Do you want to make money while you’re asleep? Welcome to the world of affiliate marketing.

If you’re an online publisher, content creator, or digital marketer, you can earn a commission by promoting other people’s products or services.

Does affiliate marketing really pay? It absolutely does. Affiliate marketing spending has grown steadily each year since 2010, reaching $8.2 million in 2022.

Smart eCommerce businesses use affiliate marketers to spread the word about their products to new audiences. Those marketers then receive a payout in exchange for that promotion.

In this guide to affiliate marketing, we’ll explain everything you need to know, including affiliate marketing’s meaning, how it works, and how you can start earning money with affiliate links.

• What Is Affiliate Marketing?
• How Does Affiliate Marketing Work
• How Do Affiliate Marketers Make Money
• Types of Affiliate Marketers
• How to Start Affiliate Marketing
  • Create a Website or Blog for Your Niche
  • Choose Affiliate Products To Promote
• How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
  • Step 1: Create Content That Generates Affiliate Revenue
  • Step 2: Promote Your Affiliate Products in the Content
  • Step 3: Turn Your Visitors Into Affiliate Customers
  • Step 4: Optimize Your Existing Traffic for More Revenue
  • Step 5: Grow Affiliate Revenue from Your Email List

But before we dive into our guide on how to make money with affiliate marketing, let’s clarify why you should take our advice in the first place.

We’re (Humbly) One of the World’s Best Affiliate Marketers

Unlike other wannabe experts and marketing gurus, we practice what we preach and have done so for decades.

Our CEO, Syed Balkhi, is one of the top affiliate marketers in the world. We’ve built and managed several high-profile publications that attract millions of monthly visitors. These are sites you’re familiar with, like WPBeginner and IsItWP.

But let me tell you a secret about those sites:

They don’t actually sell anything.

So how do they earn money?

2 words: affiliate marketing.

That’s why we’re excited to teach you the affiliate marketing strategies we use. Not only that, but we’ll share how you can use the same strategies to increase your affiliate marketing revenue drastically.

Before we get in too deep, let’s make sure we’re clear on the definition of affiliate marketing and how it works. The beginning of this post will cover the basics of affiliate marketing for beginners.

If you’re already a seasoned pro, feel free to jump straight to our section on how to make money with affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing strategy where an affiliate partner earns a commission for promoting someone else’s products or services. Affiliate marketers provide an advertising service by including referral links in their content. If a sale is made through their unique referral link, the affiliate earns a commission.

It’s classic advertising in a less intrusive way. Rather than promoting a product on your website with visual advertisements like this:

You embed the product link in your content like this:

In the image above, the affiliate partner is Bluehost, which offers website self-hosting services. In fact, the link in the previous sentence is actually an affiliate link. If you were to click that link and make a purchase from Bluehost, our company would receive a commission.

Does that mean you can create a website, toss in a bunch of affiliate links, and watch the affiliate commissions roll in? Not quite, but we’ll get to that.

For now, you need to know the basics of how affiliate marketing works:

1. You recommend a product or service to your followers through your website, blog, or email list.
2. Your followers purchase the product or service using your affiliate link.
3. You get paid a commission for the sales made using your affiliate link.

Let’s break down this process into more detail to make sure you know exactly how to make a successful affiliate marketing strategy.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work

To understand how affiliate marketing works, it’s important first to understand the several essential components of the affiliate marketing system.

Merchants create the product or service that needs promotion. They can be an individual, a large corporation, or anything in between. A merchant might also be called a brand, seller, creator, retailer, or vendor. For merchants, affiliate marketing is both low-cost and low risk.  They usually only pay when the affiliate when a sale is made.

Affiliate marketers, or affiliates, promote the merchant’s products and attempt to persuade potential customers to buy them. They’re often publishers or content creators. Through these partnerships, marketers receive payment for successfully promoting the merchant’s products.

Consumers are the people who click the affiliate links and ultimately purchase the product. The affiliate receives a commission based on the sale.

Affiliate networks, or affiliate marketing programs, are intermediaries between the affiliate and the merchant. They offer a database of products for affiliates to promote. The affiliate network connects a merchant with affiliate marketers. They also generate unique, trackable links for each product or service. For instance, Amazon is the largest affiliate network for promoting consumer products. You can use the Amazon Associates program to create a custom affiliate link for any item sold on their platform. You likely see Amazon affiliate links regularly on various blogs and social media pages.

In short, affiliate marketers use affiliate networks to find products they can promote and to get unique affiliate links for those products. The marketer then includes that link in their website’s content. Consumers read this content and click the affiliate links. The network keeps track of all those clicks, plus any sales made through the link. Then, the merchant pays a commission to the marketer based on the number of clicks and sales.

How Do Affiliate Marketers Make Money

The income potential in affiliate marketing varies widely. Some marketers earn a few hundred dollars each month, while others hit 6 figures annually. The size of your audience plays a significant role in how much you can earn as an affiliate.

Different affiliate programs use various payment models, which may be called price models, payout models, or conversion types. The payment model specifies the goals for which you’ll get paid.

For example, if you promote a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, you may get paid based on the number of downloads or app installations. If you promote physical products, you may get paid for each purchase.

Most programs use last-click attribution, rewarding 100% credit to the affiliate that received the last click before the purchase. However, this practice may change as programs adopt better attribution models and reporting. For instance, you may share equal credit for a sale with other affiliates in a buyer’s customer journey or conversion funnel.

Affiliates can get paid in various ways, depending on the program. Some common payment structures include:

• Pay per sale (PPS): In this model, the affiliate receives a commission for every sale they generate for the merchant. This is the most common payment method used in affiliate marketing.
• Pay per click (PPC): The affiliate earns a commission each time a user clicks on their affiliate link, regardless of whether they purchase.
• Pay per lead (PPL): The affiliate gets paid when a referred user fills out a form, signs up for a trial, or takes any other action the merchant considers a lead.
• Revenue sharing: The affiliate receives a percentage of the revenue generated by the sale rather than a flat fee per sale.
• Cost per action (CPA): The affiliate is paid when a specific action is taken by the consumer, such as filling out a form, subscribing to a service, or downloading software.
• Tiered commission: Affiliates receive a higher commission rate once they reach a certain level of sales or referrals.

Check out this article for more affiliate marketing tips to earn more income through affiliate marketing.

Types of Affiliate Marketers

The types of affiliates are defined by the marketer’s level of knowledge about the product they’re promoting, i.e., have they personally used the product or service they’re advertising?

In specific industries, such as tech services or diet products, customers may require proof that the affiliate has tested and approved the product to establish trust. However, you don’t necessarily have to use every product you promote.

In 2009, prominent affiliate marketer Pat Flynn categorized affiliate marketing into 3 types, unattached, related, and involved, to distinguish between affiliate marketers who have a close association with the product and those who do not.

Unattached: Unattached affiliate marketing is where the marketer has no affiliation or knowledge of the product or service. Such affiliates do not possess expertise or authority in the product’s niche and cannot endorse its use.

These marketers typically run PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns, relying on affiliate links to encourage customers to make purchases.

This type of affiliate marketing is attractive to those who seek to generate income without committing to the product or establishing customer relationships.

Involved: Involved affiliate marketers connect directly with the product or service they promote. These affiliates try the product and gain first-hand experience, believe in its quality, and can make claims about its use. Involved affiliates talk about their experience with the product when marketing it, resulting in a reliable and trustworthy source of information.

For example, review sites often used involved affiliate marketing.

Related: Related affiliate marketing, on the other hand, is a fusion of unattached and involved. These affiliates may not personally use the company’s products or services, but they connect to their target audience. They have established followings or influence within the product’s niche and can provide some level of authority.

For instance, there are many lifestyle bloggers and YouTube influencers who have large audiences interested in fashion. In related affiliate marketing, these content creators might promote clothing brands that they haven’t actually purchased from.

While related affiliate marketing allows affiliates to leverage their expertise to drive traffic, they risk losing the trust of their audience if they recommend a bad product or service they have not used.

Of these 3 types, involved affiliate marketing requires the most effort and time. However, the returns on investment are likely to be higher because you have built credibility and trust with your audience.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing

If you want to learn how to become an affiliate marketer, there are 2 things you need to do first:

• Create a website or blog in your niche
• Choose affiliate products to promote

Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail.

Create a Website or Blog for Your Niche

To make money with affiliate marketing, you first need a website.

When it comes to building your website, you have tons of options. But we highly recommend using WordPress.

With WordPress, anyone can quickly build a professional-looking website in minutes, even if you don’t know how to code:

WordPress has more tools to help their sites perform at a higher level than other website builders. That means more functionality across your site and a better user experience (UX) for your visitors.

WordPress is your way to go if you’re interested in making money with affiliate marketing. You can check out these tutorials if you need help building your site:

• How to start a WordPress blog
• How to make a website with WordPress (step-by-step-guide)

Once your website is built, you must determine which products you want to promote. That takes us to the second prerequisite for starting out with affiliate marketing.

Alternative: Influencers can use affiliate links on their Instagram pages, YouTube channels, or other social media platforms.

Choose Affiliate Products To Promote

If you’ve done the work to choose a niche, choosing affiliate products to promote should be easy. Choose products that fit your niche and relate to your content.

One of the best ways to select your affiliate products is by joining an affiliate network.

As discussed earlier, affiliate networks are businesses that connect merchants and affiliate marketers so both can earn more money. Affiliate marketers use these networks to choose the best products to promote on their sites.

There are many affiliate networks out there, but here are a few of the most popular:

• ShareASale
• CJ Affiliate
• ClickBank
• Amazon Associates

One of the benefits of these affiliate marketing services is they typically provide more sales data on the different promotional products. You can then use that data to increase your affiliate marketing profits.

For more information, check out our helpful post: Earnings-Per-Click: How to Win Big at Affiliate Marketing.

You can optimize your affiliate strategy by making data-driven decisions, rather than simply choosing products that appeal to you.

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!

Now that you have a website and have joined an affiliate network, it’s time to start monetizing your site with affiliate marketing.

Let’s get started!

How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

By following the 5 steps below, you can learn how to do affiliate marketing and start making money quickly.

Step 1: Create Content That Generates Affiliate Revenue

The basic meaning of affiliate marketing is simple, and it’s relatively easy to get started. However, building enough traffic to generate a significant income takes time and effort.

Many beginners publish random content and insert affiliate links within the article. That strategy may or may not work, but if you genuinely want to boost your affiliate revenue, you must ensure your published content reaches your target audience.

Your target audience is someone who wants to buy a product but is wondering whether or not the product is worth it. They’re searching for product reviews, lists, and ratings to help them make their choice.

Sometimes, the user may need help knowing which product will fulfill their needs.

As an affiliate marketer, it’s your job to help users discover the right product for their needs. By producing high-quality content, you can help them make a purchasing decision, and then you can navigate them to the product website to complete the purchase.

Pro-Tip: Your articles should target investigational intent keywords. These are the Google search terms that your target audience uses to research the product they’re interested in.

You can check out our guide on choosing the right keywords for more details.

Step 2: Promote Your Affiliate Products in the Content

Just like the keywords you target, you should take an investigational approach to your content. Focus on topics that provide the information you’re target audience is searching for.

Once you’ve done your keyword research and have your content ideas, it’s time to start inserting affiliate links in your content.

How you insert your affiliate links will depend on the specific article you’re writing.

For instance, you shouldn’t add 5 different affiliate links to a review post for a single product. Instead, your entire post should focus on driving traffic to that 1 product’s affiliate link.

On the other hand, if you’re showcasing the “Top 10 Tools for Solving X,” you’ll include affiliate links for each list item. Doing so will increase your chances of making more sales.

The goal is to insert your links as strategically as possible.

Here are a few tips to get the most out of your affiliate links’ placement:

• Only link where appropriate: Don’t add an affiliate link if it doesn’t fit your content. Irrelevant links will negatively impact the user experience (UX) and cost you more lost sales in the long run.
• Add links as early as possible: If you’re showcasing many products in 1 article, add your affiliate products at the top of the list. Most people won’t take the time to read an entire article. You want to make sure they see your affiliate links early on.
• Get more out of your site’s space: You can use floating bars, inline banners, and sidebar widgets to promote your affiliate products. These enhance the impact of your content and lead to more sales over time.

Here’s an example of affiliate links from a post by IsItWP. It lists the best recipe plugins for WordPress:

The first several items in this list are affiliate links. This strategy ensures that readers will see the affiliate links, while still allowing them to research all options.

Again, you want to promote your links often, appropriately, and as powerfully as you can.

Pro-Tip: Invest in an affiliate link plugin before adding hundreds of affiliate links across your site.

Imagine having to sort through and update hundreds of expired affiliate links. This task becomes even more difficult when you have no idea where you’ve placed them on your website.

You’re looking at hours of headaches. Plus, when you let your links expire, you lose out on tons of profit.

Fortunately, this is one nightmare that can be avoided with an affiliate management plugin. One of the best options on the market is Pretty Links:

Pretty Links is an affiliate marketing management plugin that lets you keep track of your affiliate links. It’s easy to set up and super user-friendly, even for beginners. Best of all, it lets you put your affiliate marketing on auto-pilot.

It also lets you cloak affiliate links to make them look short and neat. This makes them easy to share through emails and social media.

Whenever you need to update your old affiliate links from your partners, you’ll be able to accomplish it in minutes, not days.

Plus, if you do run into trouble, Pretty Links has an amazing support team to help you at each step.

At this point, you’ve created the right content and strategically placed your links, using an affiliate management plugin. Next, it’s time to kick things up a notch with targeted conversion campaigns.

Step 3: Turn Your Visitors Into Affiliate Customers

One of the biggest mistakes new affiliate marketers make is assuming they need 10x the traffic to get 10x the profit.

It doesn’t work that way, which is excellent news for you.

For example, let’s say you’re promoting a product that pays a $50 affiliate commission for every sale. Out of every 100 visitors who click your affiliate link, 2 of them buy the product. This gives you an affiliate conversion rate of 2%.

That means the CPC (cost per click) you earn is $1 per click.

(CPC = Total affiliate revenue / total traffic you sent)

If you send 2X more visitors to the affiliate product site, you could also double your affiliate revenue. Thankfully, you don’t have to drastically increase traffic to double your affiliate clicks.

Instead, you can boost your revenue with a conversion optimization campaign.

With conversion software like OptinMonster, you can increase your revenue by converting more of your existing traffic into affiliate customers. Without a doubt, this strategy is much easier than doubling your traffic.

Here’s how OptinMonster can boost your affiliate income:

a) Create a Popup Campaign That Promotes an Affiliate Product (And Increase Revenue by 30%!)

Lightbox popups are 1 of the best ways to catch your user’s attention.

Creating a popup campaign is the easiest method to convert more of your visitors into affiliate customers.

OptinMonster provides over 50 pre-built templates to help you make the right campaign for your affiliate product. We also offer many targeting rules and campaign triggers to ensure you’re showing the right message to the right people at the right time.

This is the exact strategy Top 6 Digital used to increase their affiliate revenue by 30%.

The company had a webpage to help parents choose the right car seats for their children. When the reader tries to leave this page, the following campaign would appear on their screen:

This simple popup campaign was hugely successful. It grabbed the audience’s attention, and over 17% of users clicked the affiliate link.

b) Display Campaigns When Users are More Likely to Buy

When it comes to popup campaigns, targeting is important. Targeting lets you control who sees your popups, as well as when they see them. For example, studies show that the best time to show a popup is when a user is about to leave your site.

With OptinMonster’s Exit Intent technology, you can show a popup that promotes an affiliate offer when your users are about to leave.

Our customers use Exit Intent along with Page-Level Targeting and see massive results. Page-level targeting allows you to create affiliate offers for specific pages on your site. So when a visitor is reading an article about the best hiking boots for winter, you can show them a campaign that highlights the EXACT affiliate product you’re promoting in that article.

Since the offer you promote in that campaign is highly targeted, it’s more likely to convert than a generic campaign.

The WordPress hosting company FlyWheel used page-level targeting to increase engagement by 660%. For instance, the popup above offers a guide to increasing freelance revenue. FlyWheel showed this popup only on blog posts related to running a business.

Or take the fitness company Crossrope, for example. They grew their email list by over 900% by catching abandoning traffic with exit-intent popups.

You can combine these strategies to skyrocket your affiliate clicks.

Step 4: Optimize Your Existing Traffic for More Revenue

This next step comes from a strategy that’s driven by something called “the 80/20 rule.”

The 80/20 rule, in this case, suggests that 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your content. While it’s not an exact metric, the basic principle stands firm:

Identify your highest converting content. Make those posts the priority for your affiliate campaigns. 

Once you know that a particular post or video is resonating with your audience, you can create a targeted campaign with OptinMonster to increase affiliate sales.

This is a much better plan of action than blindly making campaigns for every page on your site.

How do you get started?

Jump into your Google Analytics dashboard, identify the articles that bring in the most content, and then create targeted campaigns for those URLs.

And if you really want to level up your game, you should consider getting MonsterInsights:

MonsterInsights is the world’s #1 Google Analytics (GA) plugin. Many marketers love the idea of gathering data from Google Analytics, but they get confused, annoyed, or intimidated by GA’s user interface.

Rather than letting all that valuable information go to waste each month, you can get the same data delivered straight to your WordPress dashboard. This data includes a review of your site’s top posts:

Once you’ve identified which posts bring the most traffic, you can optimize your content and conversion campaigns to generate more affiliate revenue.

This strategy will ensure that you’re always prioritizing your most profitable content. That means you can save time and increase revenue as efficiently as possible.

Step 5: Grow Affiliate Revenue from Your Email List

No matter how you look at it, email marketing is still the best way to earn passive income. All of the other methods fall short in some way.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is great until Google changes its algorithm and your rankings tank. Paid ads can bring quick results, but only if you have the budget for a lot of trial and error. Paid ads require also constant care and attention to keep conversion rates high.

But your email list gives you a direct route to your target audience.

It’s full of people who are interested in your niche and have already engaged with your content. That means they’ll make an ideal audience for your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to grow their contact list to the point where monetization is possible.

That’s where OptinMonster comes in:

OptinMonster is hands down the best way to generate leads for your affiliate email campaigns.

Similar to how you use conversion campaigns to send traffic to your affiliate links, you can also use them to grow your email list.

You can create targeted popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, and more to entice your website visitors to join your list. Offer a lead magnet to convert even more visitors into subscribers. Lead magnets can be special offers, free ebooks or PDF guides, or coupon codes that users only receive by giving you their email address.

Here’s an example of an optin campaign you can use to grow your list:

Want more examples of lead magnets? Check out our list of 60+ lead magnet ideas you can start using today.

Once you’ve built an email list, you can send email campaigns with your affiliate links embedded in them.

Make sure that you read this post on how to create an affiliate email marketing campaign before getting started.

Email marketing is a great way to improve your revenue. You can use your email list to drive more traffic to your high-converting posts, or you can include your affiliate link in your emails. Either way, more people will see your affiliate links.

And, again, to grow your list, the best tool for the job is OptinMonster.

