6 Eye-Catching Popup Overlay Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

A popup overlay can easily be a hit or miss—either irking visitors if it doesn’t add to their experience, or winning them as leads/buyers if it offers value.

So, how can you ensure your overlay popup is more a hit than a miss?

The answer: only set up a popup overlay when you’re sure the value it offers is superb. This means every time you plan a popup overlay, work out a valuable reason for showing it—like offering an enticing discount or promising exclusive deals.

Simple, isn’t it?

So let’s show you how six other brands do this with their overlay popups. In addition to the popup overlay examples, we’ve also got templates to help you get started today and a rundown of how to set up an overlay popup.

What is a popup overlay?

As the name suggests, a popup overlay is a website popup that shows up overlaying the content on any given page. This is usually by either taking over the entire screen (full-width overlay) or blurring/darkening the background.

Like other popups, a popup overlay helps in various ways.

For instance:

• Give away a freebie for lead generation
• Offer a first time or returning visitor discount
• Announce a limited-time offer such as free shipping
• Make product recommendations via a quiz
• Upsell/cross-sell similar products to what's in a shopping cart

Note: A full-width overlay popup might also be categorized as a "splash page." You can check out our article on splash pages here.

Now, let’s walk you through six popup overlay examples to show you the practical side of overlay popups:

1. Cosmetic Capital’s full-page popup overlay

This is a great example of a full-width overlay popup that takes the entire page:

It’s designed to be clutter-free, which helps retain visitors’ attention. Plus, it makes a compelling offer that encourages visitors to take action.

The popup’s colors also align with Cosmetic Capital’s brand colors and the CTA buttons are easily clickable.

Finally, the popup offers two clear ways to exit it:

1. There’s a cross on the top right
2. There’s a CTA box that reads “No Thanks”

Visitors can click on it to remove the popup and resume their site visit. There's then the little tab on the right for people to bring it up again if they change their mind and want to subscribe.

All these pointers make this example overlay popup a winner.

2. Lego’s overlay popup example

Lego’s overlay popup shows up on visit. Its aim? To help folks navigate the site better by choosing whether they want to shop or play games:

Again, the popup’s colors are Lego-branded and the CTA buttons are easy to read and click. The overlay popup also uses microcopy strategically to explain each choice. 

There’s no exit option here, though.

The reason? The visitor has to pick from any of the two to be able to get to what they’re searching for so there’s no need for an exit route. 

3. Bonobos discount popup overlay example

Bonobos’ popup overlay shows up when potential buyers start shopping with an interesting incentive that’s hard to resist:

They pair a 15% off with free shipping and returns—asking visitors only for their email. This is a smart move for encouraging people to share their information as it asks for only one detail (their email address).

To add, the popup clarifies that sharing their information means they’re agreeing to their privacy policy and receiving their emails. Such transparency is crucial for earning buyers’ trust.

4. Slack’s personalized content popup overlay example

This overlay popup example from Slack darkens the page to stand out against the background with the goal of filtering and personalizing content:

It shows up when a visitor heads to their resource section with the aim of helping readers find relevant information. 

Such an overlay popup does a great job at increasing visitors’ time on site—helping them become familiar with the company by improving their website experiences.

What’s more, the “Resources for” and “Tailored to” categories on the popup help the site understand their target audience by segmenting them based on who they are (admins, developers, or general) and their interests (HR, marketing, support, etc.).

5. MeUndies email newsletter popup overlay example

This MeUndies popup overlay shows up immediately on visit with the aim of capturing leads for their email newsletter:

The popup uses MeUndies’ brand colors. However, it sticks with the brighter tone (yellow) so that it’s prominent against the rest of the site, which darkens lightly as the popup pops into place.

Again, it asks visitors for only their email address and gives them the choice to opt in for marketing emails using a checkbox.

They also follow a key popup design principle: promising new subscribers that they can unsubscribe anytime and that they wouldn’t spam them. This helps set clear expectations.

6. Cuddle Clones in-cart cross-sell popup overlay example  

Lastly, this is another good overlay popup example from Cuddle Clones. It lightens the page as it surfaces to recommend related products when you add products to your cart:

What's clever about this popup, though, is how the content matches the targeting conditions. It pushes related golf products only when someone opens the cart page with the primary golf product in the cart:

Since visitors already have a product in their cart, Cuddle Clones knows that it’s a great opportunity to cross-sell related products. 

To this end, their popup overlay’s copy uses a strong power word “best sellers” to encourage buyers to shop more. The “Complete Your Golf Collection” headline pushes further.

In short, this overlay popup is a great inspiration for understanding how you can use popups to drive sales—not just generate leads (as other examples show).

How to create a popup overlay

Convinced you need a popup overlay on your site? Good call.

With ConvertFlow you can quickly and effectively build and launch an overlay popup within minutes. The best part? You can start today using popup overlay templates that make the entire process a piece of cake.

All you’ve to do is:

1. Head to creating a CTA in the ConvertFlow dashboard.
2. Select the “Overlay CTA” type and click “See Templates” to select a template. If you prefer designing from scratch, choose “Create Blank CTA.”
3. Customize the template in the CTA Builder where you can edit the paragraph and CTA button text, design, form settings, and the headlines. Should you need to tweak the CTA width, head to “Settings” to change the width and pick a theme for your overlay popup.
4. In the same “Settings” tab, choose the overlay popup’s trigger setting. Select from exit-intent, scroll-point, time delay, on-click, or via a two-tap floating button.
5. Preview the popup next and hit “Launch.” Here you can control the targeting conditions—what pages your popup overlay surfaces on, which segment(s) it should show to, etc.

And you’re done! Learn how to set up an overlay popup in detail with this help guide, or watch this video if you prefer:

Now that you know how easy it is to launch popup overlays with ConvertFlow, we’ll leave you with a bunch of popup overlay templates to help you get started.

This way, all you’ve to do to create a popup is to customize the template and decide on who to show it to and on which page.

Try these templates now: