2 builders who never spoke to each other

Trade an interaction for the address

A poll, a quiz, a saveable article or a small game gives the visitor a reason to act at the moment they are already engaged, which converts better than a sidebar form and gets cheaper as paid acquisition gets dearer. What they clicked also tells you what to send them next.

The method

1. 01

   Put a small interactive experience on the site as the email capture mechanism, since paid acquisition keeps getting dearer.

2. 02

   Embed an interactive email capture inside the article itself, such as a poll that trades an answer for an address, instead of relying on a sidebar signup.

3. 03

   Offer a save-for-later button on articles as an email capture, then segment what you send by the topics each person saved.

What it returned

• 100

  A poll-to-email widget Zue built into his guide added about 100 new mailing list subscribers.

• The New York Times collects addresses through Wordle, Austin Belcak runs a spin-to-win popup on Cultivated Culture, and Yeezy Gap layered a virtual game onto its online store.

• Hearst still ran this a year after Glen Allsopp first flagged it, on Elle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire plus Delish and Country Living, though not on every brand; the segmentation is his suggestion rather than something he can confirm they do.

Sources

• How 16 Companies are Dominating the World's Google Search Results (2024 Edition) - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · Hearst’s ‘Save Article’ Feature is Still in Place and Probably Drives a Lot of New Email Subscriptions · 2023-03-07
• Conversion Rate Optimization: Social Proof, User-Generated Content, HeadlinesDru Riley · trends.vc · 🔮 Predictions · 2022-09-01
• Holy Crap!Cory Zue · coryzue.com · Publish “Modern JavaScript for Django Developers” Part 5: A+ · 2021-12-02