OptinMonster can help you capture more leads.  More leads mean a bigger subscriber and customer base, which means a higher revenue potential.

In fact, check out these success stories from some of the businesses that use OptinMonster with great success:

• How Adam Enfroy Got Over 11k Subscribers
• American Bird Conservancy Grew Their Lead Collection by 1000%
• AutoAnything Increased Daley Email Optins 2.5x

Get Started With OptinMonster Today!

These are just a few examples of people who grew their list with OptinMonster. You can have similar results and make even more money with online marketing.

We hope you found this article helpful. If so, you may be interested in reading the following posts:

• Affiliate Marketing Statistics All Marketers Must Know
• Best Tools for Affiliate Marketers
• How to Increase Affiliate Sales by 30% With 1 Simple Strategy
• Content Marketing Examples
• Sales Promotion Examples

Are you ready to start making more money with affiliate marketing? Sign up for your risk-free OptinMonster account today!

Content marketing examples include, but are not limited to, blogs, social media posts, videos, podcasts, and infographics. These content types are designed to engage, inform, and provide value to your audience, ultimately attracting them to your brand and driving customer action.

Through content marketing, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales.

There’s just one problem: creative content marketing can be challenging work.

If you’re running content marketing campaigns day in, day out, it can be difficult to consistently come up with new ideas and keep the momentum going.

That’s why we’ve written this article. From blogging and social media to video and visual marketing, we’ve got a great collection of B2C and B2B content marketing examples to inspire you.

These content marketing examples from the business world will help you find new ways to get creative and inspire you to produce winning content marketing campaigns.

Here’s a table of contents to help you jump to the content marketing examples you most want to see.

• Blogging Content Marketing Examples
• Social Media Content Marketing Examples
• Tried-and-True Content Marketing Examples
• Visual Content Marketing Examples
• Video Content Marketing Examples
• Ebooks Content Marketing Examples
• Other Content Marketing Examples

But before diving into the list of our 29 content marketing examples, let’s clarify what content marketing is in the first place.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is creating and curating content to attract new prospects and nurture them into leads.

It includes any form of messaging to attract, educate, inform, persuade, and inspire a prospect to move them closer to becoming a customer.

The goal of content marketing is more than immediate sales but rather lead generation combined with strong brand recognition.

This type of marketing may be delivered via blogs, newsletters, e-books, forums/discussion boards, case studies, videos (businesses are creating more and more webinars), social media channels, and many other platforms.

In short, content marketing is about creating high-quality content to attract prospects and customers and to convert them into engaged followers who will spread the word about your products and services.

Content marketing also has several advantages and can help you increase the following:

• Traffic: You’ll drive traffic from search engines, social media, and people following links in email or article-sharing sites.
• Sales: Content marketing is often a great way not just to drive traffic but to drive the right traffic (people who are more likely to become customers).
• Email Subscribers: If you are writing articles, you will be able to drive people to opt-in on your signup page (this is the best place for them to do that—don’t try and get it out of them elsewhere)

Now that we know what content marketing is and why it benefits your business let’s look at our 29 content marketing examples.

Ready to get started? Let’s dive in!

Recommended Reading: 130+ Blog Ideas: The Ultimate List of Blog Post Ideas for Every Niche

Blogging Content Marketing Examples

When most people think of types of content marketing, they think of blogging as a starting point.

Blogging helps you get visitors’ attention with helpful information and provides content to flesh out your social media presence and fuel your SEO efforts.

Here are a few examples of companies getting it right.

1) OptinMonster

Since we’re writing a blog post on content marketing examples, OptinMonster’s blog would be the most appropriate place to start.

OptinMonster’s blog is a valuable resource for current customers (looking to use OptinMonster in new ways) and prospective customers.

OptinMonster has become an authoritative resource on lead generation tips, tools, and strategies through its blog.

For people who want to grow email subscribers, increase conversions, and drive more sales, the OptinMonster blog is an excellent tab to bookmark.

It’s also how OptinMonster attracted more than 1,213,437 websites that use its services.

2) Buffer

Buffer’s one of our favorite content marketing examples due to its three-pronged content marketing strategy.

The company used guest blogging to fuel its initial growth, writing a few times daily and publishing content on high-visibility sites. That growth hacking strategy helped Buffer attract its first 100,000 users.

On Buffer’s blog, the company initially concentrated on writing for the people who influenced their customers, producing high-quality and highly shareable content.

Buffer now has four blogs, including the Transparency blog and Open blog, where they have shared business ups and downs over the years.

And they share their best content via regular email marketing.

The results speak for themselves: Buffer is a highly recognized and trusted brand, with almost 400,000 users and around a million followers across multiple social media sites.

3) HubSpot

Regarding examples of content marketing done right, HubSpot’s always on the list. In addition to creating a free tool as a growth hacking strategy, HubSpot has used content marketing by:

• Writing in-depth blog posts about the issues their visitors care about
• Adding content upgrades such as ebooks to their blog posts
• Creating an educational and content-sharing hub, Inbound.org (which gets 321,000 visitors each month) and provides an excellent opportunity to promote its certification and partnership programs
• Creating videos for Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and using LinkedIn to send traffic to those videos

It must be working because HubSpot’s growth and reputation speak for itself.

4) Rip Curl

Rip Curl bills itself as the “ultimate surfing company”. One way it shows dedication is via an online publication called The Search.

The Search chronicles surfers’ search for the best waves and the ultimate surfing lifestyle and features excellent photography and stories told by surfers for surfers.

With over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and a whopping two million-plus Facebook followers, this is a great example of matching content to your target audience to grow your business and make it profitable.

Are you trying to level up your YouTube game? Check out this helpful post: 13 Steps to Get Your First 100 YouTube Subscribers.

Social Media Content Marketing Examples

As we mentioned in our guide to social media and SEO, social shares can help indirectly with search ranking, which helps with lead generation.

So it’s no surprise that many companies have focused on content creation on social media to “WOW” their audiences.

5) GE

GE is a great place to start when you’re looking for inspiring B2B content marketing examples.

We’re not talking about washer-dryers and vacuum cleaners but about the company’s other business: wind turbines, jet engines, locomotives, and so on.

GE’s long been known for taking what some might see as a dull business and bringing it to life, and this Instagram content marketing campaign is a perfect example.

GE combined the campaign with influencer marketing, getting six Instagram influencers and several super fans to do the #GEInstaWalk.

That meant touring their manufacturing facilities and taking, uploading, and hashtagging pictures. The results were spectacular:

• 8 million views of GE’s Instagram account
• 3 million reaches per tour
• 3,000 new followers

And it was done without any paid advertising.

Want to learn more about how you can grow your business with Instagram? Just check out this helpful resource: How to Make Money on Instagram (Without 10K Followers)

6) RafflePress

RafflePress is the best online giveaway plugin for WordPress. It’s also been working to build a strong presence on Facebook, as the platform is a great way to increase page views for its blog.

And as a side bonus, they also get customer testimonials posted in the comments section of their posts:

This is free social proof that helps other people either go to the RafflePress blog or head to their website to try the product.

Ultimately, even something as simple as resharing blog posts on social media can be an excellent content marketing strategy as your business grows.

7) Intrepid Travel

Intrepid Travel is about small groups, big adventures, and responsibly traveling. It supports that with a content hub called The Journal.

In The Journal, you’ll find stories from real travelers sharing their experiences, which helps the company connect more with its core audience.

But another facet of Intrepid’s content marketing strategy is posting aspirational travel images from travelers on its social media interspersing that with its own content.

That’s given the company 301K+ Instagram followers and strong communities on other social media sites.

8) Superdrug

Our next content marketing example uses both publishing placements and social media to get the audience’s attention.

Superdrug wanted to raise awareness around body image issues.

To do this, the company asked 18 graphic designers around the world to edit a photo of a model in Photoshop to bring it in line with their own country’s beauty norms.

The company published the results on Buzzfeed and Huffington Post, resulting in:

• International news coverage, and placements with major publications like the New York Times, The Telegraph, and Business Insider
• Celebrity endorsements of the campaign, like the one from Sofia Vergara below
• 3 million views of the original study
• Around 1 million social shares

Plus the company got more than 1,000,000 page views to their site within a five-day period.

Tried-and-True Content Marketing Examples

Next, we’ve got a couple of content marketing examples that don’t rely on social media promotion.

9) John Deere

Anyone who’s read up on content marketing has probably heard of The Furrow, one of the first examples of content marketing.

First published by John Deere in 1895, this publication aimed to help the company’s customers with the issues they faced and show the company’s expertise at the same time.

Sounds familiar.

The fantastic thing is that more than 120 years later, the publication’s still going and is now available online.

10) AARP

Here’s another content marketing example that underlines the importance of knowing your audience and delivering the content they want.

The AARP The Magazine has won awards for its content, design, and photography quality, but there’s nothing mysterious about its success.

They listen to their readers, who reach them by email, letter, and social media, and use that information to determine the topics that will resonate with them most.

It’s America’s biggest consumer magazine, going to 22 million households. In addition, more than half of its 37 million readers have read three of the last four issues.

Visual Content Marketing Examples

Images are the lifeblood of social media. They easily connect you with your audience and give potential leads an engaging way to interact with your brand.

Need some proof that visual content marketing works? Check out this helpful resource: 24 Content Marketing Statistics to Make You a Marketing Genius.

Now let’s look at some visual content marketing strategies that have worked.

11) Zomato

Zomato is a restaurant finder mobile app available in 24 countries.

The company uses humor in its marketing strategy. In particular, it creates and shares images referencing popular culture, as this recent example spoofing an Oscar-nominated film shows.

They are simple, creative, and entertaining, proving that a minimalist approach can do the trick.

It must be working because the company’s got 1.5 million followers on Twitter, 1.9 million on Facebook, and the app’s been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

12. Shutterstock

Shutterstock’s in the business of images and used its expertise to make a resource that everyone can use: a creative trends report. This capitalizes on the fact that people love reliable data, and this type of resource gets widely shared.

Last year’s infographic attracted thousands of social shares and attracted more than 6 billion site visits, according to the Content Marketing Institute.

Shutterstock has made the resource interactive, including images, video, and music. It’s been shared more than 10,000 times.

13) Rolex

Just because you’re an iconic brand doesn’t mean you can’t rock content marketing.

Rolex proves this by conveying its brand’s quality and timelessness through excellent photography that radiates quality.

And the fans love it: Rolex has over 14.2 million Instagram followers and around 7.7 million on Facebook.

Video Content Marketing Examples

Video marketing drives brand awareness, leads, and sales, so it’s no surprise that many content marketing examples include videos.

14. Blendtec

Let’s start with Blendtec, whose viral videos prove there’s no such thing as a boring industry if you can tap into what hooks your audience.

Blenders might sound boring, but they become a heck of a lot more so when you put weird stuff in them.

The Will It Blend video series put the company on the map and resulted in a 700% sales increase in three years.

Today, Blendtec’s YouTube channel has more than 850,000 subscribers, and the campaign’s still going strong, with videos regularly attracting hundreds of thousands of views.

15) Hootsuite

When you’re launching your content marketing strategy, it always helps to tap into popular culture and one of the most popular shows in recent years has been Game of Thrones.

Hootsuite used this as a jumping-off point to tell a relatable story about their brand via a video titled A Game of Social Thrones.

This video has over 1.3 million views and is their most successful branded content.

16. Zendesk

This Is Zendesk Alternative

Here’s one of the coolest content marketing examples from the business world.

It’s an example where Zendesk jumped on something that could have gone against them and showed their brand values and personality at the same time.

Whenever you offer a product or service, there’s someone searching for an alternative. When Zendesk realized people were searching for Zendesk alternatives, they basically hijacked the keyword phrase, creating a mini-site and video optimized around it.

The result? A page-one spot for that keyword phrase and a heck of a lot of goodwill!

17) Old Spice

For a brand that’s been around since 1937, Old Spice is doing great at staying in touch with its market.

It wasn’t always this way.

Several years ago, the brand was losing ground to its competitors when someone had a fantastic idea: scrap the old world image in favor of something – or someone – new, young, and hot.

It worked. In a series of videos and ads delivering humor and, in some cases never mentioning the brand, Old Spice changed its image to become relevant for a new generation.

The original ad has had more than 59 million views, and Old Spice is still using this approach with a new series of promotions.

18) JetBlue

JetBlue is one of the world’s leading airlines, and it’s always been bold with content marketing. In particular, it uses video to inspire its audience and show off its brand values and personality.

Some examples of content marketing include the Reach Across the Aisle campaign, which encourages people to find out what united them, a series on flying with infants, and the quirky Flight Etiquette video series.

Video views on YouTube range from tens of thousands to millions, while the perception of the brand remains overwhelmingly positive.

19) WPBeginner

WPBeginner uses its video content marketing strategy to educate its audience more than anything else. That means providing in-depth tutorial guides as a counterpart to their blog.

As a result, users can visit WPBeginner’s YouTube channel to learn how to solve their WordPress troubles:

This has led to WPBeginner becoming an authority in the WordPress space. It has helped countless WordPress customers and has led to over 288k subscribers..

20) Squatty-Potty

You may remember a few years back when a video was released for the “Squatty-Potty.” The product’s design makes it easier and healthier for people to use the restroom.

We know… not exactly the most entertaining of topics. And yet, Squatty-Potty produced a funny and entertaining video that quickly went viral.

This video has been viewed nearly 40 million times over the past few years and remains one of the best video content marketing examples around.

Ebooks Content Marketing Examples

As we saw earlier with HubSpot, ebooks and resources are a great way to raise awareness of your brand. Here are a couple more examples of content marketing in this category.

21) LinkedIn

If you want to learn how to use LinkedIn effectively, nobody will be more expert than LinkedIn itself. That’s why the company’s ebook on its own approach to marketing with LinkedIn is such a winner.

The landing page whets customers’ appetites with a series of tips and stats, and most LinkedIn users will want to opt-in immediately.

LinkedIn has continued to use this content strategy by producing more marketing guides, so it’s a sure bet it’s working for them.

Not sure if LinkedIn is for your business? Check out how (and why) you should create a LinkedIn business page.

22) OptinMonster

We’ve already covered OptinMonster’s blog, but we’re far from a one-trick pony.

In fact, we pride ourselves on having a comprehensive (and wildly effective) content marketing strategy. One of the ways we were able to grow an email list so quickly was through our eBook.

This optin campaign offered the eBook and is one of the reasons why our current email list has over 200,000 subscribers.

23) Simply Business

One of the best B2B content marketing examples is from Simply Business, a UK insurance firm known for producing valuable tips and guides.

It’s yet another example showing that so-called “boring sectors” can still wow their audience. Their customer education guides have attracted thousands of links and shares, as well as raised their profile.

You may also be interested in this article for more B2B lead generation strategies or this helpful post on 5 B2B email best practices you need to try.

Other Content Marketing Examples

Finally, here are some different content marketing examples from the business world.

24) Coca-Cola

Coke used personalization to get everybody talking about their brand.

They kicked off their Share a Coke campaign in Australia by putting the 150 most common names on bottles. Then they encouraged people to share a Coke with people with those names.

That user generated content campaign went viral, resulting in sales of 250 million bottles and cans across the summer, or equivalent to just over 10 for every person in Australia.

Unsurprisingly the campaign soon rolled out to other locations. You can now customize your own bottle, as we did here.

25) Grant Thornton

Data analytics is another area that could be seen as dry, but when Grant Thornton ran their Access Granted campaign, it was anything but.

The company took people behind the scenes at the Tony Awards, showing exclusive content on YouTube and Twitter. That resulted in 3.7 million Twitter impressions, increased Facebook reach, and beating their goals for YouTube goals by 115%.

26) Charmin

This content marketing example from Charmin is perfect for its customers. The brand’s always had a sense of humor in its TV ads, and that’s carried through to the Sit or Squat app.

This app aims to help people find clean bathrooms when needed, so it’s also practical. So far, the app’s been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and nobody will forget the brand.

27) Burberry

Burberry’s most outstanding content marketing campaign was Burberry Kisses, blending mobile technology with the human wish to connect with others.

Users could press their lips to the screen via an app and send a digital kiss to anyone. The campaign also allowed people to use Google Street View and Google Maps to see those digital kisses’ journey.

28) Buzzstream

Buzzstream combined several content types (research-heavy guest content, evergreen blog content, and gated content) to position itself as a thought leader within its industry.

The nine-month content campaign was hugely successful, resulting in a record-breaking number of new signups.

29) The Joe Rogan Experience

The Joe Rogan Experience has become one of the most widely listened-to podcasts in the world, with over 14.7 million subscribers.

And whether you love him or hate him, you must admit that he has a marketing team full of geniuses.

That’s because Joe Rogan doesn’t just do an audible version of the podcast; he streams each recording, too.

That means he can promote two pieces of content with a single shot. He also has a video to share on YouTube for every podcast he produces.

Since December 2020, the podcast has been exclusively available on Spotify, with highlights uploaded onto the main Joe Rogan Experience YouTube channel.

With this audience, he’s able to promote upcoming comedy shows, new guests, affiliate products, and more.

But there’s one final thing to remember. There’s no point building an audience if they don’t convert.

That’s where OptinMonster comes in.

How OptinMonster Can Help Your Content Convert

OptinMonster is a crucial part of any successful content marketing strategy:

That’s because OptinMonster is the world’s best lead generation software. With this tool, you can deliver any content to the right users to increase conversions across your site.

It allows you to create various optin campaigns like popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, gamified spin wheels, and more.

And the best part is that you don’t need to be a professional coder to make it happen!

Here’s how it works:

Everything starts with selecting one of OptinMonster’s 100+ pre-built templates:

These are fully responsive and look great across all devices. They were designed to save you time, energy, and headaches during campaign creation.

And once you’ve selected the right template to reach your marketing goals, you can use the code less drag-and-drop builder.

This lets you customize your optin campaign to match your brand’s voice, style, and message.

To modify any text, for example, you can do so with the inline text editor. Just click what you want to change, and start typing:

Or, if you want to add new features to your campaign (like images, videos, custom HTML, icons, and more), you can do so with a drag and a drop:

This makes it easy for anyone to create professional and high-converting campaigns in minutes.

Plus, you can use OptinMonster’s advanced targeting rules to get the right content pieces to the right part of your site’s traffic.

Some of the more popular targeting rules include:

• Exit-Intent® Technology: Recover abandoning visitors as they’re actively leaving your website.
• OnSite Retargeting®: Keep users engaged by showing fresh content to returning visitors.
• Geolocation: Personalize the user journey by targeting people by their physical location.
• MonsterLinks: Boost conversions by making your campaigns appear at the click of a button or link.

These are just a few of OptinMonster’s most popular targeting rules, though there are many others.

Once your campaigns are set up, you can integrate your email service provider (ESP) with OptinMonster.

This allows you to set your content marketing strategy on autopilot. Once you’ve gotten new leads, you’ll send them directly to your organized contact lists.

This lets you send automated email series to increase engagement and sales from your audience.

Not sure if OptinMonster will work for you? Just check out how Crossrope was able to explode their list by 900%.

Or how Shotkit uses OptinMonster to get 40+ NEW leads every single day.

