Advanced Strategies for Scaling Your Email List Growth

Hey it’s Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

Most ecommerce brands sleep on pop-ups.

They slap on a generic “10% OFF” form, call it a day, and assume that’s all they can get from their website traffic.

Big mistake.

Last month alone, one platform helped brands generate $150M in sales and collect 8 million emails just through better pop-up strategy.

I sat down with Sean, the founder of Alia, a tool that does nothing but build and optimize high-converting pop-ups for ecommerce brands. In our conversation, he broke down exactly what’s working right now and why most brands are leaving huge money on the table.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the conversation:

Most Pop-Ups Underperform Badly

Default forms on platforms like Klaviyo or Shopify usually convert around 3% of website traffic into email subscribers. That means 97% of your hard-earned traffic is bouncing without a trace.

But with just a few smart tweaks, you can get those forms converting at 9% or more.

That’s 3x the subscribers, and 3x the long-term revenue—, rom the same traffic you’re already paying for.

The Psychology of Micro-Commitments

Asking a question before you ask for the email is shown makes a massive difference.

Something simple like “What are you shopping for today?” or “Who are you buying for?” creates a moment of interaction that increases opt-in rate significantly.

Only after someone answers the question do you ask for their email.

Here’s why it works:

• Commitment bias: Once someone answers a question, they’re more likely to keep going.

• Personalization effect: It feels more relevant to them.

• Curiosity: It stands out from the boring “Get 10% off” pop-ups everyone else uses.

In tests, forms with a micro-commitment step regularly see 40–50% interaction rates on the first step alone.

Smarter Offers (That Don’t Kill Your Margins)

Sean broke down some simple rules around offer structure:

• If you’re offering less than 15% off, frame it as a mystery discount. It tends to outperform showing the number.

• If your AOV is over $100, use dollar-off instead of percent-off.

• If you don’t want to discount at all, try positioning early access, bundles, or free shipping thresholds as the incentive.

They’ve seen opt-in rates as high as 16% using nothing but well-framed, non-discounted offers.

Personalization Wins

The top-performing brands use pop-ups that:

• Change visuals based on gender selection

• Send users to specific product pages based on what they’re shopping for

• Dynamically update messaging based on source (e.g., UTM links from affiliates)

Pop-Ups Don’t Hurt Conversion. They Boost It.

A lot of brands worry that pop-ups will annoy customers or hurt their site conversion rates.

Reality? Hostage Tape (an Alia client) ran a test and found that adding a pop-up increased their sitewide CVR by 15%.

Even customers who close it right away are more likely to buy just knowing a discount exists somewhere on the site helps them feel more in control of the purchase.

MUCH MUCH MORE

These are just a few of the key insights from my conversation with Shaan.

Watch the full convo here: https://youtu.be/pZBZxxFlSuc?si=gEYNgiDTKUa1GkPV 

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max

PS - If you run a 7-9 figure ecommerce brand and you want to have a free email strategy consultation, book a call here »

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