Timed free-quote popup on blog posts: +72% relevant blog leads
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsBroomberg added a popup offering a free consultation and quote to its blog posts, and relevant blog leads rose 72%.
Broomberg's own marketing team ran it with Unbounce popups, and it was published as an Unbounce customer story.
This is a before-and-after comparison of two-month periods, not a split test.
- Relevant blog leads: +72% in September and October 2017 versus July and August 2017, before popups were used.
- From October to December 2017, popup leads made up 27% of painting leads and 23% of flooring leads.
- A scroll-triggered version was tried first and dropped, because readers scrolled up and down the page.
The change
Inline blog form replaced by a timed one-field free-quote popup
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Blog posts about painting and floor restoration had a contact form embedded in the article text. Few readers noticed or used it.
Variant
A popup appeared after 100 seconds offering a free consultation and quote. It had a single phone number field and a photo of the salesperson who would do the site visit.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Readers were focused on the article, and an inline form was easy to miss. A popup is hard to overlook.
- The 100-second timer was set just under the average 2 minutes on page, catching readers before they left without breaking their reading too early.
- Asking only for a phone number keeps the effort tiny, which suits a mostly mobile audience (87% of blog traffic).
- A named salesperson's photo makes a home visit feel more personal and less like a sales pitch.
Caveats: This compares two-month periods before and after the change, not a split test, so seasonality and traffic shifts are not controlled. The popup also changed the offer framing and form length at the same time.
Who ran it
Broomberg ran this test for floor restoration and painting services company and published the results (Unbounce customer story). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Broomberg →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we show a one-field free-quote popup to blog readers shortly before their average time on page runs out, then more readers will become leads because the offer is visible at the moment they are most engaged.
- Primary metric
- Qualified leads from blog traffic
- Guardrails
- Blog bounce rate
- Lead-to-booked-visit rate
- Organic rankings for the posts
- Who should test it
- Local service businesses that get organic traffic to how-to or research content. It fits less well if readers arrive ready to buy on service pages, or if most of your traffic is short visits.
Questions
When should a blog popup appear?
Broomberg set it just before the average time on page, at 100 seconds of about 120. That gave readers time to engage without letting most leave first.
Do exit-intent popups work on mobile?
Exit intent relies on mouse movement and works best on desktop.
With mostly mobile traffic, Broomberg chose a timer instead.
How many fields should a lead popup have?
As few as you can work with. Broomberg used only a phone number, which had worked well for them before.