You can get similar results by click below and starting your 100% risk-free OptinMonster account today:

And that’s all for today! These have been 29 content marketing examples you can use for inspiration right now.

More on Content Marketing:

• How to Measure Your Content Marketing ROI + 7 Metrics That Matter
• How to Build a Content Marketing Funnel (+12 Examples)
• Step-by-Step Guide to Generate Leads with Your Content Marketing

These aren’t just ordinary words; they’re the triggers that ignite emotion, drive action, and make your message unforgettable.

Word power is so real that you could see a 12.7% increase in conversion rates simply by sprinkling a few powerful words into your copy.

In this blog, we’re not just discussing the power of words; we’re gifting you an extensive 700+ power words list!

Ready to supercharge your content? Let’s dive in.

1. What Are Power Words?
2. 700+ Power Words List
3. Where You Can Use Power Words

What Are Power Words?

Power words are persuasive words that trigger strong psychological or emotional responses. Copywriters use them to create compelling content that deeply influences readers, making these words nearly irresistible in their impact.

That’s likely the simplest power words definition, i.e., powerful words that trigger the desired emotion and action.

But power words aren’t just for copywriters. They can be used by any marketer–even inexperienced ones–to motivate people to take a specific action on their website.

Whether you want to entice your visitors to read a blog post, opt into your email list, or click the “Buy Now” button on your sales page, power words are arguably the quickest and easiest way to increase your conversion rates.

700+ Power Words List

We’ve categorized the 700+ most effective and powerful words into the following 11 types of power words:

1. Power Words for Customer Service
2. Power Words for Headlines
3. Power Words for Conversation
4. Power Words for FOMO
5. Power Words for Curiosity
6. Power Words for Ease and Convenience
7. Power Words for Increasing Desire
8. Power Words for Bragging
9. Power Words for Trust
10. Power Words for Anger
11. Power Words for Fear

1. Power Words for Customer Service

Power words can be the difference between a satisfied customer and a disgruntled one. These words convey empathy, understanding, and a genuine desire to help.

They assure the customer that their concerns are valid, their business is valued, and their satisfaction is a top priority.

How To Boost Conversions With Customer Service Power Words

Include power words into your customer service scripts, email responses, and live chat interactions. Words like “understand,” “priority,” “valued,” and “assured” can make customers feel heard and appreciated.

When customers feel that a company genuinely cares about their concerns and is eager to resolve them, they are more likely to continue doing business with that company and even recommend it to others.

2. Power Words for Headlines

Headlines are the first thing readers see, and they often determine whether the rest of the content gets read. 

Power words in headlines grab attention, spark curiosity, and compel readers to delve deeper into the content. 

They promise value, evoke emotion, and hint at the benefits the reader will gain.

How To Boost Conversions With Headline Power Words

When crafting headings for blog posts, subheads, articles, or advertisements, use power words that resonate with your target audience. Words like “unveiled,” “exclusive,” “breakthrough,” and “revolutionary” can make your headlines stand out in a sea of content. A captivating headline can increase click-through rates, driving more traffic and potential conversions.

3. Power Words for Conversation

Conversations, whether they’re sales pitches, networking chats, or casual talks, can benefit from the strategic use of power words. These words can steer the conversation, emphasize points, and elicit desired responses.

They add weight to statements, making them more memorable and persuasive.

How To Boost Conversions With Conversation Power Words

Add power words into your spoken interactions, especially when trying to persuade, inform, or inspire. Words like “transform,” “innovate,” “pioneer,” and “optimize” can leave lasting impressions on listeners. 

When used appropriately, these words can sway opinions, inspire action, and lead to fruitful outcomes in both personal and professional conversations.

4. Power Words for Greed and FOMO

Greed is the natural human tendency to want more stuff than we actually need.

These power words can trigger that tendency by playing on scarcity and FOMO (fear of missing out), or simply by making something sound more valuable.

How To Boost Conversions With Greed Power Words

Rich Page tested two different headlines on his exit popup. The first headline read, “Is Your Website Optimized for High-Sales? Grab my free conversion toolbox and start succeeding!”

In the second popup, he tweaked the headline to include a few powerful words (circled in red below).

This version converted much better than the first, and with this optimized popup, he was able to increase his signup rate from 12% to 50%!

Another great use of greed power words is using them to promote giveaways and online contests. Learn how to run an online contest to grow your traffic and generate leads.

5. Power Words for Curiosity

According to curiosity-drive theory, curiosity is a naturally occurring urge that simply must be satisfied, similar to how we satisfy hunger by eating or thirst by drinking.

These power words will make your blog post headlines, email subject lines and landing page headlines impossible to resist.

How To Boost Conversions With Curiosity Power Words

Take a look at this example from a thank-you page on Mary Fernandez’s site after someone opts in for their email list.

The goal was to increase click-throughs to their private Facebook group by making subscribers curious to see what’s on the “other side.”

How many powerful words can you spot?

If you counted seven, you’re right!

6. Power Words for Ease and Convenience

Everybody loves ease and convenience. People are not usually motivated to do more than the absolute minimum work to achieve their goals.

The right power words can convey to readers how easy it is easy to do something. Because they don’t have to do much or put in a lot of effort, they are more likely to take action.

You can use these power words to make your lead magnets sound more digestible, to make your products sound more useful, and to make your headlines more enticing.

How To Boost Conversions With Sloth Power Words

Here’s an example of a blog post headline we’ve used that works very well.

Can you spot all the power words?

Did you get all five?

7. Power Words for Desire and Lust

Lust is usually thought of as sexual, but it’s actually just an intense desire for any item. When we lust after something, we crave it so badly that we stop thinking rationally.

Use these tantalizing strong words to amplify that craving and encourage people to take action.

How To Boost Conversions With Lust Power Words

List25 uses a lust word combined with curiosity words to make for an irresistibly provocative headline.

Did you spot the 3 power words in the featured headline on the right?

8. Power Words for Vanity and Bragging

You may not think of yourself as “vain”. However, researchers have found that vanity is one of the chief driving forces that lead to purchase decisions.

The fact is, we buy into things because of how we think they will make us look: both to others and to ourselves. And it’s not just that we want to look good physically, but we also want to look successful.

Use these power words to show how your offer (whether it’s a product, service, or lead magnet) will make your visitor look more attractive and more successful.

How To Boost Conversions With Vanity Power Words

Snack Nation uses one carefully chosen power word to increase conversions on their popup.

Do you know what power word it is?

Yes, “hero”! They know that their customers love getting positive attention and praise from their co-workers, so of course, they would love to be seen as the “office hero”.

(Bonus points if you also noticed that the words “without lifting a finger” is a great sloth power phrase, even though we didn’t include it in this list.)

9. Power Words for Trust

Have you ever thought that trust is really what content marketing and email marketing are all about?

Whether you are writing blog posts, creating signup forms, sending emails, or tweaking your product pages, the real purpose behind all of that is to build trust between the consumer and your brand.

Use these powerful words to speed up the trust-building process.

How To Boost Conversions With Trust Power Words

In this test at Teespring, the power words “don’t worry” were added in the fine print below the CTA (call to action) button and tested against a control.

The result of just this one tiny tweak in wording was a 12.7% boost in conversions! (That’s huge!)

10. Power Words for Anger

Anger has a huge influence on our perception, reasoning, and decisions. It makes us irrational, which can lead to choices that actually have no bearing on the thing that initially made us angry.

Stirring up the emotion of anger in your visitors and customers is a bad idea when it is targeted at your company. However, it can also work for you, if the anger is directed at something else.

Think about what makes your prospect angry about your industry. Stir up those emotions with these powerful words, then provide the solution.

How to Boost Conversions with Anger Power Words

Advertisements that use anger have been shown to be highly effective. In a study by researchers from Dartmouth and Cornell, anti-smoking TV commercials that used anger to appeal to the viewer’s emotions were more persuasive than those that used sadness.

This ad from Harley Davidson received a lot of praise for blatantly stating the angry, rebellious thoughts on people’s minds in regard to the economy.

Did you find all the power words?

11. Power Words for Fear

Fear is perhaps the most powerful motivator of all. It’s that primal instinct that keeps us safe, that keeps us alive.

If you want to inspire your readers to take action–whether that’s sharing your blog post, downloading your lead magnet, or buying your product–use these strong words to create fear of what might happen if they don’t.

(Just make sure you don’t completely paralyze them with fear: also, provide an actionable solution to their problem.)

How To Increase Conversions With Fear Power Words

Jon Morrow, known for his fear-inducing blog posts, uses powerful words to get his visitors to read and take action.

Here’s an example:

Did you spot the power words?

Where You Can Use Power Words

Here are some of the different places where you can use power words:

1. Website Content:

• Homepages: To immediately capture attention and convey the brand’s value proposition.
• Landing Pages: To persuade visitors to take a specific action, such as signing up or making a purchase.
• Product Descriptions: To highlight the benefits and features of a product.

2. Marketing Materials:

• Email Campaigns: In subject lines to increase open rates and in the body to drive clicks and conversions.
• Advertisements: In headlines and copy to capture attention and persuade viewers.
• Brochures & Flyers: To emphasize the benefits of a product, service, or event.

3. Social Media:

• Posts & Captions: To engage followers and encourage them to take action.
• Profile Bios: To succinctly convey a brand or individual’s value proposition.
• Ads: To drive clicks, shares, and conversions.

4. Sales Pitches and Presentations:

• To emphasize benefits, overcome objections, and persuade listeners.

5. Blog Posts and Articles:

• In titles to increase click-through rates.
• Within content to engage readers and encourage them to read further.

6. E-books and Whitepapers:

• In titles, subheadings, and content to emphasize points and engage readers.

7. Video Title and Scripts:

• To capture viewers’ attention and convey messages powerfully.

8. Customer Service Interactions:

• In scripts, emails, and live chats to convey empathy, assurance, and a willingness to help.

9. Press Releases:

• To highlight the importance and benefits of news or announcements.

10. Product Packaging:

• To highlight product benefits and features.

11. Webinars and Online Courses:

• In titles, descriptions, and content to engage participants and emphasize learning outcomes.

12. Testimonials and Reviews:

• To emphasize positive experiences and benefits received.

13. Mobile Apps:

• In notifications, descriptions, and in-app messages to engage users.

Using power words in these places can significantly enhance the impact of the message, making it more compelling, persuasive, and memorable.

Conclusion (Power Word Style!)

Don’t be a slave to the endless grind of tweaking and testing when you can simply copy the words that the experts use.

With this complete power words list, you are now equipped to turbocharge your conversions in record time!

What are your favorite power words? Can you think of a few we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Exclusive Bonus Download our 700+ Power Words Cheatsheet to Boost Your Conversions.

Also checkout:

• How to Create a Winning Email Marketing Strategy
• SEO Made Easy—Ultimate Guide to Explode Your Traffic
• How to Create an Optin Feature Box Step-by-Step (with Examples)
• eCommerce Best Practices: Set up Your Business for Success
• 8 Best Social Media Platforms for Business: Your Ultimate Guide

This blog will discuss email subject lines, their importance, email subject line best practices, and what to avoid while creating one.

But most importantly, we’ll also share 184 email subject line examples you can use to increase open rates.

Plus, we’ll help you understand the psychology behind them so you can replicate their success again and again.

Table of Contents

1. What Is an Email Subject Line?
2. Why Is a Good Email Subject Line Important?
3. 184 Best Email Subject Lines (and Why They Work)!
   1. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Email Subject Lines
   2. Curiosity Inducing Email Subject Lines
   3. Funny Email Subject Lines
   4. Vanity Appealing Email Subject Lines
   5. Greedy Email Subject Lines
   6. Catchy Email Subject Lines
   7. Customer Pain Points Email Subject Lines
   8. Retargeting Email Subject Lines
   9. Personalized Email Subject Lines
   10. Straightforward Email Subject Lines
   11. Sales Email Subject Lines
   12. Newsletter Email Subject Lines
4. Email Subject Line Best Practices
5. Common Mistakes To Avoid in Email Subject Lines
6. Top Email Subject Line Keywords
7. 3 Bonus Tips for Crafting Catchy Email Subject Lines

ExclusiveDownload the 184 Best Email Subject Lines Cheatsheet for boosting your email open rates.

Ready to get started? Let’s go!

What Is an Email Subject Line?

An email subject line is a brief preview or a one-line summary of the content of an email that appears in the inbox. The best email subject lines grab readers’ attention, provide value to the recipient, and encourage them to open the email.

Here is an email marketing subject line example.

It is usually the subject line that determines whether a reader would open your email or ignore it.

Why Is a Good Email Subject Line Important?

47% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone. At the same time, 69% of email recipients report emails as spammy based solely on the subject line.

In other words: your subject lines can make or break your email marketing campaigns.

By using good email subject lines, you can increase open rates, which can help improve click-through rates and conversions.

Email marketing subject lines are important for several other reasons as well, such as:

• Grabbing Attention: Subject lines are the first thing recipients see when they receive an email, and they play a crucial role in grabbing their attention and encouraging them to open the email.
• Setting Expectations: Subject lines also set expectations for the content of the email. A well-crafted subject line should give the recipient an idea of the email and what they can expect to find inside.
• Avoiding Spam Filters: Certain words and phrases can trigger spam filters, causing your email to be marked as spam and potentially end up in the recipient’s spam folder or not being delivered at all. Crafting subject lines that avoid these trigger words and phrases ensures deliverability.
• Higher Open Rates: An engaging subject line can significantly increase the recipient’s likelihood of opening the email. This is especially important in email marketing campaigns, where open rates often measure the campaign’s success.
• Encouraging Engagement: Subject lines can also encourage engagement with the email’s content. A catchy email subject line can entice the recipient to read further, click on links, or take other desired actions.

The subject line is the first impression that the recipient will have of the email. It’s important to make it count.

Let’s see 184+ catchy email subject line examples and the proven principles that make them work.

184 Best Email Subject Lines (and Why They Work)!

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Email Subject Lines

One psychological principle that is practically impossible to resist is FOMO, the fear of missing out. You can use this fear in your subject lines by adding an element of scarcity (limited availability) or urgency (limited time).

Email subject lines that include words that imply time sensitivity, like “urgent”, “breaking”, “important” or “alert” are proven to increase email open rates.

Here are some great sample subject lines for emails that use the fear of missing out:

1. Warby Parker: “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring”
2. JetBlue: “You’re missing out on points.”
3. Digital Marketer: “[URGENT] You’ve got ONE DAY to watch this…”
4. Digital Marketer: “Your 7-figure plan goes bye-bye at midnight…”
5. Digital Marketer: “[WEEKEND ONLY] Get this NOW before it’s gone…”
6. Jersey Mike’s Subs: “Mary, Earn double points today only”
7. Guess: “Tonight only: A denim lover’s dream”

Curiosity Inducing Email Subject Lines

Humans have a natural desire for closure. We don’t like having gaps in our knowledge. You can leverage this desire for closure by leaving your subject line open-ended so subscribers will be curious, like a cliffhanger that can only be satisfied by opening the email.

You can make subscribers curious by asking a question, promising something interesting, or simply saying something that sounds strange or unusual.

Here are some great examples of curiosity-inducing subject lines:

8. Manicube: “*Don’t Open This Email*”
9. GrubHub: “Last Day To See What This Mystery Email Is All About”
10. Refinery29: “10 bizarre money habits making Millennials richer”
11. Digital Marketer: “Check out my new “man cave” [PICS]”
12. Digital Marketer: “Is this the hottest career in marketing?”
13. Thrillist: “What They Eat In Prison”
14. Eat This Not That: “9 Disgusting Facts about Thanksgiving”
15. Chubbies: “Hologram Shorts?!”
16. The Hustle: “A faster donkey”
17. Mary Fernandez: “? a surprise gift for you! {unwrap}”

Funny Email Subject Lines

If your subject line makes your subscribers laugh, they must open it. After all, have you ever read a subject line that tickled your funny bone and didn’t read it?

Being humorous and catchy requires more thought and creativity, but it can pay off in terms of your open rates.

Here are some funny email subject lines to make your subscribers laugh:

18. Eater Boston: “Where to Drink Beer Right Now” (Sent at 6:45am on a Wednesday.)
19. OpenTable: “Licking your phone never tasted so good”
20. Groupon: “Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)”
21. The Muse: “We Like Being Used”
22. Warby Parker: “Pairs nicely with spreadsheets”
23. UncommonGoods: “As You Wish” (A reference to the movie The Princess Bride.)
24. Travelocity: “Need a day at the beach? Just scratch n’ sniff your way to paradise…”
25. TicTail: “Boom shakalak! Let’s get started.”
26. Thrillist: “Try To Avoid These 27 People On New Year’s Eve”
27. Baby Bump: “Yes, I’m Pregnant. You Can Stop Staring At My Belly Now.”
28. Gozengo: “NEW! Vacation on Mars”
29. The Hustle: “Look what you did, you little jerk…” (This one’s a reference to the movie Home Alone. We hope.)

Vanity Appealing Email Subject Lines

Everyone has a bit of vanity. People love to be liked, accepted, and even revered by others. It’s just a part of being human.

That’s why some of the most clever subject lines use vanity to get you to open the email. To do this, you can either promise something that makes the subscriber look better to their peers or invoke the fear of being shamed.

Here are some great examples of clever email subject lines that leverage vanity:

30. Guess: “Don’t wear last year’s styles.”
31. Fabletics: “Your Butt Will Look Great in These Workout Pants”
32. Jeremy Gitomer: “How Have You Progressed Since the Third Grade?”
33. Rapha: “Gift inspiration for the discerning cyclist”
34. La Mer: “Age-defying beauty tricks”
35. Pop Physique: “Get Ready. Keep the Pie Off Your Thighs Returns.”
36. Rapha: “As worn in the World Tour”
37. Sephora: “Products the celebs are wearing”

Greedy Email Subject Lines

You may not think of yourself as a “greedy” person, but it can be tough to pass up a great deal, even if you don’t need the item right now. That’s why sales, discounts, and special offers work well in your subject lines.

However, be careful about offering massive discounts; the higher the percentage, the less reliable its effect on your open rates (perhaps because consumers don’t believe large discounts are real).

Regardless, you can usually expect an increase in click-through rates whenever you offer a discount in your subject line. That’s because the people who open these emails are interested in your offer, so they’re naturally inclined to click.

Here are some great email subject line ideas for hitting your subscriber’s “greed” button:

38. Topshop: “Meet your new jeans”
39. Topshop: “Get a head start on summer”
40. HP: “Flash. Sale. Alert.”
41. HP: “New must-haves for your office”
42. Seafolly: “A new product you won’t pass on”
43. Guess: “25% off your favorites”
44. Rip Curl: “Two for two”
45. La Mer: “A little luxury at a great price”
46. Rapha: “Complimentary gift wrap on all purchases”
47. The Black Tux: “Get priority access.”

Catchy Email Subject Lines

Catchy email subject lines create excitement and encourage readers to open the email.

There are many different ways to grab your readers’ attention. For example, you can create an attention-grabbing catchy email subject line by being controversial, confident, or conversational.

