# Center-screen takeover beat bottom bars for newsletter sign-ups

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Site-wide (Lead-gen)
- Elements: Popup, Email capture
- Date shared: 2015
- Test run by: [Golf Channel](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/golf-channel/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/golf-channel-increases-database-size
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/golf-channel-newsletter-lightbox-format/

Golf Channel found that a center-screen takeover overlay drove more newsletter sign-ups than bars or corner boxes along the bottom of the screen. No figures were shared. Golf Channel ran the tests itself, and they were published as a MarketingSherpa case study.

## Result

**Center takeover overlay performed best**

- Newsletter sign-ups: the center takeover performed best of the formats tested. No numbers were given.
- Bottom bars: dropped after the data showed weaker results.
- Context: across the wider effort, which also included shorter forms and Facebook sign-ups, the list grew 32% in a year. That figure is not from this test alone.

## Control

Newsletter sign-up lightboxes appeared as bars along the bottom of the screen or as boxes aligned to the bottom corner, staying in view as people scrolled.

## Variant

A takeover overlay in the middle of the screen asked visitors to enter their email to get the newsletter.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- A center overlay is hard to miss. Golf Channel put the win down to its higher visibility.
- Bottom bars and corner boxes are easy to scroll past while reading an article.
- The form asked only for an email address, so a more visible prompt was quick to act on.

## Caveats

No sign-up figures, sample sizes or test lengths were shared. The lightbox was shown only to first-time visitors of a media site, and the data dates from 2014-2015.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we show our newsletter sign-up as a center-screen overlay instead of a bottom bar, then more first-time visitors will subscribe because the offer is more visible.
- Primary metric: Newsletter sign-up rate per first-time visitor
- Guardrail: Bounce rate
- Guardrail: Pages per session
- Guardrail: Mobile usability and search penalties for intrusive pop-ups
- Who should test it: Content and lead-gen sites that grow an email list from article readers. Be careful on mobile, where full-screen pop-ups can annoy readers and may hurt search rankings.

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Credit: Golf Channel ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/golf-channel-newsletter-lightbox-format/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.