Playbook summary
Provide a discount or other first-time offer to new visitors in exchange for subscribing to your email and SMS lists. But, capture details over two popup steps so you don't overwhelm people by asking for too much info in one go.
- Industry:Ecommerce
- Metrics affected:List Growth
- Campaign type:Popups
Tools you'll need
- ConvertFlow
- Email marketing software
- SMS marketing software
Quick setup
- Trigger: Time-delay (3-5 secs)
- Content: Enticing offer, usually a discount
- Call-to-action: Enter email & phone number over two steps
- Targeting: Show everywhere; If visitor hasn't already subscribed
Asking for a phone number tends to yield fewer conversions vs. email alone. But, this doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice your email list in order to do SMS marketing.
Instead, utilize a two-step popup strategy that:
- Secures an email address on the initial step
- Offers an added incentive in exchange for a phone number on step two
This means you get the best of both the email and SMS worlds, without sacrificing conversions at any point in the process.
In this playbook, we walk you through how to launch one of these two-step welcome offer popups on your store using ConvertFlow.
Step 1: The offer
A standard 10% discount might work well for you. But, you could end up missing out on conversions because it’s not enticing enough.
Typical offer types you can try:
- Dollars off
- X% discount
- Buy X get X
- Gifts and bonus products
- Free shipping
- Bundling products together
- Extended trial periods
- Combinations of the above
Whichever option you go for, make sure to think about unit economics, too. Your offer should be enticing—but still needs to be profitable and leave you cash flow positive.
SEE MORE: How Nectar Sleep Crafts Compelling (& Profitable) Offers
Step 2: The creative
Once you know the offer you’re going to run, it’s as simple as choosing a template and customizing it to your brand style.
Here are a few suggestions for this campaign type:
Popup step 1
This is our email step. Simply customize the offer and form to your liking by editing text, imagery, etc. directly inside ConvertFlow’s drag-and-drop builder.
You can also set color and font styles for all kind of elements at a global level (so it repeats on all other steps through the popup) using the “Theme” tab:

Popup step 2
This is our SMS collection step. Most of the templates we recommend will have this step built-in and ready to edit.
But, if you’re using a different template, you can simply head to the “Steps” tab in the builder’s side panel and either duplicate a step or add a new blank one:

You’ll then be able to customize the design and copy however you like.
Thank you step
Most stores abandon their visitors at this point and simply hope they go open an email or SMS message to get their promo code.
Instead, use your popup’s thank you step to direct shoppers to the right place.
Three great options:
- Embed your code into the step (the very least you can do)
- Recommend best-sellers in the step
- Push towards a recommendation quiz to help people choose a product
For example, your thank you step could be as simple as this:

There’s no point allowing visitors to leave and hoping they come back after completing a welcome offer popup. Keep them on your store and get them shopping!
Step 3: The technical setup
We have the offer and the creative all sorted for our two-step welcome popup. Now it’s time to hook it all up from a back-end point of view.
There are three parts to this:
- The trigger
- Button actions
- Automations
1. The trigger
You can choose from a range of options when it comes to what triggers your popup to display:
- Exit-intent
- Time-delay
- Scroll-point
- On-click
- Floating button
For this welcome offer, we recommend using a time delay of between 3-5 seconds. Just go to the “Settings” tab in the builder’s side panel and select from the dropdown:

2. Button actions
Most templates will have these set up automatically. However, if you’re adding extra steps, you’ll want to make sure people get directed to the right place after completing each step.
Click on the form in each step and open the “Confirmation Actions” modal from within the side panel:

Then, make sure the default action sends visitors to the correct step upon completing the form. E.g. the email form on step one directs to step two on submission, the SMS form on step two directs to step three on submission, etc.
3. Automations
Automations is what we’ll use to send each person’s contact details over to your email and SMS marketing provider.
Still in the “Confirmation Actions” modal, click the “New integration” button at the top and follow the steps to connect the email and/or SMS tools you use:

Note: If you’ve already added at least one integration to ConvertFlow, you’ll see a “Manage integrations” button here instead.
Once you’ve connected your tools, come back to the modal and add an automation to subscribe people to the relevant list.
So, for the email step, you might want to add people to a Klaviyo newsletter list:

Repeat this by adding an automation on every other relevant step. Your SMS form automation, for example, might include subscribing to an Attentive or Postscript list:

You can add as many automations here as you like. So, you can subscribe people a specific list while also (depending on the integration) adding tags or updating custom properties.
Step 4: The targeting
The technical and creative side of the popup is now set up. All that’s left to do now is ensure it gets shown to only the right people.
For a welcome offer like this, we want to make sure it only shows to people who aren’t already subscribed to our list.
To do this, head to the final “Launch” step in ConvertFlow:

Then, add a targeting condition to show this popup only if they are NOT an identified contact:

Alternatively, you can target using the data in your email tool. For example, only show if someone is NOT yet subscribed to a specific list in Klaviyo, Postscript, or Attentive, etc.
Set the popup live
Now you simply need to activate your popup and set it live!
Make this happen by toggling the switch while still on the final “Launch” step we set the targeting conditions on:

If you’ve already got the ConvertFlow pixel installed on your website, the popup will now start showing!
First-time ConvertFlow users will be prompted to install the pixel. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to get this done in a few clicks.