You can also give readers an easier way to achieve their goals by offering a shortcut or a helpful resource (e.g., a lead magnet) that saves time and energy.

Here are a few catchy email subject line examples that capture the readers’ attention in one way or another.

48. Syed from OptinMonster: “ 63-Point Checklist for Creating the Ultimate Optin Form”
49. Syed from OptinMonster: “Grow your email list 10X faster with these 30 content upgrade ideas”
50. Ramit Sethi: “How to email a busy person (including a word-for-word script)”
51. Digital Marketer: “Steal these email templates…”
52. Digital Marketer: “A Native Ad in 60 Minutes or Less”
53. Digital Marketer: “212 blog post ideas“

Customer Pain Points Email Subject Lines

If you understand your buyer persona, you should know their biggest pain points. Use those pain points to get subscribers to open your emails by solving that problem.

Here are some examples of email subject lines that bring out the subscriber’s pain points and offer a solution:

54. Pizza Hut: “Feed your guests without breaking the bank”
55. IKEA: “Where do all these toys go?”
56. IKEA: “Get more kitchen space with these easy fixes”
57. HP: “Stop wasting money on ink”
58. Sephora: “Your beauty issues, solved”
59. Uber: “Since we can’t all win the lottery…”
60. Thrillist: “How to Survive Your Next Overnight Flight”
61. Guess: “Wanted: Cute and affordable fashions”
62. Evernote: “Stop wasting time on mindless work”
63. Duolingo: “Learn a language with only 5 minutes per day”

Retargeting Email Subject Lines

Retargeting emails are sent to subscribers when they fail to complete an action or a step in your sales funnel (e.g., when they abandon their cart or fail to purchase after their free trial). These emails serve to bring your subscribers back to your sales process.

You can write effective retargeting subject lines by overcoming objections, offering something to sweeten the deal, or alerting them that something bad will happen if they don’t take action.

Here are some excellent examples of retargeting email subject lines:

64. Nick Stephenson: “How you can afford Your First 10,000 Readers (closing tonight)”
65. Bonobos: “Hey, forget something? Here’s 20% off.”
66. Target: “The price dropped for something in your cart”
67. Syed from Envira: “Mary, your Envira account is on hold!”
68. Syed from Envira: “I’m deleting your Envira account”
69. Ugmonk: “Offering you my personal email”
70. Animoto: “Did you miss out on some of these new features?”
71. Pinterest: “Good News: Your Pin’s price dropped!”
72. Unroll.Me: “ Unroll.Me has stopped working”
73. Vivino: “We are not gonna Give Up on You!”

Personalized Email Subject Lines

Email subject lines that use personalization by including a name boost open rates by 10-14% across industries.

But including your subscriber’s name is only one way to make personalized subject lines. You can also use casual language, share something personal, or use copy that implies familiarity or friendship.

Here are some examples of personal email subject lines that work:

74. Guess: “Mary, check out these hand-picked looks”
75. Rent the Runway: “Happy Birthday Mary – Surprise Inside!”
76. Bonnie Fahy: “Mary, do you remember me?”
77. Kimra Luna: “I didn’t see your name in the comments!?”
78. John Lee Dumas: “Are you coming?”
79. UrbanDaddy: “You’ve Changed”
80. Influitive: “So I’ll pick you up at 7?”
81. James Malinchak: “Crazy Invitation, I am Going to Buy You Lunch…”
82. Brooklinen: “Vanilla or Chocolate?”
83. Sam from The Hustle: “I love you”
84. Ryan Levesque: “Seriously, Who DOES This?”
85. Jon Morrow: “Quick favor?”
86. Mary Fernandez: “you free this Thurs at 12PM PST? [guest blogging class]”
87. Mary Fernandez: “? your detailed results…”
88. Syed from OptinMonster: “300% increase in revenue with a single optin + a neat growth trick from my mastermind!”
89. Revolution Tea: “Thanks for helping us”
90. Harry’s: “Two razors for your friends (on us)”

Straightforward Email Subject Lines

When in doubt, make your subject line simple. Contrary to what you might think, these “boring” subject lines can convert well.

The key to making this work for your list is consistently providing value in your emails. Only send an email if you have something important to say: always make sure your campaigns are packed with value. If you do this, you’ll train your subscribers to open your emails no matter what the subject line says.

For help with writing better emails, check out our post on 19 quick and dirty tricks for writing better emails.

Here are a few examples of email marketing subject lines that get straight to the point:

91. Al Franken: “Yes, this is a fundraising email”
92. AYR: “Best coat ever”
93. Barack Obama: “Hey”

And these “boring” subject lines performed the highest out of 40 million emails, with open rates between 60-87%.

94. “[Company Name] Sales & Marketing Newsletter”
95. “Eye on the [Company Name] Update (Oct 31 – Nov 4)”
96. “[Company Name] Staff Shirts & Photos”
97. “[Company Name] May 2005 News Bulletin!”
98. “[Company Name] Newsletter – February 2006”
99. “[Company Name] and [Company Name] Invites You!”
100. “Happy Holidays from [Company Name]”
101. “Invitation from [Company Name]”

Sales Email Subject Lines

Sales email subject lines are specifically crafted to promote and sell a product or service to potential customers.

These subject lines grab the recipient’s attention and create a sense of urgency or exclusivity. They often use phrases like “limited time,” “exclusive offer,” or “sneak peek” to entice the recipient to open the email and take advantage of the promotion.

They often include a clear call to action, such as “Shop now” or “Learn more,” to encourage the recipient to take action and purchase.

Here are a few examples of effective sales email subject lines that work very well:

102. “Limited time offer: Get 20% off your first purchase!”
103. “Don’t miss out on our biggest sale of the year!”
104. “Sneak peek: Introducing our newest product line”
105. “Upgrade your [product/service] and save 10%”
106. “Exclusive offer: Buy one, get one free!”

Newsletter Email Subject Lines

Newsletter email subject lines are used to promote and share regular updates, news, or information with subscribers.

Newsletters, often sent regularly, such as weekly or monthly, are intended to keep subscribers engaged and informed about the latest developments related to the brand or industry.

Here are a few examples of newsletter email subject lines:

107. “Stay in the know: Our monthly newsletter is here!”
108. “5 must-read articles for this week”
109. “New product announcement: Be the first to know”
110. “Your weekly dose of inspiration and motivation”
111. “Exclusive content: Subscribe to our newsletter for access”

Learn more about newsletters in the following articles:

• How To Create An Email Newsletter in 5 EASY Steps
• 27 Awesome Newsletter Ideas That Will Keep Subscribers Engaged

Follow-up Email Subject Lines

Follow-up email subject lines are used to remind or follow up with a recipient after an initial email has been sent. They are often used for cold emails in sales or networking situations, where a prompt response is needed to close a deal or establish a relationship.

Here are a few examples of follow-up email subject lines that work:

112. “Quick follow-up on our meeting”
113. “Just wanted to touch base on [topic]”
114. “Checking in on your progress”
115. “Friendly reminder: [Action needed]”
116. “Don’t miss out: Last chance to [offer]”

Cold Email Subject Lines

Cold email subject lines are used to outreach prospects or potential customers. They are often used in sales or networking situations where the goal is to generate leads or establish new business relationships.

These types of subject lines are designed to be personalized, brief, and intriguing. They often use phrases like “introducing,” “would you be interested,” or “let’s chat” to communicate the purpose of the email in a friendly and non-invasive manner.

They often include a clear value proposition or a statement of how the sender can help the recipient further establish the potential benefits of engaging with the email.

Here are a few examples of cold email subject lines:

117. “Introducing [Product/Service] – A solution to your [problem]”
118. “Would you be interested in [Value proposition]?”
119. “Can we help you achieve [Goal]?”
120. “Let’s chat about [Topic]”
121. “Reaching out to explore a potential partnership”

Top Email Subject Line Keywords

Many studies have analyzed the effectiveness of using specific email subject line keywords. Use these keywords to boost your open rates even further when crafting your email copy and subject lines.

According to Alchemy Worx, which analyzed 21 billion emails sent by 2,500 brands, the top five most effective subject line keywords were:

122. “upgrade”
123. “just”
124. “content”
125. “go”
126. “wonderful”

In another study from Alchemy Worx, which analyzed 24.6 billion emails, the top subject line keywords for open rates were:

127. “jokes”
128. “promotional”
129. “congratulations”
130. “revision”
131. “forecast”
132. “snapshot”
133. “token”
134. “voluntary”
135. “monthly”
136. “deduction”

Based on Digital Marketer’s analysis of 125 million emails, some top subject line keywords to try are:

137. “free”
138. “ICYMI”
139. “$ today, $$$ tomorrow”
140. numbers (e.g. “7-figure plan”, “212 ideas”, “60 minutes or less”)
141. [brackets] (e.g. “[EMAIL MARKETERS] $95 today, $995 tomorrow,” “[In Case You Missed It] Our best-performing blog post of all time,” “[NAME’s Last Reminder] Up to 90% off our best-selling products gone in 3…2…1…”)

Adestra analyzed over 2.2 billion emails and found the following top subject line keywords:

142. “free delivery”
143. “available”
144. “new”
145. “alert”
146. “news”
147. “update”
148. “summer”
149. “weekend”

In another study from Adestra, which looked at over 125K email campaigns, the top-performing subject line keywords were:

150. “thank you”
151. “*|*|*|*|” (i.e. a subject line that has multiple stories delineated by pipes. For example, “Headline 1 | Headline 2 | Headline 3 | Headline 4”)
152. “monthly”
153. “thanks”
154. “*|*|*|”
155. “bulletin”
156. “golden”
157. “iPhone”
158. “breaking”
159. “order today”

Finally, a report by Smart Insights looked at a random sample of 700 million emails and found that the top-performing subject line keywords were:

160. “introducing”
161. “celebrate”
162. “buy”
163. “continues”
164. “get your”
165. “what…?”
166. “won’t…?”
167. “do…?”
168. “can…?”
169. “may…?”
170. “on orders over”
171. “orders over”
172. “off selected”
173. “your next order”
174. “available”
175. “brand new”
176. “latest”
177. “special”
178. “wonderful”
179. “great deals”
180. “sale starts”
181. “back in stock”
182. “stock”
183. “sale now”
184. “now in”

Did you knowOptinMonster works on any website, but it’s also got the best WordPress popup plugin on the market. Learn about the OptinMonster Effect and how we can help you get more subscribers and customers in 3 simple steps!

Best Practices for Email Subject Lines

Following these email subject line best practices, you can craft subject lines that grab your audience’s attention, increase open rates, and drive engagement.

• Segment Your Audience: Tailor your subject lines to different audience segments based on their interests and behaviors. This can increase open rates and engagement.
• Avoid Spam Trigger Words: Avoid using words that are commonly associated with spam, such as “cash,” “earn money,” “free,” or “act now.” These can trigger spam filters and cause your email to be marked as spam, ultimately affecting your email deliverability. This applies to both the subject line and the body of the email.
• Be Clear and Specific: Your subject line should indicate the content and purpose of the email. Avoid vague or overly general subject lines that don’t give the recipient a good idea of what to expect.
• Use Action-Oriented Language: Use strong verbs and action-oriented language to create a sense of urgency and encourage the recipient to take action. This can include words like “limited time offer,” “urgent,” “today only,” or “ending soon.”
• Use Personalization: Include the recipient’s name or other personalized information to make the email more relevant and personalized.
• Keep A/B Testing: A/B test different subject lines to see what works best for your audience. Try different lengths, formats, and styles to see what resonates with your subscribers.

Common Mistakes To Avoid in Email Subject Lines

When you’re creating that perfect email subject line, try to avoid the following mistakes:

• Using Clickbait or Deceptive Language: Avoid using misleading or exaggerated language to entice the recipient to open the email.
• Using All Caps or Excessive Punctuation: Using all caps or excessive punctuation can make the subject line appear spammy and turn off recipients.
• Making False Promises: Only promise something in the subject line delivered in the email’s body.
• Being Too Vague or Generic: Make sure the subject line is specific and provides value to the recipient.

3 Bonus Tips for Crafting Catchy Email Subject Lines

Before choosing a subject line at random, remember these tips for the highest possible open rates.

1. Most People Open Emails on Mobile

Regardless of which of the above techniques you use, make sure your subject line is optimized for mobile users.

While mobile access to email saw a dip at the end of 2018, it’s still the preferred way people access their email.

You can use free marketing tools like Zurb’s TestSubject to see how your subject line will appear on various popular mobile devices.

2. Originality is Key

Also, remember that being original is the key to sustainable success with your email subject lines.

The truth is subscribers get bored easily. If you want to engage first-time openers and long-term inactive subscribers, you don’t want them to read your subject line and think, “There’s that weekly newsletter again that I always ignore.”

You should keep things fresh and exciting. And writing good subject lines for emails is the best way to do that.

3. Try Out Emojis

According to a report by Experian, using emojis in your subject lines can increase your open rates by 45%.

We’ve also been testing this at OptinMonster, and we can confirm that the email subject lines with emojis beat the plain text ones!

Here are the top 15 emojis by subject line appearance.

These aren’t necessarily the “best” ones but the most popular. You can get creative with emojis and emoji combinations for your email subject lines.

That’s it! We hope you found these 184 best subject lines for emails helpful in creating your next subject line. If you did, consider downloading the cheat sheet, so you can always have this guide handy.

Email subject lines are critical to any email marketing campaign, especially for those in the eCommerce industry. They can make or break the success of an email campaign, especially during peak sales events like Black Friday.

Now it’s your turn. Choose one of the subject line examples above to modify and make your own.

Consider incorporating top subject line keywords to boost your newsletter open rates even more.

Need to send a newsletter? Learn how to create and send your first email newsletter with our guide.

Looking for the best bulk email services to help you reach a wider target audience? Check out the Top 10 Best Bulk Emails Services.

If you enjoyed this article, you should also check out the following blog posts:

• 8 Product Recommendation Email Examples to Drive Sales
• 30 Content Upgrade Ideas to Grow Your Email List
• Email Subject Line Statistics To Help You Maximize Your Open Rates
• 27 Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines PROVEN to Convert
• 29 Best Email Automation Tools to Transform Your Business

Wondering what is IndexNow and whether you need it for your site? IndexNow is a new way that helps you index your content instantly to rank fast in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

In this article, we’ll help you understand what exactly IndexNow is and everything else you’ll need to know about it.

Before that, let’s take a look at what indexing means.

What is Indexing?

Indexing is the process followed by search engines, that store and organize information in order to enable super-fast responses to user queries.

Without indexing, delivering a relevant result for a search query would be an inefficient and time-consuming process.

With indexing, since information is stored in an index, a database, search engines can rank the pages based on relevancy and offer better and faster results when someone performs a search.

What Is IndexNow for SEO and How It Works?

IndexNow is a technology that instantly alerts search engines about new or updated website content. This speeds up the process of getting your content discovered, compared to traditional methods that rely on search engines to find your content on their own.

It means that search engines can now prioritize crawling for these updated URLs while limiting organic crawling to discover new content.

Currently, the IndexNow feature is supported by Bing and Yandex search engines. And a Google spokesperson confirmed that they’re testing IndexNow to check its overall sustainability.

As a website owner, IndexNow allows you to index content faster so it appears in the relevant search results as soon as you publish it.

Now that you know what IndexNow is, you might be wondering, “How can I add IndexNow to my site?“.

How to Add IndexNow to Your Website

Adding IndexNow to your WordPress site can be intimidating if you’re not a developer.

In order to enable Index on your site, you’ll need to generate an API key and host the key manually by adding it to your public_html folder in the form of a text file.

However, adding IndexNow shouldn’t be that hard.

Thankfully, there’s a more straightforward method available, and that is to use a plugin.

For a detailed guide, check out how to enable IndexNow in WordPress.

Add IndexNow with AIOSEO Plugin

One of the easiest ways to add IndexNow to your website is to use the All in One SEO plugin. It’s one of the best SEO plugins trusted by over 3 million websites.

All in One SEO is built to make search engine optimization easy for every WordPress user. Some of the popular features of the AIOSEO plugin are:

• SEO Audit: AIOSEO comes with an SEO audit feature that performs technical analysis and shows you the areas for improving your website SEO.
• TruSEO: Optimize the posts, pages, and products using AIOSEO’s TruSEO feature and improve the on-page SEO of your content.
• Link Assistant: With the link assistant tool, you get a clear view of all your website’s internal and external links.
• Search Appearance: It helps you create a business knowledge graph and display your business details in the search results.
• Local SEO: You can rank your business higher in the local business search results.

And many more.

Let’s dive into the steps for implementing IndexNow using the All in One SEO plugin.

But before we start, note that AIOSEO introduced the IndexNow feature in version 4.1.7. So, you’ll need to update the plugin to the recent version.

Once you’ve updated the plugin, navigate to the Feature Manager menu.

Now, activate the IndexNow feature.

The next step is to verify the API key by going to the General Settings» Webmaster tools.

Select the IndexNow box and click on the Save Changes button.

That’s it!

You’ve successfully enabled IndexNow on your website using the All in One SEO plugin.

While using the AIOSEO plugin is the best way to add the IndexNow feature, there’s also another method available that you might want to check out.

Add IndexNow with Bing’s IndexNow Plugin

Since Microsoft initiated IndexNow for the Bing search engine, they’ve created a plugin for adding the IndexNow feature to WordPress websites.

You can find the IndexNow plugin from the WordPress plugin repository.

Install the plugin just like you install any other plugin.

Navigate to Settings » IndexNow from the dashboard and click on the Get Started button.

The plugin automatically generates the host API key and ping search engines when you update the content.

You can check the IndexNow stats for successful and failed URLs within the plugin dashboard.

However, the most important reason for using AIOSEO over the Bing IndexNow plugin is that AIOSEO is a dedicated SEO plugin and comes with many crucial SEO features.

We hope this guide helped you learn how what IndexNow is and why it’s needed.

If you liked this article, consider checking out some similar topics to improve your website’s overall SEO performance:

• All in One SEO (AIOSEO) Review
• How to Add IndexNow in WordPress for Fast Content Indexing
• 15 Best SEO Plugins You Need to Have to Get More Traffic

What are you waiting for? Get started with All in One SEO Today!

If you liked this article, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more free WordPress articles.

Summary:

Email Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links in your email. It’s calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of delivered emails and multiplying by 100. For example, if you sent 1,000 emails and 50 recipients clicked on a link, your CTR would be 5%.

Here are 13 tips on how to improve email click-through rate:

1. Craft Compelling Subject Lines
2. Personalize Your Emails
3. Optimize Email Design
4. Segment Your Audience
5. Create Clear and Strong CTAs
6. A/B Test Your Emails
7. Use Engaging Visuals
8. Keep Content Relevant and Valuable
9. Send Emails at the Right Time
10. Utilize Interactive Elements
11. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness
12. Leverage Social Proof
13. Monitor and Analyze Performance

The click-through rate metric is more than just a number; it’s a powerful indicator of how well your audience engages with your content and a critical factor in driving conversions and boosting your digital marketing ROI.

Naturally, among the many email marketing metrics available to check the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, the one that stands out in particular is email click-through rate.

