim to drive attention to your subscription forms, special invitations, webinar announcements, and information about enticing offers, discounts, and sales. By overlaying the content on the web page, you can focus all users’ attention on a single message and encourage them to drive conversions. It can be signup, registration for an event, or content download. This way, you’ll be able to get site visitors’ email addresses and have a direct channel to communicate with them.

Last Updated: 18.03.2025