Website Popups for Your B2B Business: Tips and Examples

Sam Poole Last updated on: February 14, 2025

Website popups have become a staple for B2B digital marketing teams, delivering opportunities for businesses to capture visitor attention, generate leads, and drive audience engagement. 

These interactive elements appear on your visitors’ screens, prompting them with information, offers, and more. They have proven to be an effective marketing tool in the B2B environment. When applied correctly, website popups can help facilitate more personalized brand experiences, creating a deeper connection with your target audience.

This article aims to guide B2B marketers in effectively leveraging website popups. We’ll explore various types of popups, their benefits, best practices, and examples to ensure that your popup strategy enhances visitor engagement and contributes to your overall marketing goals.

What is a website popup for B2B businesses?

A website popup for a B2B company is a dialogue box that appears on the B2B business’s website when a visitor browses the site, often overlaying the other web page content to make it more prominent. B2B businesses may employ website popup strategies to generate leads, optimize conversions, or engage with their audience.

6 types of B2B website popups

We’ve all experienced the sudden appearance of a smaller window while browsing a website. But have you noticed that you can trigger a popup in different ways? That’s because there are various types of website popups.

Your B2B business may decide to set up a popup on a specific webpage for various reasons—It all depends on what you want to achieve with the website popup. Understanding some of the more common website popup types will give you a better idea of what you can use for your campaign.

Here are some of the usual suspects in the world of popup types and how you might get the most from them.

1. Timed popups

Timed or entry popups are set to appear after a visitor has spent some time on your website. The idea is to enhance engagement with the visitor, but if they pop up too soon or too often, they can lead to a poor user experience.

When determining the right popup timing, start with a setting between 30 and 90 seconds after a visitor arrives on the page. Then, use Google Analytics to gauge the average session duration and refine this timing. Remember to segment pop-up settings by device type for a better user experience.

2. Exit-intent popups

Exit-intent or exit popups are highly effective tools that reveal themselves when visitors indicate they’re about to leave your website. The goal is to encourage visitor engagement before they leave without interrupting their browsing experience. 

This website popup type typically achieves a conversion rate of 2% to 4%, making it one of the most effective B2B popup types. To maximize their effectiveness, offer visitors a compelling incentive, like a free consultation tailored to the visitor’s interests. Personalizing the exit-intent popup design, like mimicking a chat box, can also enhance user engagement.

3. Click-activated popups

One of the most common B2B website popup strategies involves using click-activated popups. A click-activated popup shows up on your web page when a visitor clicks a specific button, like a “Get a Quote” call to action (CTA) button. When this popup appears, it indicates that your website visitor is interested in your products or services. It’s also less intrusive than timed popups, which call for active engagement from the visitor. 

Click-activated popups also keep users on the same page, potentially increasing conversion rates. They can be strategically placed on key call-to-action buttons throughout the site for maximum effectiveness.

4. Persistent popups

A persistent popup stays visible throughout a visitor’s browsing session and is usually positioned in the corner of the screen. Chatbots and live chat tools are perfect examples of this popular type of popup, encouraging user engagement and giving your team the opportunity to generate and nurture leads.

5. Scroll-triggered popups

Scroll-triggered or scroll popups appear after a website visitor scrolls down to a specific part of the webpage. They’re a great way to target users who have engaged with your content for a while and can result in higher conversion rates. 

That said, scroll-triggered popups can sometimes feel intrusive to the visitor, particularly when they interrupt the reader experience—like detracting the reader from a blog post mid-sentence. Due to this potential disruption, scroll-triggered popups are less popular than other popup types.

6. Welcome mat popups

Welcome mat popups appear when visitors first land on your website, typically promoting a special offer. A common example is the 10% and 15% off offers you receive for a newsletter signup when first visiting an online store.

A welcome mat popup offers you a chance to communicate an important message to new visitors quickly and is often incredibly effective for converting new visitors.

Benefits of website popups for B2B companies

Are website popups essential as part of an integrated marketing strategy? The short answer is yes! In fact, your B2B business can enjoy several notable benefits associated with effective popup placement, including:

• Enhanced lead generation: Your popup can include required fields for information like name and email address to gather lead contact information in exchange for an offer.
• Improved audience engagement: A strategically placed popup, chatbot, or live chat can encourage your visitors to sign up or contact you for more information, increasing visitor engagement and selling opportunities.
• Better information delivery: Your website popups are prime real estate for communicating important information to visitors, like new features, upcoming events, product changes, etc.
• Enriched audience targeting: Used correctly, website popups can help you gather the information you need to better understand your audience for enhanced segmentation, which can help you create more personalized messaging for improved targeting.
• Higher conversion rates: Getting your messages front and center when visitors engage with your website is a great way to increase your chances of getting them to act, leading to better conversion rates related to your campaign goals.
• Increased sales revenue: More leads and conversions mean you’ll have an opportunity to engage with and nurture more prospects and close more deals.

Best practices for creating effective B2B popups

Website popups have been a popular marketing tool for B2B businesses for several years. Over the years, marketers have tested and refined their approach for the best results. Today, we’re spoiled with a list of proven best practices to help you get your popup campaign off to a great start.

Here are some of the most critical popup campaign factors to consider, according to experienced expert marketers:

• Timing: Consider when and how often your popup should be revealed to your visitor, and try to avoid having it appear the moment the visitor lands on your page.
• Placement: Think about where it would be most advantageous to display your popup for the best user experience, such as centered, to the left or right, or in the corner of the screen.
• Engaging design: Make sure your popup is aesthetically appealing, unique, and stands out from the rest of your page content to ensure visitors notice it.
• Clear and simple: Keep your popup content concise and to the point, ensuring your offer is clear and 
• Strong call to action: To encourage more conversions, ensure your website popup call-to-action (CTA) button is easy for visitors to find.
• User benefits: Clearly stipulate the benefits visitors can look forward to if they take the desired action in your popup.
• Test and adjust: Monitor and test your popup’s results regularly, optimizing as you gain further insights to ensure it elicits as many leads and conversions as possible.