This article explains email click-through rate and teaches you how to improve it.

So, let’s dive in and unlock the full potential of your email campaigns!

• What Is Email Click-Through Rate
• Why Is Email CTR Important
• Average Email Click-Through Rate
• What Is a Good Click Through Rate for Email
• Why Is My Email Campaign Click Through Rate so Low
• How To Increase Email Click-Through Rate

What Is a Good Click Through Rate for Email

A good click-through rate for email marketing can depend on various factors, such as the industry, the type of email, and the campaign’s specific goals. Here are some general benchmarks:

Industry-Specific CTR Benchmarks

• Technology: 5% to 7%
• Nonprofits: 4% to 6%
• E-commerce/Retail: 2% to 4%
• Healthcare: 3% to 5%
• Media and Publishing: 4% to 6%

Type of Email

• Newsletters: 3% to 5%
• Promotional Emails: 1% to 3%
• Transactional Emails: 5% and higher

Why Is My Email Campaign Click Through Rate so Low

Below are some common causes why your email campaign click through rate could be low:

1. Irrelevant Content:
   • Mismatched audience: Ensure your content aligns with your subscribers’ interests and needs.
   • Weak value proposition: Clearly communicate the benefits of clicking the link.
2. Poor Subject Lines:
   • Lack of clarity: Be specific and intriguing.
   • Misleading promises: Avoid clickbait.
   • Ignoring mobile optimization: Short subject lines are crucial for mobile.
3. Email Design Issues:
   • Poor readability: Use clear fonts, sufficient contrast, and proper spacing.
   • Slow loading times: Optimize images and code.
   • Mobile unfriendliness: Ensure your email looks good on all devices.
4. Timing and Frequency:
   • Wrong send time: Experiment with different times to find optimal engagement.
   • Excessive frequency: Overwhelming subscribers can lead to unsubscribes.
5. Technical Problems:
   • Email deliverability issues: Check for spam filters and sender reputation.
   • Broken links: Ensure all links are functional

How to Improve Your Email CTR: 13 Tips

1. Craft Compelling Subject Lines

The subject line is the first impression recipients get of your email. An enticing and relevant subject line increases the chances of your email being opened and clicked. Use action verbs, create urgency, and be clear about the email’s value. Personalization in the subject line, such as including the recipient’s name, can also boost open rates.

2. Personalize Your Emails

Personalization goes beyond using the recipient’s name. Tailor the email content based on the recipient’s preferences, past behaviors, or demographic information. Use dynamic content to show personalized product recommendations or relevant offers.

3. Optimize Email Design

Your emails should be visually appealing and easy to read. A clean, responsive design that adapts to various devices ensures a better user experience. Use a single-column layout, ample white space, and clear fonts. Ensure that your email is not cluttered and that the most important elements stand out.

4. Segment Your Audience

Segmentation allows you to send more relevant content to different groups within your audience. You can segment based on demographics, purchase history, engagement level, or interests. This targeted approach increases the relevance of your emails, leading to higher engagement and CTR.

5. Create Clear and Strong CTAs

Your call-to-action (CTA) should be prominent, clear, and compelling. Use action-oriented language that tells recipients exactly what you want them to do, such as “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Get Started.” Make your CTA buttons stand out with contrasting colors and ensure they are easy to click on both desktop and mobile devices.

6. A/B Test Your Emails

A/B testing involves sending two variations of an email to a small segment of your audience to see which performs better. Test different elements such as subject lines, CTAs, images, and email copy. Use the results to optimize your emails for better performance.

7. Use Engaging Visuals

Incorporate high-quality images, videos, or GIFs to make your emails more visually appealing. Visual content can convey your message quickly and effectively, capturing the reader’s attention and encouraging clicks.

8. Keep Content Relevant and Valuable

Ensure that your email content is relevant and valuable to your audience. Avoid generic messages and focus on delivering useful information, such as tips, guides, or exclusive offers. The more value you provide, the more likely recipients are to engage with your emails.

9. Send Emails at the Right Time

The timing of your emails can significantly impact your CTR. Test different days of the week and times of day to determine when your audience is most likely to engage. Consider time zones and the typical daily routines of your recipients.

10. Utilize Interactive Elements

Interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or carousels can increase engagement and encourage clicks. These elements make your emails more dynamic and can capture the reader’s attention more effectively than static content.

11. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness

With many people reading emails on mobile devices, it’s crucial to ensure your emails are mobile-friendly. Use a responsive design that adjusts to different screen sizes, and make sure your links and buttons are easy to tap on smaller screens.

12. Leverage Social Proof

Including testimonials, reviews, or user-generated content can build trust and encourage clicks. Social proof reassures recipients that others have had positive experiences with your product or service, making them more likely to engage.

13. Monitor and Analyze Performance

Regularly track your email metrics and analyze performance. Look at which emails have higher CTRs and analyze what they have in common. Use these insights to inform future campaigns and continually improve your email strategy. Tools like Google Analytics and email marketing platforms’ built-in analytics can provide valuable data.

Implementing these strategies can help you create more engaging emails that encourage recipients to click through and interact with your content.

A low email click-through rate often indicates irrelevant content, poor subject lines, or suboptimal timing. To improve your CTR, focus on highly targeted audience segmentation, compelling subject lines, and clear, compelling calls to action. Additionally, optimize your email content for mobile devices and test different send times to find what works best for your audience.

More on Email Marketing:

• How to Create a Winning Email Marketing Strategy
• 15 Email Marketing Best Practices to Build a Killer List
• 10 Brilliant Email Marketing Examples and Why We Love Them
• Small Business Email Marketing: 7 (Easy) Tips for Growth
• 6 Free Email Marketing Templates You Need To Try Right Now!
• 29 Best Email Automation Tools to Transform Your Business

Good lead magnets are one of the most effective strategies for businesses to attract potential customers and convert them into loyal clients.

But what exactly is a lead magnet, and how can you create one that resonates with your target audience?

Let’s dive in!

• What Is a Lead Magnet?
• Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Try Today
• How To Create a Lead Magnet
• 63 Irresistible Lead Magnet Examples
• 7 Key Takeaways To Create Irresistible Lead Magnets
• How To Distribute Your Lead Magnet

Exclusive Bonus Download the 69 Irresistible Lead Magnet Ideas to grow your email list.

What Is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a free, valuable resource offered in exchange for a visitor’s contact information. It’s a marketing tool used to attract potential customers and build an email list.

The primary goal of a lead magnet is to entice visitors to engage with your brand, thereby increasing the chances of converting them into paying customers.

Consider it a win-win situation: your audience gets something valuable, and you can nurture and communicate with them.

This makes lead magnets one of the most important parts of your content marketing strategy.

Here’s an example of an OptinMonster campaign offering a lead magnet:

Right away, users can see they can get 12 proven strategies for converting abandoning visitors. All they need to do is enter their email address.

Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Try Today

In this section, we’ll learn about several different types of lead magnet content you can create. You can deliver these lead magnets in a variety of formats: PDF download, video, Notion template or other digital file, or even as a gated content page on your website.

1. Checklist

Let’s start with our favorite lead magnet example: the checklist.

Checklists convert the best out of all the lead magnets because they’re so easily consumed. They condense the user’s knowledge into one actionable list.

They’re also super quick to create. For example, you can summarize your popular blog posts as a checklist and turn them into a content upgrade. Then combine that content upgrade with a 2-step optin form, and you’ll see a big conversion boost.

Here are two examples of checklists we’ve created for users like you:

Ultimate Optin Form Checklist: This checklist contains a list of all 63 elements that you need to create the ultimate optin form.

On-Page SEO Checklist: How to Fully Optimize Your Posts: You can print this out and consult it whenever you want to optimize a page for SEO.

2. eBook

For it to work, what you need is a solid benefit. Why should someone take the time to read your eBook?

Derek Halpern’s free eBook Get 5,000 Subscribers features an irresistible benefit to their target market.

Still, if someone can achieve the same result from a simple checklist, then, by all means, give them a checklist instead. It’s not worth spending weeks writing an entire eBook when you can get better conversions from a PDF that took you 20 minutes to create.

You may also want to check out this post on how to make an ebook popup to get even more leads from your ebook.

3. Webinar

Like video and audio lead magnets, webinars also have high perceived value. They’re even more irresistible because they have another component: urgency.

Since live webinars only occur at specific times and may have a limited run, they play on the “fear of missing out.”

Heck, webinars work so well for lead generation that Neil Patel turned their entire homepage into a webinar registration page!

If you use WordPress and are looking for an LMS plugin for WordPress to launch a webinar easily or an online course, check out our top picks!

4. Template

A template can provide an outline, or some starting point, so all the user has to do is fill in the blanks.

The Magic Email Template is a great lead magnet template example– it’s something entrepreneurs and small business owners can copy and paste, customize a few words, and then send off to connect with influencers and VIPs in your industry instantly.

To take your lead magnet game one step further, create a collection of lead magnet templates, like Digital Marketer’s Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library.

5. Product Demos

If you’ve ever shopped for an app or a software tool, you’ve probably seen many of these lead magnet examples without realizing it.

Most software companies will have a big call to action to sign up for a free trial or demo on their homepage. Why? Because that’s how they get your email address.

But you don’t have to be a software company to benefit from a free trial lead magnet.

SnackNation offers a free sample box of their product. They ask for your work email address (no credit card required). Now that’s an irresistible offer!

6. Case Studies

Prospects at the bottom of the funnel love to read case studies. This lead magnet idea could give them the last push they need to buy your product.

Back when Upwork was still oDesk, they had a lead magnet called “Make It Work: Smart Advice From Real-Life Clients Who Found Success Using Online Work.” This was a compilation of case studies from people who used their service, packaged in PDF format.

7. Exclusive Discount Codes

It would be best to offer an early bird discount to sweeten the deal of getting on your waitlist. This is a great way to reward your most enthusiastic prospects at the bottom of your funnel.

8. Email Course

Email courses are easy to assemble because they don’t require creating anything fancy or downloadable. It’s a simple email autoresponder series that teaches users to accomplish something specific.

The best part about email courses is that they can be used to turn prospects into customers.

Rick Mulready uses their email course called 4 Facebook Ad Mistakes That Are Losing You Money to convert leads into customers for their FB Ads for Newbies course.

9. Podcasts

Podcasts have surged in popularity and can be an excellent lead magnet, especially for audiences who prefer auditory content.

By offering exclusive podcast episodes or a unique series as a lead magnet, businesses can attract subscribers keen on absorbing content on the go.

Whether it’s an interview with an industry expert, deep dives into specific topics, or behind-the-scenes content, a podcast can provide valuable insights and knowledge. Plus, with the added benefit of voice and tone, it can help in building a deeper connection with the audience.

Like other content forms, it’s crucial to ensure the podcast offers genuine value, is well-produced, and resonates with the target demographic.

How To Create a Lead Magnet

Step 1. Define the Buyer

Step 2. Identify the Problem You’re Solving

Step 3. Position Your Lead Magnet

Step 4. Create Your Lead Magnet

Creating a lead magnet that resonates with your audience requires a strategic approach. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1. Define the Buyer

Thinking strategically about your lead magnet before pulling up your graphic design software or building a signup form would be best.

First, you need to decide what kind of buyer persona you hope to pull in with this lead magnet.

Ask yourself:

• What product or service are you hoping to sell?
• Who wants this offer?
• Why do they need it?
• What pain points are they experiencing?

It would help if you also considered the customer’s level of awareness. They may be:

• Unaware: They need to learn or describe what their problem is.
• Problem Aware: They know there’s a problem but need to know if there’s a solution.
• Solution Aware: They know of ways to solve their problem but need the specific tools or processes to do it.
• Product Aware: They know your company, product, or service exists but need to be made aware of everything you can do for them or aren’t convinced it will work for them.
• Most Aware: They know all about your offer and how it can help them but are yet to buy.

New leads typically come in unaware, problem-aware, or solution-aware. The next step will be defining the problem your lead magnet will solve for them and how much awareness it will build.

Step 2. Identify the Problem You’re Solving

As I mentioned earlier, effective lead magnets will solve specific problems. These may be incomplete solutions, but they will give the subscriber a quick win to build trust in your brand.

It may be easier to start by thinking about the problem your paid product solves. Then, work backward to define a problem your lead magnet can solve.

For example, a company may be selling an SEO plugin for WordPress. That paid product solves the problem of creating SEO-friendly content more easily. Before a customer is ready for that product, they need to know how well their site is performing on search in the first place.

Their lead magnet could be a quick SEO audit checklist, which would solve the problem of understanding their current SEO performance.

Your goal is to build awareness with your lead magnet and throughout your sales and marketing funnel. Most steps in the funnel will make just 1-2 awareness levels at a time.

Taking someone from unaware to most aware with a single download can be a stretch, but it would be relatively easy to take them from problem-aware to solution-aware.

Going back to our SEO plugin example, prospects may be completely unaware they have any SEO issues that need to be solved before using the lead magnet.

After completing the audit checklist, they become aware of the SEO problems on their site. They are then ready to receive more marketing material about the plugin.

Step 3. Position Your Lead Magnet

The last bit of strategic planning you should do is to position your lead magnet appropriately in your sales process. In other words, think through what should happen before and after new subscribers download the lead magnet.

First, consider how they’ll find your lead magnet. Will you send Facebook ad traffic to it? Will it be on a landing page or blog post that comes up in search results? Will you link to the lead magnet from other sites or your own email signature?

Check out our list of places to add signup forms for higher conversions to get some ideas.

Next, figure out where their contact information goes.

You might send those email addresses to an email service provider (ESP) like Constant Contact or a customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot. There’s no point in offering a lead magnet if you leave those email addresses in the Internet void!

Finally, think about what happens after the new subscriber gets their lead magnet. Do you follow up with a welcome email sequence or SMS message? Do you reach out personally by email to schedule a 1:1 consultation? Do they start receiving your weekly email newsletter right away?

It can help your lead magnet to give a hint about what will happen next. You can include this in the lead magnet itself, on the signup form, in the email delivering the lead magnet, or all of the above.

Step 4. Create Your Lead Magnet

Now, it’s time actually to create your lead magnet.

First, pick a format. This can affect the type of content you write. For example, an interactive quiz differs significantly from a PDF report.

Also, consider your target audience when creating your lead magnet. Would they have time to watch a 10-minute video or prefer a PDF download they can look through at their leisure?

Next, write the content. Start by reviewing the benefits of the lead magnet. What will your checklist help them do? What will they know after reading your report? How will your template make their lives easier?

Then, lay out your process or insights step by step. Finish with a call to action (CTA) describing the next step they can take to work with you or purchase your products.

Once you have your content ready, pick a title. With the title, you can be as clever as you want as long as it clearly explains the lead magnet’s value proposition. One simple formula to use is [Solution] for [Buyer]:

• 12-Step Website Audit for Creative Business Owners
• Meal Planning Template for Busy Parents
• Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing: A Report for Agency Owners
• Beginner’s Guide to Website Design for Authors

Let’s also read about a lead magnet platform called Beacon.

Beacon.by

Beacon.by is a comprehensive platform designed to help users create and manage lead magnets. It offers a range of features that simplify the process of creating, capturing, and managing lead magnets.

Key features of Beacon.by include:

• Lead Magnet Creator: Allows users to create professional-looking lead magnets using a drag-and-drop builder. Users can start from scratch or use one of the many templates available, tailored to various industries.
• Lead Capture Forms: This tool helps users design engaging forms to gather customer information, enhancing the website’s lead generation capabilities.
• Resource Library Builder: Users can compile and manage a collection of valuable resources such as documents, videos, and links, making it easier for their audience to access and interact with content.

Beacon also provides a “Lead Magnet Academy” that offers lessons on creating effective lead magnets, promoting them, and nurturing leads once they have engaged with your content.

Pricing options cater to different needs, from a free plan suitable for new businesses and hobbyists, to more advanced plans that offer additional features like custom domains and increased lead management capabilities.

For more information and a deeper dive into what Beacon.by can offer, you can visit their official site: Beacon.by.

Now, you can design your lead magnet! A complete design or technical tutorial is too much to include in this article, but here are some helpful links you can use to get started:

• What Is Lead Quality? And How to Measure It (+8 Bonus Tips!)
• How to Create a Lead Magnet In Canva
• How to Create a Quiz Lead Magnet
• How to Create an Email Course Lead Magnet

63 Irresistible Lead Magnet Examples

Ready to create your lead magnet? Let’s dive into the 63 highly effective lead magnet examples to increase your subscribers.

1. Cheatsheet

Cheatsheets are essentially the same as checklists, but they give users a list of guidelines or processes they can repeatedly follow to achieve a specific benefit.

They’re irresistible to people because they remove the need to think.

Here’s an example of a cheat sheet created for bloggers: 52 Headline Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral.

Bloggers want their blog posts to go viral, so this is a benefit-driven lead magnet for them.

It also removes the need to think: no more racking your brain about how to get your blog posts to go viral when you have this cheat sheet!

2. Template

A template can provide an outline, or some starting point, so all the user has to do is fill in the blanks.

The Magic Email Template is a great lead magnet template example– it’s something entrepreneurs and small business owners can copy and paste, customize a few words, and then send off to connect with influencers and VIPs in your industry instantly.

To take your lead magnet game one step further, create a collection of lead magnet templates, like Digital Marketer’s Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Library.

3. Swipe File

Swipe files are arguably even more irresistible than templates because all you have to do is copy them in their entirety.

For example, The Ultimate Social Media Swipe File includes 72 headlines for social media posts that you can simply, well, swipe!

4. Examples

Examples work well as lead magnets because people are searching for examples all the time in all different industries.

For instance, Bidsketch (a proposal software) uses a Sample Client Proposal as a lead magnet.

You could turn one of your popular posts into a lead-generating machine by optimizing it for “[your keyword] + examples” and then adding an example lead magnet as a content upgrade.

5. Script

Scripts are great lead magnet examples if your buyer persona needs something to help them speak or write.

For instance, if they need help prepping for a job interview, you could offer a script for pitching themselves to a potential employer.

Another great lead magnet example is this popular lead magnet created by Marcus Krieg: 3 Persuasive Video Scripts You Can Steal.

6. Toolkit

A trendy type of lead magnet idea is the toolkit. Why? Because everyone wants to know what tools the pros use!

Syed’s Toolkit for Growing Your Online Business is no exception. It’s a huge hit!

The best part about toolkits is that you can usually become an affiliate for those products. Not only does the toolkit provide a handy resource to your visitors, but it can also generate additional revenue for your business.

7. Web App

A web app is a free tool that lives on your site and requires a login. Of course, users have to sign up by email to get the login.

For example, Bryan Harris created a web app called ListGoal, which is free to use. However, Bryan gets your permission to email you when you sign up for it.

8. Resource List

Lists of free resources are valuable because they’re huge time savers. Whenever you pull all of the best stuff together, you save your users a lot of research time.

My Giant Guest Blogging Index has been a massive hit for that reason. All the research has been done for someone looking to write guest posts.

9. Calendar

Calendars can also be helpful in a variety of industries.

