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No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

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71–80 of 221 posts

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#71
Instead of asking "Do you want to participate ..." ask one relevant question that actually has some value for you. And put one field for entering free information. If I'm in the mood, I could actually help you to develop your business/web site by providing some highly insightful information.

Can't see any value in these questionnaires, since the population who answers to them must be highly biased. If you spend many hours per day on web, there's probably a dedicated section in your brains scanning for clickable [X], "No thank you", "Close" entities on the view and giving direct commands to your mouse hand.

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#72

Publishers should approach everything from the point of view of a person on the street: if it wouldn’t be acceptable in real life, WHY is it acceptable online!? The equivalent of a pop-up newsletter modal is somebody on the street PULLING you aside, standing directly in front of you and preventing you from going any further until you answer their question. All without bothering to observe what you were doing beforeha…

I don't think the street analogy is accurate; it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in.

> it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in.

Which is exactly what many stores do, except on the way out (at the register.) They also tend to get pretty annoyed at you when you say "no thanks" to providing a number.

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#73

Yes it's annoying but they work: "sticking a big ole pop-up in their face can be one of the most effective ways to jolt their attention & grab their email for a return visit." Peep Laja. https://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw

I'm in the newsletter business (and don't use these modals out of principle) and the folks I chat to about it confirm the same - they work really well . But, I counter, so does spamming or making 10000s of automated phone calls.. and we've agreed those things are damaging and unethical - I agree with Dave, it's about time we as an industry considered full screen modals to be dirty and unwelcome.

Eh, in my experience spamming performs really poorly.

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#74
post #53

I made a add-on for myself to shun sites that behave in ways I don't like. It removes links to their sites from every page. It effectively removes them from the internet. I think that's a way scarier scenario for a website owner than just getting their ads blocked. If the list were community driven and widely used, I think site owners would start changing their behavior. I know most people just want the content and d…

Consensual, transparent censorship. Interesting.

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#75
post #39

From the perspective of crowdfunding 1. The crowdfunding sites themselves maintain HUGE newsletter lists and use very advanced analytics to determine what to place in those newsletters. 2. For campaigners, the size and activity of your email list is a huge factor in determining your campaign success. Just like this web tool https://www.thunderclap.it/about sending a direct email blast to a good list can mean the diff…

> Just like this web tool https://www.thunderclap.it/about This is not a "web tool", this is a spam tool. > Sometimes people do want to be notified. No they don't. > Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate [1] is both difficult and valuable. The web is a beautiful dream. It's being destroyed by people tha…

> > Just like this web tool [redacted]

> This is not a "web tool", this is a spam tool.

So let's not put the link in as many threads as possible!

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#76
post #9

This is what happens when you mindlessly optimise for metrics like user signups - not surprisingly, you get more signups when you block the content with an obnoxious modal but after a few years, you wonder where all your users went. How much value do you really get from a user who was forced to sign up with a gun to their head?

this, people are too worried about the size of their list as opposed to actual engagement. If they don't open your emails they're just costing you money with your ESP. If you have good content people will search hard for a way to get on your email list if necessary, i've done it before.

this is why it's good to require a credit card for a free trial. it will kill the top of your funnel but the bottom will actually get fatter because those who do sign up for the free trial actually want to demo your software.

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#77
> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave.

Firstly: most of these modals only show up on exit intent and only once per ~90 days (if you allow cookies), so this ultimatum is fairly hollow.

Secondly: do you value your pageview so highly that you think web publishers must respond to your demands? Are you paying these sites for their content/whatever else you're looking at? If not, then maybe clicking out of a modal once per 90 days is a fair price to pay for whatever it is that you're looking at.

Thirdly: as you mention, the reason these modals are all over the place is that they work. Fortunately, all highly-effective marketing tactics get repeated perpetually until consumers become immune to them...that will surely happen here, you might just need to wait a bit longer.

should note that, like @petecooper below/above, I'm in the newsletter business and don't use these modals. But I also see no reason why people who want to use them shouldn't use them

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#79

No, I don't want to chat with someone either. So please stop beeping at me and popping up a chat modal.

I think the chat boxes are wonderful idea; I've used them more than once to ask quick questions.

The beeping and popping up of some stock image with a 'nice' name is incredibly annoying though.

Re: No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

#80
post #47

Yes, I want to subscribe to your newsletter! Automatically with a browser plugin, with an address that will even accept your mails. Unfortunately no human will read them in the end, but I'm sure your metrics will be great. I might even accept a cookie so you know I'm already subscribed to your great newsletter. Now if everybody were to do that...

Just imagine a plugin that searches the page for emails and subscribes their email to themselves. PS, when forced to give an email (like 5 min ago for this Wifi) just use @mailinator.com with anything prepended.

I never heard of this one; pretty neat!
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