Popups work best when they feel like a relevant part of the visit, not an obstacle to it. Four examples—Uber, Men’s Health, Negative Underwear, and General Assembly—illustrate practical ways to make a popup more considerate: serve a secondary audience, wait for engagement, write in the brand’s voice, or pair an offer with useful preference questions. These are examples described by Aja Frost in a SitePoint article published September 17, 2015, and marked updated November 6, 2024; they are not a current audit of those companies’ websites.
What makes a popup feel useful rather than intrusive?
A popup interrupts the page, so its value depends on more than the offer it contains. The message should fit the visitor’s likely needs, arrive at a sensible moment, explain what happens if they respond, and be easy to dismiss. Frequency matters too: a visitor who has declined should not have to close the same prompt repeatedly.
The four examples below show different ways to address those concerns. Frost’s article offers illustrations and recommendations, not controlled results proving that any one design increases signups or sales.
Four popup examples and what they demonstrate
| Example | Approach described | Practical lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Uber | A small prompt invited visitors to become drivers while the homepage primarily addressed riders. | Use a restrained prompt to reach a secondary audience without displacing the main page’s purpose; remember dismissal. |
| Men’s Health | A free sex-tips offer appeared after five to ten seconds, with a close choice framed as rejecting the offer. | Allow time for engagement, but make the close action neutral and respectful rather than pressuring visitors. |
| Negative Underwear | Newsletter copy matched the brand’s minimalist voice and promised selective news rather than frequent sales messages. | State what subscribers will receive and make the invitation sound consistent with the surrounding brand. |
| General Assembly | An offer-code popup also asked which courses interested visitors and what city they lived in, to tailor later emails. | Ask only for information that can make follow-up more relevant to the visitor. |
Uber: address a second audience without taking over
Frost describes Uber’s homepage as chiefly aimed at riders, with a small prompt inviting visitors to drive. The example illustrates a problem common to two-sided marketplaces: the same service must attract both customers and suppliers, but the homepage cannot give equal prominence to every audience at once.
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A restrained slide-in or top- or bottom-of-page prompt can make the secondary path visible while leaving the main message intact. In the account, dismissing Uber’s prompt kept it from reappearing until browsing data was cleared. The broader usability lesson is to remember a dismissal so someone who has declined is not interrupted again on every page.
Men’s Health: wait for engagement, not just a page load
The article describes a free sex-tips popup appearing after a visitor had spent five to ten seconds on the site. That delay gives a visitor a chance to begin engaging with the content before the signup request appears. The article does not report a measured signup result for this timing.
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It also describes a close option worded as rejecting the offer. That kind of negative-choice copy can make a visitor feel judged or pressured. A clear, neutral close label—such as “No thanks”—preserves the choice without implying that declining is foolish or undesirable.
Negative Underwear: make the promise sound like the brand
Frost presents the brand’s signup language as an example of minimalist copy that promises selective news rather than a stream of sales messages. The important point is not to imitate a particular style, but to make the invitation feel like it belongs on the site and set expectations about the messages a subscriber will receive.
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Before asking for an email address, explain the practical terms that matter to the visitor: the type of content or offers to expect, and, where known, the sending frequency. Avoid promises the business cannot reliably keep.
General Assembly: connect a promotion to relevant follow-up
The described offer-code popup paired a promotion with questions about which courses interested a visitor and which city they lived in. The stated purpose was to make later emails more relevant. This can benefit both sides: a visitor gets information related to their interests, while the sender can avoid treating every subscriber as if they wanted the same thing.
Preference questions are useful only when answers affect the follow-up. Keep the request proportionate to the offer, explain why the information is being collected, and do not ask for details that will not improve the experience.
How to apply these ideas to a popup
- Choose one clear audience and purpose. Decide whether the prompt is meant to reach a distinct visitor group, collect newsletter signups, or help tailor later messages. Do not make the visitor infer why it appeared.
- Choose a trigger that respects context. Consider a delay or an engagement-based trigger rather than appearing immediately on page load. The five-to-ten-second delay is the timing in the Men’s Health example, not a universal benchmark.
- Make dismissal easy and durable. Use an understandable close control and, where appropriate, remember that choice so the same prompt does not keep returning during the visit or across visits.
- State the exchange plainly. Tell visitors what they receive for signing up, what future messages are about, and any relevant frequency commitment.
- Collect only useful preferences. Ask a question only if its answer will shape a more relevant message or experience. Make the reason for asking apparent.
- Check the experience on small screens. Keep the message readable, the close control accessible, and the page’s primary content usable. A popup that blocks the task a visitor came to complete undermines the value of even a good offer.
- Evaluate behavior rather than assuming success. Track relevant outcomes such as completed signups, offer use, dismissal, and whether visitors continue their intended task. Compare designs under consistent conditions before treating a change as an improvement.
What these examples do—and do not—prove
The four cases are useful as design illustrations: a secondary-audience prompt, a delayed invitation, brand-aligned signup copy, and preference questions tied to follow-up. They do not establish which approach performs best, whether the described popups remain in use, or whether any specific wording caused more conversions. Treat them as ideas to adapt and test with your own audience, not as guaranteed results.
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