For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, like Blogilates, you could offer a workout calendar. That way, your users don’t have to think about what exercises to do daily because you’ve already mapped it out for them.

10. Plan/Planner

Similar to a calendar is a daily, weekly, or monthly plan you’ve mapped out for someone.

For example, 5 Free Meal Plans is a great lead magnet for a busy mom who is struggling to find the time to figure out what’s for dinner every night.

Your lead magnet could be a blank planner the user fills in with their plan. These blank planners are also useful because they make organizing easier for people.

Mayi Carles sells these attractive planners, but they could just as easily give away a digital sample as a lead magnet to whet your appetite for more.

11. Worksheet/Workbook

A worksheet (or workbook) is similar to a planner, except that it usually helps people to complete a specific exercise or figure something out.

A perfect medium for this is an editable workbook that someone can download and fill out on their computer. Teachable has a great, in-depth tutorial on using Adobe InDesign to create a workbook lead magnet.

12. Printable

A printable is especially great if you’re in a creative field and your users want something attractive that they can print out.

Or, your user needs to print something out to be handy when they need it, such as a shopping list or a grocery list, like this one from Rustic Redhead.

13. Inspiration File

Does your user need inspiration? People always search the internet for inspiration, so why not give it to them as a neatly packaged lead magnet?

This Logo Design Inspiration eBook, for example, is perfect for designers seeking inspiration for their next logo.

14. Prompts

While inspiration files generally offer visual inspiration, prompts help to inspire by giving you ideas to think about.

60 Journal Prompts is a self-help lead magnet that helps users with “self-love, self-discovery + a spot of self-coaching.”

15. Calculator

If your users need to deal with numbers, why not create a calculator and gate it as a lead magnet?

VWO has some great calculators on their site which could also be a great lead magnet idea. For example, this A/B Split Test Significance Calculator is handy for any marketer looking to see whether they have enough traffic to collect important data.

16. Generator

People often search for generators to create something quickly without thinking. If a generator is useful for your audience, consider gating it.

HubSpot has a useful blog topic generator on its site. They aren’t using it as a lead magnet, but they certainly could if they wanted to.

17. Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets can be used to create all kinds of valuable resources. They’re a programming tool right at your fingertips!

DebtHelper uses a free budget spreadsheet to collect email subscribers. They even include a bonus video guide on how to use the spreadsheet.

18. Recipes

Many recipes are freely available on the internet, so you might consider this a bad lead magnet idea. However, you’d be surprised how many people will optin for your curated recipes.

EatingWell knows this, and that’s why they use an exit-intent popup to offer their best healthy recipes and nutrition tips delivered straight to your inbox.

19. Gated Content

Gated content is simply a blog post or part of a blog post that is hidden behind your lightbox popup. This is one of the easiest lead magnets to create because it uses your existing content!

One thing you can do is to gate the second half of a long blog post. You can do this easily with OptinMonster by using one of our inline optin lead magnet templates + our Content Lock feature.

If you go with gated content, you may also want to learn how to create a paywall. That will reserve premium content for paying subscribers and generate more passive income for your site.

20. Tutorial

A tutorial is any content that teaches how to do one specific thing. It could be a video or a PDF download with a numbered list of steps.

David Siteman Garland’s 7 Proven Steps to Creating, Promoting & Profiting from Online Courses seems to work well for him– he’s been using it for quite some time now, although it was probably quick to create.

21. Guide

A guide is similar to an eBook because iit’s a lengthier lead magnet to create. However, guides can work well when you use them as the nurturing part of your sales funnel to educate prospects on why they should buy from you.

Here’s an example of a guide from HubSpot: The Definitive Blueprint for Lead Management.

This works because it educates their users on why they need a lead management product like HubSpot.

That said, I’d encourage you to create some un-gated guides on your site. At OptinMonster, we like to call these “mega guides.”

We’ve used mega guides on OptinMonster and our other web properties with great success because they generate a ton of organic search traffic. Check out our Definitive Guide to Email Marketing as an example; it’s freely available with no email optin required.

22. Whitepaper

Whitepaper or reports are perfect lead magnets for B2B businesses, but they can also work in any industry that relies on data, statistics, or research.

You can either research and collect the data yourself or pull together data from various sources into one comprehensive report.

Here are a couple of whitepaper lead magnet examples:

2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management: the great thing about this report is that it has been “updated for 2016”, so at the time of this writing, it’s fresh and new.

The YouTube Traffic Report: this report pulls together the statistics on YouTube traffic, so it didn’t require any in-house data collection to create.

23. Infographic

Infographics are the content you’d likely use to drive website visitors since they do so well on social media. However, they also work well as educational lead magnets.

Think about it: many people need to visualize a concept before fully understanding it. Instead of giving users a bunch of boring text to sift through, why not illustrate your point with an infographic? This extra detail will make your lead magnet stand out so much more.

Here’s an example of an infographic explaining successful and unsuccessful people’s habits.

Does this infographic make the concept more memorable and easy to digest than a plain text PDF?

24. Educational Video

Create a video to take your lead magnet further than an infographic!

Videos not only include a visual component, but they have an audio component as well. Plus, you can put real people in front of the camera (or come on camera yourself) to boost your brand.

But the best part is videos have a higher perceived value, making them more irresistible.

QuickSprout has a video course on Double Your Traffic in 30 Days. In their sidebar optin form, they’ve included a DVD mockup to drive home the high value of their lead magnet.

25. Educational Audio

Downloadable audio might make the perfect lead magnet example depending on your target audience.

For example, if your ideal customer rarely has time for reading or watching videos, they might prefer to have something to listen to in the car on their commute to and from work.

Remember: you can always repurpose a video by stripping out the audio and turning it into a lead magnet!

Here’s an example from Marie Forleo: a motivational, free audio training to learn “how to get anything you want.” I especially love the rose gold iPhone mockup with earbuds, which perfectly depicts how one of Marie’s users would listen to their audio (e.g., they may download it to their phone and take it to the gym).

26. Webinar

Like video and audio lead magnets, webinars also have high perceived value. They’re even more irresistible because they have another component: urgency.

Since live webinars only occur at specific times and may have only a limited run, they play on the “fear of missing out.”

Heck, webinars work so well for lead generation that Neil Patel turned their entire homepage into a webinar registration page!

If you use WordPress and are looking for an LMS plugin for WordPress to launch a webinar easily or an online course, check out our top picks!

27. Event Tickets

Like a webinar, you can offer free tickets to a live event in exchange for an email address.

The best way to do this is by using social media ads to push targeted traffic to your optin form. Your target audience would be people who are interested in your offer and live near your in-person event.

I highly recommend using Facebook ads for this because Facebook has the most powerful targeting features out of any other social media advertising channel. Make sure you follow these 7 steps to optimize your Facebook ads for conversions.

28. Free Book + Shipping

If you have a bunch of physical books you’ve written lying around, consider giving them away as a lead magnet. All you have to do is collect a small fee to cover your shipping costs.

Want to know why this offer works so well? Well, physical books generally have higher perceived value than eBooks do. When you offer a physical book for free, it’s an irresistible deal.

However, because the user has to pull out their credit card to pay for the shipping, this lead magnet idea pre-qualifies the best leads.

In other words, you’ve not only acquired a new lead, but you’ve also effectively acquired a new customer—and existing customers are so much easier to convert to a higher offer than people who’ve never bought anything from you.

Here’s an example of a free book plus shipping from Russell Brunson.

29. Sample Chapter

If you want to avoid going the free book route, you could pull out one chapter and offer it as a free sample.

Make sure the sample is digital and instantly downloadable so your users can get instant gratification.

30. Sample Video/Clip

If your product takes the form of a video or video, pull out a sample video or a sample clip and exchange that for an email address.

In the case of an information product called The Copy Cure, you can access their Copywriting Class Free Sample by entering your email address.

31. Sample Audio Clip

A sample audio clip works well as a lead magnet, too (even if your product is a video).

Erin Stutland’s product includes workout videos, and their lead magnet offer is a free audio workout.

32. Free Coaching Session

If you’re a coach or offer a service, you could provide a free coaching session in exchange for an email address.

The great thing about coaching sessions is that they get your prospects on the phone with you, and those people usually expect to hear your pitch at the end. This can be an effective way of acquiring high-end clients.

Chris Lema charges per minute for their coaching sessions, but he could offer them for free for a limited time if he wanted to push more signups.

33. PDF Version

This is one of those lead magnets that is so underutilized yet straightforward to create.

All you have to do is find your most popular blog posts, save a PDF version of the blog post, and then offer it as a content upgrade.

You’d be surprised how many people will optin to receive the same thing they just read in PDF form! The value-add here is that they get to own your blog post.

For example, our 12 Proven Ways to Convert Abandoning Visitors into Subscribers download could just as easily have been a blog post that we turned into a lead magnet.

34. Transcript

While we’re on the subject of repurposing content, why not repurpose a video by offering a transcript?

Although many people prefer video for learning, many others prefer reading. Making sure you have both learners covered is a great way to provide more value with the content you’ve already created.

35. Audio Version

Similarly, you could offer an audio version of a written piece of content.

UX designer Paul Boag regularly records an audio version of their blog posts. However, he could just as easily gate the audio version behind an optin form and generate more leads!

36. Summary/”Cliff Notes” Version

Do you have a long, in-depth guide that your users love? Package a summarized version of that into a lead magnet.

You can also share what you’re learning from other influencers in your industry by offering your “cliff notes” version of their presentation or book.

37. State of the Industry

This is another great lead magnet idea for B2B businesses. It’s the same as a report, except that it focuses on new industry trends.

Just keep in mind that you’ll need to come out with new or updated versions of your state of the industry report regularly (usually annual).

38. Predictions

To become a leader in your industry, make some predictions about your industry and publish them as a downloadable lead magnet.

People love to hear predictions about what to expect so they can jump on upcoming trends.

For example, if you’re in the fashion industry, you could come up with a list of fashion predictions for the following year. Or, if you’re a marketer, you could predict what the state of email marketing will look like next year.

39. Mind Map

Mind maps explain a complex subject in a digestible way. And because they are essentially an outline and don’t require too much detail, these lead magnet examples are really quick to put together.

When creating mind maps, we like using a free MindMeister tool. Their drag-and-drop builder makes mind maps super easy to create, and they always look clean and professional.

Delivering one of these lead magnets with OptinMonster is simple. You must paste the mind map URL into your optin form’s success theme.

40. Recording/Replay

Are you presenting any live webinars? You can repurpose those webinars by saving the recording and using that as a lead magnet.

Kissmetrics offers a library of recorded webinars you can choose from in exchange for your email address.

41. Audio Book

Have an eBook that your audience loves? Repurpose it by recording an audiobook and gating it behind an email optin form.

Remember how I said that un-gated mega guides are powerful assets you can create to drive traffic to your site?

Well, here’s an idea for you:

1. Turn your eBook into a traffic-generating mega guide by transferring it to one big long page on your site.
2. Generate leads by adding a call to action (CTA) to download your audiobook version.
3. Win and win!

42. SlideShare

Did you know that you can turn one of your SlideShare presentations into a lead magnet?

SlideShare has a built-in lead generation tool that allows you to convert your SlideShare audience into email subscribers. All you have to do is follow our step-by-step tutorial here (see #7).

43. Roundup

If you’ve ever written a roundup blog post, you’ll know that these are popular and easy to put together. Plus, you can create a lead magnet from it.

A roundup post is a list of tips or techniques from other experts in your industry. To write one, you need to interview people and pull all quotes into one big post.

For example, we wrote a popular roundup post asking eight seasoned SEO experts for their best advice. Now, we could have interviewed a lot more than eight people. It’s easier than you think to get influencers to respond to a request like this because you’re offering them exposure, which is what they want! So, we could have interviewed even more experts and then offered the complete roundup as a “freebie” download.

Or, we could have summarized all the expert responses into actionable takeaways and packaged that as a lead magnet.

Either way, it would make for a great content upgrade to an already high-performing post.

44. Newsletter

Sometimes your email newsletter is so irresistible that it’s the lead magnet.

A great example is a business called The Hustle. The Hustle sends you a funny, entertaining email each morning with all the day’s top tech and business news.

The best part about this lead magnet example is that the subscriber already expects the emails.

Although we need to find out how low their unsubscribe rates are, we would assume that The Hustle is doing pretty well in that department.

45. Vault/Library

Do you have lots of different educational lead magnets? Give your users the option to access them all at once by putting them together into a “vault” or a virtual library on your site.

All you need is one big page on your site with the links to download each of your lead magnets and put that page behind an optin form. It’s a simple way to give more value to your users with the lead magnets you’ve already created.

46. Quiz

A quiz is the most entertaining lead magnet idea on this list, and that’s why it converts so well!

A quiz has the user answer a series of questions and then spits a result. But to get the result, you’ll have to enter your email address.

Rachel Ray had a quiz on what type of clutterer you’re.

Hostel Bookers created a quiz about what type of traveler you’re.

Forbes had a quiz that helped prospective college students find the perfect college.

To create a quiz like this, you can use a tool like Qzzr. Qzzr also allows you to drive social traffic to your quiz and generate leads.

47. Survey

A survey is mainly for your benefit/market research. However, a survey can be used as a lead magnet with a compelling call to action.

For example, you could ask users browsing your site for a while to give you feedback on their experience and help you improve your website. You’d be surprised how many people enjoy taking the time to provide you with their feedback!

Make sure you use a tool like OptinMonster to present the survey only to users who have visited at least four pages on your site. It would be weird (and annoying) to ask a brand new visitor to rate their “experience” on the first pageview.

48. Giveaway

One of the most effective lead magnet idea is the giveaway. Who doesn’t love the opportunity to win free stuff?

If you want your giveaway to be effective, however, make sure it does two things:

1. Qualify your leads by offering a relevant prize (something that only your ideal customer would want– not something like an iPad or a laptop that anyone and their brother would want)
2. Incentivize participants to share (you can do this by offering additional entries for each social share)

49. Manifesto

A manifesto is a simple declaration of your values. Its a great lead magnet idea because your ideal audience will naturally be drawn to it.

Jeff Goins wrote The Writer’s Manifesto: Stop Writing to Be Read & Adored, resonating with their audience and becoming an effective lead magnet.

50. Comic Strip

Ever thought of using a comic strip as a lead magnet?

When CopyMonk released its first comic strip, it went viral in the copywriting community.

And when something is that popular, it’s easy to see how people would sign up to get more.

51. Quotes

People love quotes from influential people or quotes that inspire.

Mastin Kipp created an entire business by delivering inspirational quotes via their “daily love” email newsletter.

Their business has evolved a lot since then, but they still offers daily inspiration/tips as their lead magnet.

52. Desktop Wallpaper

Are you an artist, designer, or photographer? If you’re in a visual/creative field of business, consider giving away some of your work as a desktop wallpaper download.

The best thing about desktop wallpaper is that it constantly reminds you of your brand. This can be a great way to make sure a lead thinks of you when thinking about who to hire for their next photoshoot or design project.

53. Mobile App/Game

A free mobile app or game offers the perfect excuse to ask for an email address.

Ask users to create an account with you to use your app. Then, you can send them emails to help increase their engagement and encourage them to buy your premium product.

54. Challenge

One of my favorite lead magnet examples is this 30-Day Green Smoothie Challenge from Simple Green Smoothies.

There are several reasons why this lead magnet idea is so genius and you should consider doing a challenge as a lead magnet too.

• Anyone who takes them up on this offer will be a highly qualified lead. They raise their hands and say, “I want green smoothies!”.
• Challenges with a start and an end date have urgency. This makes the offer that much more compelling.
• Challenges build brand awareness by fostering a sense of community– everyone is doing the challenge together at the same time.
• Challenges make it much easier to elicit desired behavior through peer pressure. Most people wouldn’t have the discipline to drink one green smoothie a day for 30 days, but they’re much more likely to jump on the bandwagon when challenged to do so.

55. Membership Site

Are you thinking about creating your membership site? Consider offering free registration.

My Copyblogger Membership is an excellent example of using a membership site as a lead magnet.

I especially love their use of social proof and their fear of missing out. This community contains “over 334,000 smart online marketers”, and all those people “have a head start” on you. Better sign up now, so you can stay caught up!

Plugins can make it super easy if you’re a WordPress user interested in setting up your membership site. Check out our top picks for WordPress membership site plugins!

56. Facebook Group

I’ve personally used Facebook groups as lead magnets with great success. It just goes to show that people do value communities.

For example, we used to offer a private Facebook group + a free fitness challenge for pregnant women who wanted to stay healthy and fit throughout their pregnancy.

I tested a few offers instead, such as a checklist of exercises every pregnant woman should avoid. However, the Facebook group/challenge offer outperformed the other lead magnets, resulting in 43-cent leads on average!

57. Slack Group

Depending on your target market and where they hang out online, there may be other options than a Facebook group. However, you could offer a Slack group instead.

If you’ve never heard of it before, Slack is an app that allows you to send instant messages to groups of people. This can be a fun and powerful way to build a community around your brand.

58. Coupon

A coupon works well at the bottom of your funnel because most people who make online purchases like to shop around for deals. Your brand should be there to give those people what they’re looking for (in exchange for their email addresses, of course).

59. Waiting List

Do you have an upcoming product launch? You can use a waitlist to collect the emails of prospects at the bottom of your funnel.

For example, an online course called “B-School” is only available once per year. If you want to buy it right now, you can’t! Instead of a “buy” button on the product page, you’ll find a “tell me more” button next to an email optin form.

This way, they can collect the email addresses of bottom-of-funnel prospects throughout the year and build anticipation for the program.

60. Free Shipping

Free shipping is one of those things that everyone wants when it comes to shopping online. If someone is close to making a purchase, free shipping might be the offer that seals the deal.

61. Free Consultation

Many lawyers offer free consultations as lead magnets. This could also be a great bottom-of-funnel offer for you if you offer a service.

The best thing about a free consult is that it gives you a natural excuse to ask for the email address, phone number, and other relevant information. If you need to close someone over the phone, this is a natural opportunity.

62. Free Quote

Instead of a free consultation, you could offer a free quote. Here’s how Liberty Mutual does it.

First, you’ll be asked to enter your zip code and click on the “Get a Quote” button.

Then, you’ll be directed to another page where you’ll be asked to enter the rest of your information.

With most lead magnets examples, you would only be able to ask for a little information upfront. However, because a free quote is at the bottom of your funnel, these prospects are more willing to give out their detailed information.

63. Catalog

Finally, if you have a product catalog, remember to offer it as a lead magnet at the bottom of your funnel! Just remember to ask for their email address on the order form.

7 Key Takeaways To Create Irresistible Lead Magnets

There are seven things that your lead magnet should do if you want it to be irresistible.

