OptinX [review]
POS:
Easy to use, mobile responsive, solid conceptNEG:
Branded alert boxesToday I’m doing a review of a new software called OptinX You might have guessed by the image above that OptinX is a pop up builder. Well lets be honest, thats nothing new at all and you might be thinking to yourself ‘oh yay another pop up builder’. Frankly if that’s your first thought […]
Today I’m doing a review of a new software called OptinX
You might have guessed by the image above that OptinX is a pop up builder. Well lets be honest, thats nothing new at all and you might be thinking to yourself ‘oh yay another pop up builder’. Frankly if that’s your first thought don’t worry. It was mine as well. Fortunately there are a few things that set OptinX apart from other options out there. I will explain those in a second, but first, very briefly I want everyone to understand why pop ups are important
Perhaps the most common use for a pop up is to capture bounce traffic before they are lost to you. This is a issue that every site owner has and there are more solutions to it than you can shake a stick at. In fact I personally made a WordPress plugin to capture bounce traffic which I use on this site (you can check it out here). These kinds of pop ups are called ‘on exit’ or ‘exit intent’ popups. But there are several other kind as well.
Perhaps the second most common is the on load pop up. This is where a pop up shows as soon as the page loads. Now you might be asking. Why would anyone want to show a pop up as soon as the page loads? Well the answer is simple. Google will never index a squeeze page. That is squeeze pages do not rank well in the search engines. So what you do is create a well written article in your niche (which will rank) and then have an on load pop up that shows as soon as a real visitor comes to the site. This way Google is happy because they see a good article (so you get free organic traffic), but the people who visit the site see the optin first of all. This in essence makes your post a squeeze page, only this way you can get free SEO traffic which is something you will never get from a ‘normal’ squeeze page.
Another use for pop ups is the ‘two step’ style of pop up. Where you put a button or a text link in your post and that triggers the pop up. This can result in better conversions because people ahve made a ‘micro commitment’ by choosing to click your button or link in the first place.
These are just some of the uses for pop ups. There are many more. But the thing I want to get across to people is that pop ups, while not super sexy, are a tool that almost every smart website owner will be able to use. Also its important to understand that popups are not just limited to optins. While this is the most common use of pop ups they can be used for many other things. For updates and important notices, for coupon codes and discounts, and for links to special or time sensitive offers.
Ok so we know that popups can be a powerful took for webmasters but there are many options available for creating them. In the beginning of this post I said there are a few things that sets OptinX apart. So what are they?
Well first of all OptinX does all different kinds of pop ups. This is important because many tools are designed just to do on exit where as OptinX lets you create exit, exit intent, timed, and even two step pop ups. Basically all the options are covered.
Second of all OptinX is fully mobile responsive. Now you might thing that is a given, but the unfortunate truth is that a lot of pop up systems are not. The popups look bad on mobile devices, often getting cut off or clipped. These things can lead to a horrible user experience for people on a mobile device. I’m sure we have all gone to a website on our phones that had a pop up trigger which was not responsive only to find that you cant close the pop up because the close button is clipped off. Well what do you do then? You bounce away! With OptinX you don’t have to worry about this because the popups you build are fully responsive. There is a trade off on this though which I will cover in a minute.
Another thing that sets OptinX apart from other systems is its built in A/B split testing. While testing is not a super exciting subject the truth is that testing is an important aspect of anyone running an online business. Testing is the only way to fine tune your efforts and ensure you get the best results. With the OptinX A/B testing feature you can test one pop up vrs another to see which one gets the best results and make sure your not leaving leads or sales on the table.
The system is very easy to use and integrates with the major autoresonders (MailChimp, Aweber, GetResonse, ActiveCampaign) for lead generation. It also has the option to enter in your own custom form code if you do not use one of the autoresponders that it directly integrates with (such as my MailIt plugin).
No you might remember that I said that this allows you to build mobile responsive pop ups but that there was a trade off. Well I want to explain what that trade off is: this system is not drag and drop. In fact its not anything. What I mean is while you can edit the text, styling, colors, videos, etc of a popup. You can not edit its layout. OptinX comes with a bunch of different templates.
And while the elements of each template can be edited (and in some cases turned off) the style and layout cant be changed. You cant move or reposition elements. Now this might seem like a horrible limitation but its really not, and its actually kind of a requirement for a mobile responsive system. First I know, as a developer, that its not possible to create a fully drag and drop system that is mobile responsive. Also since there are a bunch of different templates, which can have their elements edited, its unlikely you will need a fully custom layout anyway. There is probably already a template that will suit your needs with just a few edits.
There is one thing about OptinX that I really did not care for though. And that is what happens when you make an optin pop up and people try to optin with invalid data. The system checks to make sure that they fill in the form data before they press the submit button, which is proper and expected, however the thing I do not like is what happens when it detects people left fields out or entered invalid info. It not only prevents the form from submitting but it also triggers a Javascript alert dialog box telling people this. The issue I have with this is that since this is a could based system the pop up is actually hosted on the OptinX servers, so the Javascript alert box says its coming from optinx.co.
This is not a ‘deal breaker’ or the end of the world or anything but this does kind of annoy me. I don’t want my site vistors seeing other website addresses (what can I say I’m selfish). Sure this will only happen when people try to submit the form without entering their info so its not going to happen much. But still I dont like it. I would have much preferred if they had the input field that is empty or not correct highlight red or something. To me, as a developer, this just feels like they took the easy way out. But then again I might just be being overly judgmental and a bit anal (software developers are known for being that way after all)
Overall I think OptinX is one of the better pop up builders I have seen. It works well and is very flexible in its functionality. I really like that it is mobile responsive and I really like that it can be used for a lot of things besides the ‘on exit’ bounce traffic catcher that most pop up builders are designed for. Remember as I said pop ups are not just for optins or bounce traffic. The smart web master can use them to draw attention, to offer a coupon or a special offer, and lots of other things. In fact, given its flexibility, I think they could have named this something different from OptinX. The name is to specific for a tool this functional.
Because this is a functional tool, based on a solid and proven concept (all the biggest sites use pop ups and have for a year, because they work) I’m going to say that this is something worth considering investing in for anyone who has a website.
Bonus: When you pick up OptinX you will also get access to these bonuses (right inside of the members area)
Click here to get OptinX and these bonuses (they are in the software members area).
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
Hey Brett,
This is the first time i have read one of your reviews that has no comments below:-) So I may be the first and only, well whatever, pleased to be here anyway, I value your reviews and have purchased some in the past based on them. Optinx looks great and I love the fact that it is mobile responsive, everything is mobile these days, so everything we include in our marketing should also be mobile. I love the idea of using Optinx as a mini squeeze page and advertisement for special offers/announcements as well as email capture, therefore /im going to buy it:-) Thank you so much Brett for your trustworthy reviews as always:-)
Ha! Yea OptinX did not get much interest. Its a shame to, because it really is a useful tool.
Hi Brett
I’m a happy buyer of OptinX and have started to play with. I really like a “one fee” solution is available, and the support team is also open to feature requests!
Setting up a new WP site, I ran into a problem between a plugin thrivethemes and the code I placed in my site header to load a popup from OptinX
I have been told the OptinX script loads an old version of jquery
directly into my site and it is against WordPress coding practices. As I am not that technical or know WordPress codex/coding practices, I wonder if you have an opinion and maybe more important, would guess if I should fear to expect problems in the future, if an old version of Jquery is loaded into my site?
Ultimately if the support teams behind the products above, would not be able to find a solution, I might be forced to choose between one of the products. Luckily both softwares seems to have good support teams.
Last but not least
Merry Christmas