Mystery discount sign-up popup: sign-ups 7% to 13.8%
Test run byOptiMonkTesting and CRO tool
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsReplacing a flat 10% off email popup with a mystery discount offer nearly doubled Vegetology's sign-up rate, from 7% to 13.8%, and the store's ecommerce conversion rate rose 21%.
OptiMonk's team made these changes for the vegan supplements brand and published them as a case study.
Three changes shipped together, along with a switch of popup tool, so the gain can't be credited to the mystery discount alone.
- Popup sign-up rate: 7% to 13.8%, close to double.
- Ecommerce conversion rate: +21%, which the source links to the extra subscribers.
- Bundled change: mystery offer, monthly headline, sticky teaser and new tool all came together.
The change
Flat 10% off becomes a monthly mystery discount, plus a sticky teaser.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A Klaviyo popup offered new visitors a flat 10% off in exchange for their email address.
Variant
An OptiMonk popup offered a mystery discount with the current month in the headline, such as "February special". A sticky teaser stayed on screen after the popup was closed.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A hidden discount makes people curious enough to sign up just to see what they get.
- A month in the headline makes the offer feel timely, without anyone updating it by hand.
- The sticky teaser gave visitors who closed the popup a second chance to sign up later.
- More subscribers getting a discount code likely fed the conversion gain.
Caveats: This was a bundle of three changes plus a tool switch, and the source does not say whether it was a split test or a before/after comparison. Sample size and duration were not shared.
Who ran it
OptiMonk ran this test for Vegetology and published the results (OptiMonk case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on OptiMonk →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we replace our flat percentage-off sign-up popup with a mystery discount, then more visitors will sign up because curiosity pulls harder than a known, ordinary offer.
- Primary metric
- Popup sign-up rate
- Guardrails
- Ecommerce conversion rate
- Average discount per order
- Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it
- Stores with a standard 10% welcome popup and an average sign-up rate. Test the mystery offer on its own first, so you know which change did the work. Shoppers who dislike gimmicks may react badly if the reveal feels small.
Questions
What is a mystery discount popup?
It hides the size of the discount until the visitor signs up.
The curiosity can lift sign-ups compared with a plain, known offer.
What is a sticky teaser?
A small tab that stays on screen after a visitor closes a popup. Clicking it reopens the offer.
Is a 7% popup sign-up rate good?
The source called it average. Here, the new popup reached 13.8%.
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