Today, I’m going to review this new Pop-up creator, PopUp Monkey.
However, before I do, I think it’s only fair to begin explaining why anyone would want to create pop-ups for their website in the first place, and also what differentiates a good pop-up creator from a bad one.
Most people are of one opinion or another when it comes to pop-ups.
On the one side, you have the web-surfer who is often agitated by pop-ups because they are most likely blocking the view of some content he or she is attempting to enjoy.
On the other side, you have web publishers, like you and me, who are desperately trying to draw the attention of visitors in a certain direction.
Then why, with all of the neat tools at a publisher’s disposal, would any of us choose something as controversial as a pop-up?
The answer is simple.
When pop-ups work, they really work well.
Despite the fact that visitors often find them annoying; when it comes to generating profit, building brand recognition, or getting a visitor to take action, nothing works better than pop-ups.
Pop-ups work so well (as high as 300% more conversions) that almost all nationally recognized websites use them.
Unfortunately, most small to medium sized businesses don’t normally get access to the worlds best coders and therefore their pop-ups don’t function as well as they should, causing the publisher heartache rather than allowing them to reach their potential.
For instance, many “so-called” pop-up solutions available to small and medium businesses create pop-ups that are often blocked by their visitor’s browser. So the message they are trying to get across to their visitor is never seen.
Worse yet, almost all of the off-the-shelf solutions that you and I can purchase will totally crash our sites when viewed through mobile devices.
This last point is particularly irksome, as every marketing study posted in the last few years tells us that “mobile” is where the largest percentage of income can be earned.
Furthermore, most of the off-the-shelf solutions that I have tried in the past, did not work as well as described (exhibiting the flaws mentioned above) but they were also a nightmare to configure out-of-the-box, leaving me to wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off trying to code my own pop-ups from scratch.
Therefore, before I begin my review on PopUp Monkey, let me describe what I would consider the perfect pop-up solution, and then we’ll discuss whether or not PopUp Monkey met, failed to meet, or exceeded my expectations.
I’ve created a bullet list of things you should look for in any Pop-up solution.
• It should be easy to set up
• It should look good and be able to integrate easily with any theme a website is using.
• It should work in all the browsers without being blocked
• It should work on all mobile devices both Apple and Android
• It should be easy to configure on any website without forcing you to make changes to how the website currently works.
• It should work seamlessly on all types of website platforms from WordPress to Drupal to specialized .php websites or homemade pages created in basic .html or .html5.
• It should offer a bevy of various pop-up options – wrapped into one solution
Now, that I have my list, let’s see how PopUp Monkey measures up.
Easy Setup: Well PopUp Monkey is a web-based app so there isn’t ANY set up.
Whatever level you choose, you simply log into your online control panel whenever you want to create or change a pop-up and you can easily make any necessary changes by clicking a few buttons or filling in the intuitive forms. There is NO software that you need to download, or upload.
Thankfully, there are no files you need to unpack using complicated second party zip utility managers, and best of all no .exe files you need to worry about running that might install some unwanted software on your computer or anything that could drag your system down by going online to update itself!
For ease of setup I give PopUp Monkey 10 out of 10 stars!
Matches Any Theme: Using the simple controls inside your PopUp Monkey admin panel, you can configure the size, color opacity, and the outline color of your pop-up, in seconds.
If you know the exact color you want, you can type it in – if you don’t, then just use the drop-down color pallet and position your cross hairs over the color and shade you prefer to create a matching or complementary pop-up to go with any theme you are using.
Again, for ease of matchability, PopUp Monkey earns every possible star in this category!
Browser Compatibility: Here, I tested the pop-ups I created on every browser and version of browser that I could think of, as well as testing them on computers running Microsoft versions dating back to XP and every Apple operating system since before Y2K. On every occasion, PopUp Monkey performed exactly as described.
It may very well be that PopUp Monkey works on even older and more obscure systems than I tested, however I can assure you that these pop-ups will work with at least 99.99% of PC’s and Laptops in use around the world from Karachi to Kalamazoo!
