OptinMonster

What the product is

OptinMonster is a lead-capture builder for people who already have website traffic and want more of it to turn into email subscribers and sales. Its FAQ calls it "a lead generation and conversion optimization platform that helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers using popups, floating bars, and targeted campaigns." Its forms appear as popups, floating bars, fullscreens, slide-ins and inline blocks, and the homepage leads with Exit-Intent campaigns, which show a message as a visitor is about to leave. It is aimed at marketers, store owners, bloggers, agencies and small businesses who run email marketing and do not want to hire a developer to add a signup form.

The footer names Retyp, LLC as the company, with a copyright running from 2013, and lists OptinMonster, Exit Intent, OnSite Retargeting and OnSite Follow Up Campaign as its registered trademarks. The homepage pitch is that the product sits in front of the email service you already pay for: "Your ESP is brilliant at sending emails. We are brilliant at converting your traffic." and "We don't replace your email tool".

What you build and how

Campaigns and templates. You build campaigns in a drag-and-drop builder, and the FAQ says no coding knowledge is needed. The homepage menu says "Pick From 700+ Templates!" and lists the campaign types: popups ("High-converting, timely overlays"), floating bars ("Sticky bars that stay without interrupting"), slide-ins, gamified campaigns ("Incentives that gamify drive conversions"), welcome mats (fullscreens) and inlines, described as "Embedded forms flow with content." Each one starts from a template you customize to your brand. This is the form-builder half of the product: a short lead-capture form, with the placement, timing and targeting of the campaign doing most of the work.

Display rules. Targeting is the core of the product, and a table on the homepage spells out the rules. Exit-Intent technology "automatically detects the exact second a user moves their cursor to leave your site or close a tab" and triggers a cart-saver offer or lead magnet. Page-level and category segmenting shows campaigns by page, URL pattern or category. OnSite Retargeting and loyalty triggers recognize returning visitors and show something new to people who already signed up. eCommerce rules display free shipping thresholds or cross-sells based on what's in the cart. Geo-location personalizes offers by where users live, and referral routing and behavioral targeting greet traffic from a specific partner link, query parameter, website or social platform, and can check cookies, logged-in users, distance scrolled, time on site and inactivity. The homepage adds scroll triggers, seasonal scheduling, countdown timers and MonsterLinks for bloggers.

Testing and revenue. The FAQ says you can "build and A/B test high-converting lead-capture forms without hiring a developer", and the homepage lists built-in A/B testing "with auto-winner promotion" for copy, design, timing and offers. Revenue Attribution "connects campaigns to real sales", so you can see which offers, pages and segments create buyers rather than just email addresses.

Who uses which part. The homepage splits the audience into 4 groups. eCommerce stores recover abandoning shoppers, grow a segmented list, promote offers and raise average order value. Bloggers and creators turn readers into subscribers with content-matched offers. Agencies manage campaigns across clients "with sub-accounts, role-based access, A/B testing, reusable assets, and revenue reporting." Small businesses launch campaigns without developers, designers or a conversion consultant.

Installation. The FAQ says OptinMonster "can be installed on WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and nearly every website platform on the internet." For anything else you add an embed code the same way you would add a Facebook or Google Analytics script. There is also a WordPress popup plugin, and the eCommerce rules name Shopify and WooCommerce.

Integrations. The FAQ says OptinMonster "connects natively with all major email marketing platforms and CRMs", and that the company integrates with every major email marketing service so lead generation never gets locked into one service. For niche setups there are "powerful workarounds": Zapier, Webhooks and Uncanny Automator. Developers get a Public API, which the page says suits developers building "enterprise-grade connections".

Pricing, guarantee and adoption

The FAQ answers "How much does OptinMonster cost?" with "An OptinMonster subscription starts as low as $7/month." It adds that there are both monthly and annual plans and "significant discounts for first-time customers". If you use the WordPress popup plugin, "you can even show your campaigns 500 times for FREE", which is a view allowance on the plugin rather than a free plan. Purchases carry a "14-Day Money Back Guarantee". Plan names and per-tier features sit behind a Find Your Plan link rather than on the homepage.

On scale, the homepage says "Trusted by over 1.2 million of the world's sharpest marketing minds" and "Join 1,213,437+ websites using OptinMonster to turn visitors into leads and sales." It calls OptinMonster the "#1 Lead Generation Tool". These are the company's claims.

The testimonials are specific. Michael Hyatt says the exit-intent popup "doubled my subscription rate immediately without annoying my users." Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, says "In only 7 months, we added more than 95,654 names to our email list". Loren Baker, founder of Search Engine Journal, reports "a 241% increase in newsletter signups", Adam Enfroy credits it with growing his list "from 0 to 11.3k" in his blog's first year, and Cole Joseph of Cole's Classroom says he increased sales "$55,000 after capturing nearly 7% more leads with a single optin". Each figure is that customer's own result as published by the company. The footer links a DPA and a GDPR page.

Who it suits and who it doesn't

OptinMonster suits a site owner who already has steady traffic and already uses email marketing. The homepage says as much: "If you have traffic and use email, this is built for you." A WordPress publisher, a Shopify or WooCommerce store or a small business on Squarespace or Wix can add campaigns without touching theme code, and the entry price of $7 a month keeps the experiment cheap. A marketing team that wants to A/B test lead capture and tie it to revenue will find the builder, display rules and attribution do that job, and an agency gets sub-accounts and role-based access for client work.

It is a poor match for anyone who wants a general form builder. The product is built around short lead-capture campaigns and their targeting, not multi-page surveys, payments or internal approval flows, so a team collecting job applications or running customer research will want a dedicated form tool. And without traffic or an email list, the tool has little to work on.