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Strategies for using popups in B2B marketing

Right. You know the different types of popups you can use for your marketing campaign and the essential elements to consider to ensure your campaign is successful. Now it’s time to figure out what you’ll use your chosen website popup for, and the end goal of your campaign should be the deciding factor.

For instance, if you want to increase sales of a particular product, you may want to run a promotional popup campaign. Or, if you’d like to get more people to attend your webinar, you could set up a webinar awareness and signup campaign using popups.

Here are a few ideas to consider when adding website popups to enhance your marketing campaign efforts:

• Lead magnet popup: Set up a popup to offer your visitors valuable digital downloads, such as eBooks, whitepapers, free tools, and case studies, in exchange for their names and email addresses.
• Software demo popup: Encourage more software sign-ups or downloads by allowing visitors to sign up for a personalized or group software demonstration when they reach a specific point on your software feature web page.
• Event registration popup: Increase webinar registrations for your upcoming event and accumulate more leads by adding a popup banner to your website to promote the webinar and offer an easy way to register.
• Newsletter signup popup: B2B businesses looking for more newsletter subscribers can employ a newsletter signup website popup to optimize subscription conversions and generate more leads.
• Special offer popup: Encourage more purchases and generate leads by initiating a discount on a specific product or group of products in a popup and asking visitors to provide contact information to unlock the discount.
• Informational popup: While an informational popup can be used to gather lead contact details, its primary objective is to inform visitors about a product, service, event, or change that may interest them.
• Survey popup: Get valuable feedback from your visitors with survey popups to better understand them and improve your offerings and marketing efforts.
• Engagement popup: Use an online chat popup to allow website visitors to engage with your team, enhancing the brand experience and encouraging conversion.

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Examples of successful B2B popups

Need some more B2B website popup strategy inspiration? We’ve got some great popup examples to share that could provide you with some game-changing ideas for your next campaign.

Engagement website popup example: Nutshell

Nutshell is an industry-leading all-in-one CRM solution with robust sales, marketing, and engagement tools for businesses. When you visit the Nutshell home page, you’re greeted by a striking, impactful, above-the-fold page design with a Nutshell Chat tool in the bottom right-hand corner.

This web chat popup doesn’t detract from the design and information on the page, and there’s an option to minimize the chat if needed. The Nutshell online chat popup lets visitors interact with real customer support and sales team members during office hours. After hours, visitors can complete a short form to send a message to the team for a response when they’re back online.

It’s a distinctive popup, yet simple and clear in design, and offers a great way for Nutshell to generate new leads and provide potential customers with a great service experience.

Lead magnet website popup example: WordStream

Frequent WordStream website visitors will be familiar with seeing popups offering valuable eBooks, whitepapers, and report content. This example showcases WordStream’s latest Google Ads Benchmarks report, and the site employs a double popup strategy to ensure they get their audience’s attention.

When you land on one of their articles, you’re met with a popup banner at the top of the page, clearly and concisely encouraging you to get the free Google Ads Benchmarks report. As you scroll, WordStream reveals a larger, more obvious popup roughly halfway down the page.

The popup is bold in color and design, with very clear messaging. It simply tells you about the report and provides a conspicuous button to click on to get the report. Once clicked, you’re taken to another web page to complete a form with all your contact information, allowing WordStream to email the report to you.

This clever lead magnet email approach ensures that users input accurate contact information when completing the web form, ensuring WordStream can add you to their mailing list to contact later.

Promotional website popup example: Cin7

In this example, inventory management software company Cin7 uses popups to promote a discount on its AI product, ForesightAI. The popup appears the moment you land on the Cin7 website homepage, dimming the homepage content behind it and displaying a cool, crisp popup design with just the right amount of information on it.

Although placing a popup on your website homepage isn’t common practice or recommended, website visitors aren’t likely to mind, given the amount of potential savings offered. To put this odd popup timing and placement into perspective, Cin7 offers prospective buyers a whopping 50% off ForesightI for the first 3 months. That’s a massive saving!

Some may argue that placing this popup slightly lower on the page or on the site’s features page instead would be wiser—and, in many ways, I agree. Despite taking the gamble, Cin7 has ensured that visitors can still read the above-the-fold homepage content behind the popup, which provides some very useful information for potential buyers.

Boost visitor engagement with Nutshell Chat popups

In today’s competitive B2B business landscape, engaging your website visitors effectively is crucial for driving conversions and nurturing leads. One powerful tool to enhance this engagement is Nutshell Chat. 

Nutshell Chat seamlessly integrates with your website to create meaningful interactions with potential customers. With it, you can allow visitors to initiate conversations directly through a customizable chat widget tailored to reflect your brand’s identity. Managing chat threads is effortless, letting you view, assign, and track conversations within your Engagement Inbox. 

Incorporating Nutshell Chat into your marketing and engagement strategy gives you the power to elevate your visitor interactions from popups to meaningful conversations. It’s the ideal way to drive better conversion rates and foster stronger relationships with your audience. 

Embrace the opportunity to level up your visitor engagement and transform your website into a dynamic platform for customer connection with Nutshell Chat. Sign up for a free trial today, or contact our team of experts to discuss your B2B business goals and needs.

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