Therefore, not surprisingly, I can only award another 10 points to Gryffindor (if they are using PopUp Monkey)!
Mobile Ready: As I mentioned earlier, most off-the-shelf pop-up solutions destroyed my
webpages on iPads, iPhones, and their Android counterparts.
Not PopUp Monkey! It worked flawlessly across all of the mobile platforms giving me
unfettered access to more customers in more places than imaginable.
For overcoming, multi-browser and mobile ready obstacles that thwarted every other so-called competitor to PopUp Monkey on the market, I would like to award it with more than ten stars if that is possible.
If you think 20 out of 10 stars is being over generous here, then you obviously haven’t realized yet how much of the market you are losing with other pop-up products that can’t reach PopUp Monkeys’ cross platform compatibility level!
Easy To Configure: Under “Matches Any Theme”, I already explained how simple it was to configure, the look and feel of your pop-up. All that is left is choosing your image, which can be as simple as typing in the URL of an existing image or uploading an image directly from your computer. Either way, it’s far easier to upload a custom image or whatever you want, to your pop-up with PopUp Monkey than it is to send an image in an email!
You can also choose how you’d like your pop-up to close, (timer or X) and configure when your pop-up will appear on screen with a few simple clicks.
Within seconds, you can change or create a completely unique pop-up in seconds.
When you are finished, the system generates a unique bit of customized code, shorter than a Tweet, that you can copy and paste into any website that you’d like your
pop-up to display!
It’s THAT simple! So, for configuration I also give PopUp Monkey the full set of stars it deserves.
Cross Platform: Because PopUp Monkey is an online app, (as mentioned above) every pop-up that you create is saved online. Your admin panel generates a unique snippet for each pop-up that you can easily slip into any page or post by copying and pasting it wherever you want it, by using their WYSIWYG editors. This works with WordPress, Drupal and any page created with .php, .html or .HTML5.
Once you have copied and pasted your code on websites, you can go back to your PopUp Monkey admin panel and make further changes or updates to your pop-up; then when you press “save” again the changes you made will appear instantaneously across the web, wherever you embedded that pop-up’s unique code snippet!
PopUp Monkey makes embedding and updating pop-ups so simple and reliable across all
the various web properties that you own, I also give it the highest ranking here possible.
Options Provided: The flexibility that PopUp Monkey provides is nearly limitless and
allows you to think outside the box in ways you have probably never imagined!
Not only can you produce standard image and text pop-ups, that take your visitors virtually anywhere you want them to go, on-click. But, with PopUp Monkey you can also embed videos and FLV flash into your pop-ups.
Imagine the attention grabbing power provided by pop-ups with a video embedded or the online interaction you could produce if you used interactive pop-ups that featured pop-up games your visitors could play!
Because, PopUp Monkey makes it super simple to create pop-ups featuring…
• Images and Text
• Videos
• SWF style Flash Games
I have no other option than to rank it higher than my 10 star rating provides.
So in summation, PopUp Monkey meets or exceeds my criteria for everything I could have hoped to find in an off-the-shelf pop-up solution. But then my original criteria only scratched the surface of what PopUp Monkey provides.
There is so much more!
For instance, you can opt to get access to a virtually unlimited number of pre-created high converting pop-up graphics, delivered each month, in fully customizable PSD layers.
But to end this review I’ll quit gushing with accolades for PopUp Monkey, so that you can finally go and check it out for yourself. But I’d like to finish by offering you one last little known secret about PopUp Monkey you might not read anywhere else.
It is that when you are promised to receive all future upgrades instantly; what you are reading, is a promise that will be kept.
I know from personal experience that Jeremy and Simon have already made good on their promise to provide updates on an earlier “Monkey” product (Countdown Monkey). So you can order PopUp Monkey with complete confidence that you will receive EVEN MORE in the future, when you get it at today’s lower introductory price!
Go check it out risk-free and make sure you watch the quick video tutorial so you understand how easy it is create these uniquely reliable pop-ups anywhere online that you want to increase your conversions by 300% or more!