The best lead magnets:

1. Solves a real problem – if your lead magnet doesn’t solve a real problem that your customer avatar has, or if it doesn’t give them something they want, it won’t work at all.
2. Promises one quick win – your lead magnet should promise (and deliver) one quick win for your avatar. In other words, it should help them to achieve something quickly.
3. Super specific – don’t create a lead magnet about something general. The clearer you’re about the benefit of your lead magnet, the better it will convert potential customers (and if you can personalize this lead magnet to a specific landing page, that’s even better!).
4. Quick to digest – PDF checklists tend to convert well because they’re so quick and easy to digest. eBooks or lengthy reports may make your prospects feel overwhelmed.
5. High value – your lead magnet should have both, high perceived value and high actual value.
6. Instantly accessible – your lead magnet will work best if it can be delivered immediately. People love instant gratification.
7. Demonstrates your expertise or UVP – when someone consumes your lead magnet, it should show your expertise or unique value proposition. This helps turn leads into customers down the road.

If you can nail these qualities, conversions will dramatically rise across your website.

How To Distribute Your Lead Magnet

Creating the right lead magnet template for your audience is only half the battle. The other half is getting it to the right people, in the right places, and at the right time in their customer journey.

That’s where a tool like OptinMonster comes in:

OptinMonster is the world’s #1 lead generation toolkit. It allows anyone to quickly and easily create “optin campaigns” to distribute their lead magnets in a highly targeted way.

“Optin campaigns” are things you’re already familiar with, like popups, floating bars, gamified wheels, and much more.

With these campaigns, you can narrow in on your target audience, improve their customer journey, and increase your conversion rates simultaneously.

Here’s how it works:

Everything starts with selecting one of OptinMonster’s 50+ pre-made lead magnet templates:

These designs are ready to use out of the box and will save you time, money, and headaches in the campaign creation process.

From there, you’ll likely want to make a few modifications to showcase your lead magnet.

OptinMonster has an inline text editor that allows you to customize your unique message, so you can better resonate with your target audience:

And if you want to add new features, you don’t need coding or tech skills.

Everything can be done with a drag and a drop:

This lets you add new features like:

• Images
• Video
• HTML
• Chatbots
• Icons
• Buttons

And much more

And since all the features are made up of “blocks,” everything falls neatly into place every time.

But once the campaign is ready and your lead magnet looks good, you still need to target these messages to the right people.

You’d use one of OptinMonster’s many targeting rules. Some examples include:

• Exit-Intent® Technology: Recover abandoning users as they’re actively leaving your site for good.
• OnSite Follow Ups®: Avoid ‘popup fatigue’ by showing new messages to returning users.
• Geolocation: Target people based on their physical location.

Though many others exist, these are just a few examples of OptinMonster’s targeting rules. And these are the same ways that companies like Crossrope exploded their list by 900%.

Or how Shotkit adds 40+ NEW leads to their site every single day.

From there, you can leverage the full power of automation! By that, I mean OptinMonster integrates with 50+ 3rd-party tools like email service providers, Zapier, webhooks, and more.

That means you can create a lead generation system that works on autopilot.

Ready to get your lead magnet in front of your audience? Click below to start your 100% risk-free OptinMonster account today:

Create High Converting Optin Campaigns Today!

If you’re curious about how many of your subscribers download your lead magnets, here’s how to track downloads in Google Analytics and WordPress.

And that’s all for today! Now it’s your turn.

Go ahead and pick one of these high-converting lead magnet ideas, and then tweak it to create your own. This will drastically improve your digital marketing efforts.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, you’d want to check out the following resources:

• How to Track a Lead Source in WordPress
• How to Ask a Customer Why They Cancelled (to Win Them Back)
• Create and Track Popup Events in Google Analytics
• Content Marketing Examples

These posts will give you more information on tracking the success of your lead magnet campaigns and retaining customers once they’ve converted.

Email marketing is vital to any business’s success. For every $1 that a business spends on its email marketing strategy, it gets an average of $36 in return. That means that your email campaigns have a potential ROI of 3600%!

If you want your small business to reach this level of success, you must learn how to create email campaigns that will move you toward your company’s goals.

In this blog, we’ll cover everything you need to start sending great email marketing campaigns that will skyrocket your conversion rates, drive sales, and increase your ROI.

• What Is an Email Marketing Campaign?
• What Are the Types of Email Campaigns?
• Email Marketing Campaign Examples
• How To Create an Email Campaign

Exclusive BonusLevel up your email marketing! Click here to get the free checklist + BONUS resources and see your results skyrocket.

What Is an Email Marketing Campaign?

An email marketing campaign is a planned series of emails designed to build relationships, promote products or services, and encourage specific actions from a targeted audience. Email campaigns are usually sent to an audience who has subscribed to the company’s email list or has given permission to receive marketing emails.

What Are the Types of Email Campaigns?

There are various types of email marketing campaigns that businesses can use to achieve their goals. Some common types include:

Newsletter Email Campaigns

Email newsletters are a great way to keep subscribers engaged and informed about the latest news, updates, and industry trends related to a brand. Newsletters can include various content types, including articles, blog posts, videos, and images. They can also be customized to target specific subscriber segments based on interests or behaviors.

Learn more: 29 Awesome Newsletter Ideas That Will Keep Subscribers Engaged

Promotional Email Marketing Campaigns

Promotional emails are designed to promote a product, service, or event. They often include information about a sale, discount, or exclusive offer. They also include announcement emails for new product launches. These emails can be highly effective in generating immediate revenue and encouraging customer loyalty. Promotional emails can also be personalized based on subscriber behavior, such as past purchases or website browsing history.

Learn more: Mastering Promotional Emails: Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

Welcome And Onboarding Email Marketing Campaigns

Onboarding emails are sent to new subscribers, welcoming them to the brand and introducing them to its products or services. These emails can set the tone for the subscriber’s relationship with the brand and provide a valuable opportunity to make a positive first impression. Welcome emails can also include incentives, such as pricing discounts or freebies, to encourage subscribers to purchase.

Learn More: How To Write the Perfect Welcome Email Series

Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Campaigns

Abandoned cart emails are sent to people who left items in their online shopping cart without making a purchase. These emails encourage potential customers to complete the transaction by reminding them of the things left in the cart and providing incentives such as discounts or free shipping.

Learn More: 14 Abandoned Cart Email Examples Proven to Boost Revenue

Re-engagement Email Marketing Campaigns

Re-engagement email campaigns encourage inactive subscribers to re-engage with the brand. You can send them to people who haven’t opened your emails in a while. Or, you can send them to people who have canceled a paid subscription with your company. These emails often include incentives, such as discounts or exclusive content, to encourage the subscriber to take action.

Re-engagement emails can also be used to gather feedback from subscribers about why they have been inactive and what the brand can do to improve their experience.

Learn More: 10 Win Back Email Examples (Plus How to Launch Your Own)

Email Marketing Campaign Examples

Here are some examples of successful email marketing campaigns that businesses have used:

Promotional Email From Dropbox

Dropbox’s referral program is a classic example of how email marketing campaigns can be used to grow a business. Dropbox offered its existing users free storage space if they referred their friends to use Dropbox.

The referral program was promoted through email campaigns, and users were encouraged to refer their friends through personalized referral links in their emails. This successful email marketing campaign generated over 4 million new users for Dropbox.

What worked: The referral program was simple and effective, and Dropbox leveraged the power of word-of-mouth marketing through its existing user base. The personalized referral links made it easy for users to refer their friends, and the free storage space incentive was a powerful motivator.

Email Newsletter From TheSkimm

Our next email marketing campaign example is from TheSkimm, a daily newsletter that delivers news and information in a conversational and engaging tone. TheSkimm has over 7 million subscribers, and the newsletter generates revenue through affiliate partnerships and sponsored content. TheSkimm’s email marketing campaigns focus on growing its subscriber base and engaging its audience.

What worked: TheSkimm’s email marketing campaigns are highly personalized and targeted, and the newsletter content is designed to resonate with its audience. With their huge number of subscribers, you knowTheSkimm has tons of data to optimize every part of their email campaigns.

Promotional Email From Charity: Water

The last successful email marketing campaign example is of a nonprofit organization. Charity: Water uses email marketing to promote its campaigns and drive donations. Charity: Water’s email marketing campaigns are focused on storytelling and emotional appeals, and the organization uses personalized emails to connect with its audience and build relationships.

What worked: Charity: Water’s email marketing campaigns are highly emotional and engaging, and the organization uses storytelling to create a personal connection with its audience.  The organization’s focus on transparency and accountability also helps to build trust with its audience and encourage donations.

See More Examples: 10 Brilliant Email Marketing Examples and Why We Love Them

How To Create an Email Campaign (Step-by-Step Guide)

Step 1. Build a Targeted Email List

The most successful email marketing campaigns start with an email list full of qualified leads interested in what you offer. The best way to build a targeted email list is to convert your website visitors into subscribers.

You’ll need to create attractive optin forms that get attention and encourage people to sign up. Experiment with different types of email signup forms on different parts of your site, including your home page, blog posts, and checkout pages.

With OptinMonster, you can start growing your email list right away. It only takes a few minutes to add stunning optin forms to your website. And you can target them to the right people at the right time.

Here are just a few of OptinMonster‘s signup form options:

• Welcome gates, which appear when people arrive on your site. You can also use our page slide feature so people can get straight to the content when they’re ready.
• Lightbox popups can appear on any page and temporarily blank out the rest of the content to focus on the optin. These convert very well.
• Exit-intent popups, which appear when people are about to leave the site. That’s a good time to offer your lead magnet.

But did you know that 50% of website visitors leave your website without interacting at all? And that some websites have a bounce rate of over 90%?

We recommend using exit-intent popups to convert those abandoning visitors into subscribers and customers.

Exit-intent popups detect user behavior to prompt them with a targeted campaign when they are about to leave your site forever. This smart technology can skyrocket your conversions.

What can an exit intent popup do for your business? See our case studies for examples:

• How BrianTracy.com Increased Its Email List 150% Using Content Upgrades
• How SnackNation Adds 1200 Segmented Leads Every Week
• How Wild Water Adventures Recovered $61,000 in Sales Using OptinMonster

Click here to get started with OptinMonster today and skyrocket your email list with targeted leads.

Step 2. Know Your Goals

All good marketing starts with setting goals, and email marketing is no different. Consider what you want to achieve to run a successful email marketing campaign.

Typical goals for an email marketing campaign include the following:

• Welcoming new subscribers and telling them about your business and values, so you build a relationship with them.
• Boosting engagement with your content and your business, whether promoting a webinar or trying to make an initial sale.
• Nurturing existing subscribers by providing something they’ll value.
• Re-engaging subscribers who haven’t been particularly active.
• Segmenting your subscribers so you can send more targeted email marketing campaigns.

You can also set email marketing goals according to your conversion goals.

Step 3. Understand If Your Campaign is Promotional, Relational, or Transactional

You should always have strong calls to action (CTAs) in any email campaign. CTAs are buttons or linked text that you want subscribers to click. CTAs are also pivotal to reaching the goal you’ve set for your campaign.

But the type of CTAs all depends on whether your goal is promotional, relational, or transactional:

• Promotional: If your goal is to promote a product or service, your CTA might be a link to a product page or a button that activates a coupon code.
• Relational: If you want your campaign to nurture your relationship with your subscribers. They should engage users and deliver the value you’ve promised. For instance, a blog’s email CTAs might be links to the week’s top posts. Or if you’re onboarding new software customers, your emails might include links to tutorials.
• Transactional: Transactional emails are the backbone of eCommerce customer service, and subscribers expect to receive them. They include order confirmations and email sign-up confirmations. Purchase confirmations should always include a CTA to view their order details. You can also link to shipment tracking, similar products, or content examples.

A compelling, targeted CTA will make your email campaign more successful in achieving your goal. And you’ll be able to measure that success easily by tracking your click-through rates.

Learn more: 130+ Email CTA ExamplesThat Can Boost Your Conversion Rate

Step 4. Know Your Audience

If you’ve been doing email marketing for a while, you’ll likely know who your audience is. If you’re just getting started, you’ll have to do some research so you can target your email content.

But don’t worry! you’ll start collecting subscriber information the minute you send your first campaign, so next time, you’ll have actual data to work with.

In the meantime, gather data from Google Analytics and your social media profiles, like the Facebook Insights data shown below:

Both sources have data on demographics, location, and interests, plus many other metrics, giving you a snapshot of who your customers are and what they’re interested in. That’s a good starting point for crafting successful email marketing campaigns.

Step 5. Use Technology Wisely

The best email service providers have tools to help you create more effective email marketing campaigns. Look for features like:

• Easy drag-and-drop campaign creation.
• Features such as automation, templates, and workflows.
• Integrations with software you already use, like WordPress and OptinMonster.
• Ways to segment your audience.
• In-depth analytics on email campaign performance.

For instance, Constant Contact offers robust and easy-to-use email automation features.

In their example above, Constant Contact shows how you can easily create an automation workflow to send subscribers a special offer for their birthday or anniversary. Constant Contact also lets you create SMS text campaigns, making it a robust marketing platform.

Learn More: What Is Email Automation? A Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing Automation

Step 6. Plan Emails and Followups

Once you know your goals, CTAs, and audience, it’s time to plan your email marketing campaign. Since email is vital to your overall digital marketing strategy, you want to approach it in an organized way

Here are a few things to plan for:

• Email frequency, which we’ll look at below
• The types of emails you’ll be sending
• A rough idea of content
• The main action you want subscribers to take (such as signing up for an event, following you on social media, or buying a product)

You want your emails to be timely, relevant, interesting, and valuable.

For example, many companies welcome new subscribers with a short email series to help them get to know their products and services.

Asana sends a series of 4 emails. The email subject lines are:

1. Welcome to Asana
2. What do you need to get done this week?
3. Plan your day with Asana
4. Hit your next deadline

The first is a welcome email with three key tasks you can accomplish in the software. Three days later, another email asks what you need to get done and encourages you to start using the product. Two days later, there’s an email talking about the Asana dashboard. The series ends with an email two days later highlighting the calendar view.

Don’t overwhelm your subscribers by emailing too often. That will send them straight to the spam button. Instead, stick to the schedule you’ve told them about so they know what to expect.

Feel free to ask for subscriber input on email scheduling via a poll or survey. You can also offer an “opt down” option for those who love your emails but don’t want to get them as often.

Once you’ve outlined your email plan, it’s time to start writing.

Step 7. Craft Your Subject Line

A good starting point for any successful email marketing campaign is the subject line, which is crucial in getting people to open and click on your emails. Like the headline on your blog post, an email subject line has to get attention so people want to go further.

You only have a few words to make an impression, so your email subject line length is critical. Campaign Monitor’s data shows that most subject lines range from 41 to 50 characters. Even less of your subject line shows on mobile screens, so putting the most important parts at the start is wise.

Best practices for improving your subject lines include:

• Telling people what they’ll get when they open your emails. No need to be clever or witty unless that’s your brand’s personality.
• Adding personalization, such as including people’s names in the subject line, can keep users more engaged.
• Avoiding spam trigger words, so your emails make it to the inbox.
• Borrowing one of these high-converting email subject lines and adapting it for your own use.

Step 8. Write the Copy

Next, it’s time to write your email marketing copy. You’ll want to create a hook right at the start that will get people to want to read on.

Keep email marketing copy short for best results, and avoid pitching your offer too early. You want people to get comfortable first.

Address subscribers by name, and write in a casual, friendly tone. Write like a person talking to another person.

Other items to consider for your email copy include the following:

• A personal story. Being human never hurts a company and often helps people connect emotionally. Some of the most successful emails we’ve seen use this technique.
• Something of value to your readers. That can be a piece of content, useful information, or the resource you’re promoting. Make it clear how this will help them. The example below from Semrush underlines the potential benefit in the first line of the email.
• A poll, survey, GIF, or video keeps readers more engaged.

Of course, you don’t have to put all of those in every email. Ideally, your emails should be short, with only a couple of main points within each one. If you do decide to go longer, make your email scannable with heading a white space.

The last part of your email marketing copy is the call to action (CTA). Your CTA reflects the one thing you most want people to do when they’ve read your email.

CTAs usually appear multiple times within your email marketing copy. While you don’t want to pitch to readers too soon, there’ll likely be a CTA near the start, middle, and end.

The best calls to action are short and clear. With the right copy, it should be a no-brainer for subscribers to click your link.

Learn More: Email Copywriting That Sells: 17 Simple Ways to Write Better Marketing Emails

Step 9. Focus on Email Marketing Design

Email design matters in any successful email marketing campaign. If your emails look terrible, that reflects poorly on you and can make people stop reading. With more people than ever reading emails on mobile devices, it’s important to use a responsive email template, so your email resizes automatically whether people are reading it on a phone, tablet, or desktop.

It’s also important to make sure your important information is in text, not hidden in images. This is vital for email accessibility. Remember to use alt tags to describe images so people using screen readers will know what your images show.

Step 10. Test and Track

Finally, emailing is just the first step in achieving email marketing success. To nail it, you’ve got to collect data to improve future campaigns.

That means A/B testing everything: design and layout, email marketing copy, subject lines, and calls to action. Consider testing emails with different segments and experimenting with email send times.

You’ll also want to monitor email analytics from your service provider relating to opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and forwards. This will enable you to figure out what’s working and what’s not with your email marketing campaigns.

Another issue to monitor is your sender’s reputation, which affects email deliverability. Use Sender Score to see if any red flags might stop your emails from reaching subscribers’ inboxes.

Exclusive BonusLevel up your email marketing! Click here to get the free checklist + BONUS resources and see your results skyrocket.

Build a Great List For Your Email Campaigns

As you learn how to create the perfect email marketing campaigns for your company, you’ll need to continue growing your email list to expand your success.

It goes without saying that you need to get people on your email list to run a successful campaign, and with OptinMonster’s email optin solutions, you can do that with simplicity and ease.

Check out our guide to optin types to see all the options for creating optins for your email marketing campaign.

For best results, put optins in multiple places and choose how they appear with rules and page-level targeting. That cuts down on the annoyance level while maintaining effectiveness.

Looking for the best bulk email services to reach a wider target audience? Check out the Top 10 Best Bulk Emails Services in 2023.

What can optin popups do for your business? See our case studies for examples:

• How PodBike Gets 18.22% More Email Subscribers with GeoTargeting
• How Human Food Bar Gets 1800+ Signups Per Month With OptinMonster
• How Shotkit Gets 40+ Additional Leads a Day With OptinMonster
• Best Time To Send Email

Click here to get started with OptinMonster today and skyrocket your email list with targeted leads.

Upselling is a simple method to increase your average order value and boost your bottom line.

If you’re not upselling to your customers, you’re missing out on a lot of revenue.

In Marketing Metrics, the authors say:

“The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%.”

Source: Groove

And since product recommendations can drive 10-30% of revenue, putting the right upsell offers in front of people at the right time is an important sales growth tactic.

In fact, it can significantly increase the average amount spent in dollars per order, known as average order value (AOV), as well as overall revenue.

This article will teach you how to upsell by sharing our favorite upselling tips. We’ll delve into some proven upselling strategies and will provide examples to inspire you in your business. By the end, you’ll be able to implement your own revenue-boosting upsell strategy.

We’ve included a table of contents to help you navigate.

1. What is Upselling?
2. Difference Between Upselling and Cross Selling
3. How To Upsell: Effective Upselling Tips and Examples

• Choose the RIGHT Upsell
• Always Offer the Upsell …
• … But Don’t Be Pushy
• Make Your Upsell Relevant
• Personalize Your Upsell Recommendations
• Get the Language Right
• Use Urgency
• Offer Free Shipping
• Provide Social Proof
• Limit the Price Increase
• Use the Rule of Three
• Offer Substitutes
• Upsell After the Purchase
• Follow Up via Email
• Consider Downselling

What is Upselling?

Upselling is suggesting a better or more expensive version of a product or service to a customer who is already interested in buying. The goal of upselling is to increase the overall value of the sale and generate more revenue for the business while also providing additional benefits or features to the customer.

For example, a fast food restaurant might offer to upgrade a customer’s meal to a larger size or add on additional menu items.

Effective upselling involves identifying relevant and valuable opportunities for the customer and positioning the offer as a solution to their needs or preferences.

Difference Between Upselling and Cross Selling

Before we get started with our upselling tips and examples, it’s important to understand the difference between upselling vs. cross-selling. Both are tactics used to boost sales revenue, but they work slightly differently.

Cross-selling is suggesting other relevant products people can try. What is an example of cross-selling? When you buy a cell phone online, and the online store suggests screen protectors for that model, that’s cross-selling.

Upselling is persuading the customer to upgrade their product or buy a more expensive version of it. How do you upsell? Let’s stick with the cellphone example. If you’re about to buy the model with 32GB of storage space, the online store can suggest you get the one with 64GB or 128GB.

Here’s the great thing about upselling. It doesn’t just increase AOV; it also increases customer lifetime value. In other words, customers spend more while they remain customers. And that’s why it’s so important for your business.

How To Upsell: Effective Upselling Tips

More of a visual learner? No problem! Check out our top 5 upsell tips.

Otherwise, keep reading this in-depth guide!

1. Choose the RIGHT Upsell

When you look at eCommerce upsell examples, you’ll see there are several types you can offer.

The Version Upgrade

As we mentioned earlier, you can ask shoppers to get a different version of a product you’re offering. It can be bigger, stronger, faster, better – you get the idea.

Product Protection

Another favorite upsell, both online and offline, is the “protect your product” upsell, which asks you to extend your warranty so you effectively guard your product against something going wrong. For example, if you buy a phone, you can often get a screen replacement warranty.

Customization

You know those “customize your product” features you get on some sites? Well, that’s a series of upsells, because every customization you add increases the price.

Extended Service Period

Sometimes, instead of a physical product, you can upsell by offering better value for a longer contract. And you can also offer better deals for early renewals. This works well for SaaS products.

The Bundle

Bundling is a bit of a grey area because it’s both cross-selling and upselling, but if you package related items together and show that it’s better value, you can definitely increase your sales of all the items in the bundle.

2. Always Offer the Upsell …

The more upsell opportunities you show customers, the more chances they have to take one. So offer your upsell everywhere it makes sense. Some typical locations for upsells include:

• On product pages, where you have multiple chances to show off product versions
• When people add items to the cart, as it’s a great time to show supplementary products or services that help them get more value from what they’re already planning to buy
• When the customer reaches a success milestone. For example, in Asana, when you’ve added a few tasks, you’ll get an email showing you how to manage tasks even better with their premium product.

3. … But Don’t Be Pushy

Even though you want customers to see your upsells, you don’t want to annoy them. Show your upsell popup at the wrong time, and they may not buy anything at all. Show it at the right time, and you’ve got a much better chance of making a better sale.

Some online retailers handle this by placing the upsell information well below the product information, so only people who are really interested ever see it.

Another option is to show your upsell when people have made the decision to buy. For example, if you show it once they’ve added an item to the cart (but before they checkout) that can be a great time to get an additional sale.

There’s no point in showing your upsell when people have just landed on the page because that could annoy them enough to leave. Instead, use OptinMonster’s scroll trigger to wait till they’ve scrolled a certain distance so you know they’re interested.

Follow our instructions for creating your first campaign, then go to Display Rules » Who should see the campaign? Choose Visitors to a particular page and add the URL of the product or add to cart page.

Then, go to Display Rules – When should the campaign appear? and select After scrolling down ‘X’ amount. Set the percentage to around 70% so you’ll know it shows when people have seen most of the page.

4. Make Your Upsell Relevant

Relevance is key when deciding on your upsell. If someone’s buying a book on marketing, there’s no point in recommending a book on childcare (which is cross-selling anyway). Instead, you’ll recommend something else related to what they’re looking at, like an audio version of the book or another book by the same author.

When you’re upselling, you’ll have to sell the benefits of the upsell, and show why it’s important. This kind of customer education can help make the sale. For example, here’s how Amazon highlights the benefits of getting audiobook versions of purchased books:

5. Personalize Your Upsell Recommendations

Recommendations work better if they’re personal. Accenture’s latest research shows that 75% of consumers are more likely to buy if the retailer either:

• Knows their purchase history
• Recommends purchases based on that history
• Addresses them by name

You can do this in OptinMonster with our Smart Tags feature. That lets you take the information you already have from your email marketing, like the visitor’s name, and use it as part of a personalized campaign that appears when they visit your site.

And, of course, you’re not limited to the name. You can also vary onsite campaigns based on the products people have already viewed, as the example below shows:

Here’s how you implement Smart Tags with OptinMonster.

6. Get the Language Right

Language is an important part of all successful marketing, as we’ve seen before in our article on conversion-boosting power words. But it’s even more important to persuade your customers when you’re aiming for the upsell.

Some of the best upselling examples get this right by making visitors imagine how they could make use of the upgrade, or by triggering the fear of missing out (FOMO). This is psychologically proven to help make more sales.

For example, this page comparing Spotify plans shows everything you’d be missing if you took the free plan.

7. Use Urgency

As we’ve seen before using urgency can help increase the value of the upsell.

If your upsell is available for a limited time only, or there are limited quantities, you’ll want to highlight this in your marketing.

One way to do that is by using OptinMonster to create a sale timer for your website. Here’s how you do this:

Login to the OptinMonster dashboard and create a new campaign.

Choose a campaign type. We’ll use the Floating Bar, which sits neatly at the top or bottom of the screen.

Choose a theme. We’ll use the Countdown Timer.

Name your campaign and press Start Building.

In the Optin tab, go to Countdown Type, and select Static. This will show the same countdown for all visitors.

In the Countdown End Date/Time, put the date and time when you want your upsell offer to end.

Click Restart Countdown Preview to see what the countdown will look like.

Click on the floating bar text to edit it. Type in the details of your offer.

Set your Display Rules. We’ll use Based on visitor’s date and time. Select Is on or before, and put the end date for your offer. We’ll also use Is on or before to add a start date.

You can also change display rules to show the upsell offer to those on specific pages, such as the page with the product you’re offering the upsell for.

When you’re done, Save and Publish the campaign.

Here’s how you can create a countdown popup using a different template and theme.

8. Offer Free Shipping

Offering free shipping is proven to boost sales. Around 90% of customers say free shipping is their main incentive to shop more online.

So, how does this work with upsells? You can remind people how much more they have to spend to qualify for free shipping. That’s a big incentive to continue adding items to the cart, especially if they’re not too costly. We’ll discuss pricing your upsell later in this guide.

9. Provide Social Proof

Social proof lets people know that others like them found the product or service valuable. It’s something you see on the top online retail sites. For example, Amazon shows you:

• What people bought with the product you are buying
• What people also looked at
• The products they recommend to go with what you’re buying

All of these create valuable upsell opportunities.

Add in customer reviews for each item, and you’re priming customers to buy more.

10. Limit the Price Increase

Bitcatcha recommends that you don’t price your upsells too high. After all, it’s supposed to represent a quick win for your customers. They suggest that the price of the upsell shouldn’t be more than 40% more than the item they’re already looking at or buying.

Retail Doctor puts that figure even lower, suggesting that the upsell be no more than an additional 25%. The best advice? Test different options with your own customers till you find what works.

11. Use the Rule of Three

You’ll often hear marketers talk about the “rule of three”. It’s to do with the fact that people respond to patterns, and three seems to be a magic number.

In this case, we’re talking about using the rule of three in pricing. There are multiple studies to show that when there are three price levels, people often go for the middle one. You’ll also hear this called “price anchoring”.

Either way, an upsell can look more attractive if it’s one of at least three options available. See this in action on the MailChimp site.

Combine the rule of three with educating your customer about the value of the upsell (as mentioned earlier) and you’re primed to get an increase in AOV.

12. Offer Substitutes

What if your usual upsell item is out of stock? Don’t let that stop you from offering the upsell. The best upselling examples show that you always have an alternative.

For example, if your upsell for a particular phone is upgrading the memory from 64GB to 128GB, and you’re out of the upgrade, suggest 128GB phones in different models from the same manufacturer.

Or, you could simply suggest a phone with similar features where your upsell IS available.

13. Upsell After the Purchase

While many upsells are offered on product or pricing pages, these aren’t the only places to show off your upsell offer. In fact, you can offer an upsell even after customers have completed their purchase.

For example, when placing an order with Mixbook, you get a limited time to edit or upgrade your order before it ships.

And on sales pages, you’ll often see a deal for a limited time product that complements what you’re already buying.

14. Follow Up via Email

While we’re on the topic of post-purchase upsells, don’t forget about email. Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach your customers, and there are a few upselling email examples that can help you make more sales.

For example, even if people don’t take the upsell when they purchase, you can still offer it again by email. And you can sweeten the deal by offering an additional discount on the upgraded product or service.

In the example below from Digital Marketer, the company offers two free gifts when you take the upsell.

You can also use email to offer upsells as part of your shopping cart abandonment emails. The average shopping cart abandonment rate, according to the Baymard Institute, is 69%. That’s a lot of money to leave on the table.

To target abandonment on the site, use OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent® Technology, and follow up with targeted abandonment emails.

15. Consider Downselling

Finally, if upselling isn’t doing the trick, consider downselling – offering a product that’s slightly reduced in price and features as a way to get your customer to become a customer.

Consider downselling if your customer:

• Only looks at items in a particular price range, using the sorting features on your site
• Has added an item to the cart, but returns to your site to look for cheaper versions
• Has abandoned an upsell in the cart and does not respond to abandonment emails

Downselling can help to build trust by offering options that suit your customers’ pocket and showing that you’re responsive to their needs. Examples include:

• Offering a more cost-effective version of a computer, like one with a less expensive power chip
• Creating a self-study version of a course that’s less expensive than the one with your personal input
• Popping up a coupon to give a discount when it looks like visitors are about to leave the page

This last one is easy to do with OptinMonster. Follow the steps create a popup coupon, and use page level targeting to display it on certain product pages. Then go to Display Rules » When should the campaign appear? and enable On Exit Intent® to make sure it displays before they leave the page.

The great thing about downsells is that once visitors become customers, you’ll have other opportunities for upsells later.

Upselling Examples for Inspiration

Want a few more examples of upselling in action? Check these out.

Grammarly has a neat button inviting logged in users to upgrade to premium, along with a page showing the benefits of upgrading. Note that it also has three package options, as we mentioned in tip #11.

Williams-Sonoma offers a discount for new customers, which encourages them to buy more.

AppSumo’s email shows existing customers the benefit of getting multiple deals in one by moving from a pay per deal to a monthly all in one model.

Dropbox uses an in-app banner to encourage the upgrade to the Business version.

Clicking on the button gives you the USP of the upgrade.

Amazon’s messaging includes letting you know when there’s a newer model or version of the item you’re looking at.

That’s it! With these upselling tips and examples, you’re primed to get the most from your upsell strategy.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out our tutorial on how to create a product recommendation popup the easy way.

Next, check out our tips on eCommerce email marketing and best practices for marketing automation. And follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more in-depth guides.

Because of WordPress’s popularity, there are many dedicated hosting services. However, finding the best WordPress managed hosting can take time and effort.

But we, at OptinMonster, understand that problem. This article aims to simplify your decision-making as I share my top recommendations for the best WordPress managed hosting service after carefully reviewing them.

I’ve tested and researched each hosting service and have included a speed test, a list of features, and pricing information for each.

Best Managed WordPress Hosting

• SiteGround
• Bluehost Cloud Hosting
• Hostinger
• WP Engine
• DreamPress by DreamHost
• HostGator

If you’re interested in a specific hosting service, click the links above to

Comparison of the Best Managed WordPress Hosting

What Is Managed WordPress Hosting?

Managed WordPress hosting handles all the technical aspects of running a WordPress site, allowing website owners to focus on content creation and business operations.

It provides optimized server configurations for running WordPress and offers a range of services that streamline the website management process.

Key features often include:

1. Automatic Updates: The hosting provider ensures that your WordPress core, themes, and plugins are always up-to-date.
2. Enhanced Security: They provide WordPress secure hosting, offering advanced security measures, including regular malware scans, firewalls, and intrusion detection.
3. Daily Backups: Your website is regularly backed up and stored automatically, allowing for quick restoration if needed.
4. Performance Optimization: Servers are fine-tuned for WordPress to ensure faster loading times and overall improved site performance.
5. Expert Support: Access to WordPress-knowledgeable support teams to assist with any issues or queries.
6. Staging Environments: Some WordPress hosting providers offer staging sites to test changes before pushing them live.

In short, managed WordPress hosting removes a lot of the hassle of website management, as you outsource those tasks to your hosting company.

Pros and Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting

Managed WordPress hosting isn’t for everyone. Let’s look at some pros and cons of managed WordPress web hosting to see if it’s right for you.

Pros of Managed WordPress Hosting

• Lightning Fast and No Downtime: Hosts can handle high traffic without downtime.
• Security and Backups: WordPress hosting providers have robust security and daily backups in place.
• Expert Support: WordPress hosting providers can help you solve problems faster because they’re WordPress experts.
• Automatic Updates: Your site, theme, and plugin are updated to the latest versions.
• Daily Backups: Work on your site with confidence. WordPress hosts back up your site daily to always have recent restore points.

All those advantages sound pretty nice. However, even the best managed WordPress hosting services have downsides.

Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting

• Cost: Managed WordPress hosting can be pricey due to all the perks.
• Less Control: The host handles technical aspects, so making changes can be challenging.
• App and Builder Limits: You can only host WordPress websites on a managed WordPress host. That limits what builders and apps you can have on your site.

Now, I’ll go over what I look for when comparing WordPress managed hosts.

What to Look for in a Managed WordPress Host

When looking for the best managed WordPress hosting, ask yourself:

• Does the hosting provider offer speed, reliability, and security?
• Does the provider perform daily backups?
• Do they provide a free SSL and CDN (Content Delivery Network)?
• Does the provider have an outstanding customer support team?

The answer to all questions should be “yes.” If they’re not, move on to the next possible WordPress host.

Now, I’ll jump into our list of the best managed WP hosting options.

Best WordPress Managed Hosting Comparison

1. SiteGround

SiteGround is a popular and highly-rated hosting cloud platform for small businesses. Over 3 million domains currently use SiteGround for WordPress hosting.

They offer shared and managed WordPress hosting and provide access to the technology to keep your site fast and secure. They also offer 1-click staging, automatic updates, free SSL certificates, Cloudflare CDN, and more.

SiteGround Speed Test

My colleagues over at WPBeginner recently ran a speed test for SiteGround using the Bitcatcha tool. Here is what they found.

The server response time in the U.S. was under 1/20th of a second. Even its slowest time in Mumbai came in at under 1/4 of a second.

SiteGround Features

• Ultra-fast, free migration for your site
• 10+ GB of space
• eCommerce ready
• Collaboration tools
• High-performing security
• Multiple data centers (USA, Europe, Asia, and Australia)
• Ultrafast PHP
• 30-day money-back guarantee.

Features may vary by plan.

Why We Like SiteGround

SiteGround is my top recommendation for managed WordPress hosting. I found the site migration to be lightning-fast, the dashboard to be easy to use, and the customer support to be quick, helpful, and thorough.

Downside: The pricing tiers are based partly on the number of monthly visitors. After the introductory pricing has expired, plans can get pricey as your website grows.

SiteGround Pricing

All quoted prices are billed annually:

• StartUp Plan (1 website, 10GB web space, ~10,000 monthly visits): $2.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $17.99 per month.
• GrowBig Plan (Unlimited websites, 20GB web space, ~100,000 monthly visitors): $4.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $29.99 per month.
• GoGeek Plan (Unlimited websites, 40GB web space, ~400,000 monthly visitors): $7.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $44.99 per month.

If you’d like to upgrade to one of SiteGround’s cloud hosting plans, the cost ranges from $100-$400 per month.

Sign up for SiteGround today!

2. Bluehost Cloud Hosting

Bluehost has retired its traditional managed WordPress hosting service. Now, the functions of managed hosting are only available with one of their brand new Cloud Hosting plans.

Already have a WordPress site? Bluehost offers free site migration to their platform.

Bluehost includes free SSL encryption, daily backups, and malware detection and removal services.

Bluehost Speed Test

As you can see, Bluehost servers perform especially fast in the United States, and the speed is still just a fraction of a second even in its slowest geographic regions.

Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting Features

• 10+ GB storage
• Automatic daily backups
• Staging – see your site before publishing
• SSL certificate
• Jetpack site analytics
• Malware detection and removal
• Yoast SEO tools to help you improve search rankings
• 24/7 priority support through voice or chat

Why We Like Bluehost

Bluehost is an excellent choice for beginners. I like its clean dashboard and have had great experiences with its customer support. Its server response time is also among the fastest available. Plus, because it’s cloud-based, Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting provides faster speeds without the cost of dedicated hosting.

Downside: Cost. Bluehost’s managed WordPress services are only available on its Cloud plans, so it’s much pricier than SiteGround.

Bluehost Pricing

Bluehost’s pricing for shared hosting starts at $2.75 per month (billed annually). However, here are their pricing tiers for their cloud-based managed WordPress hosting:

• Cloud 1 (1 website & 10GB storage): $29.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $79.99 per month.
• Cloud 10 (10 websites & 125GB storage): $49.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $109.99.
• Cloud 25 (25 websites & 175GB storage): $89.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $169.99.
• Cloud 50 (50 websites & 225GB storage): $109.99 per month for the first year. Renews at $249.99.

All prices are for a 12-month term.

Sign up for Bluehost today!

3. Hostinger

Hostinger is another popular managed WordPress web hosting provider, used by over 1,278,620 site owners, that offers reliable managed WordPress hosting.

Its fully managed WordPress hosting comes with 1-click WordPress installation, a user-friendly control panel, pre-installed WordPress performance plugins, and automatic WordPress updates.

This hosting service also uses LiteSpeed servers to ensure your page load time is super fast.

Hostinger Speed Test

The fastest server response times were in London and Germany. Those clock in at under 1/100 of a second! This makes sense as Hostinger is based in Europe. Even the slowest time, Singapore, remains under 1/4 of a second.

Hostinger Features

• Automated backups
• Great SSD storage
• eCommerce optimization
• Anti-DDoS protection
• WordPress staging tool
• 24/7 expert support
• Free SSL certificates
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Multiple data centers (USA, Europe, Asia, and South America)

Features may vary by plan.

Why We Like Hostinger

Hostinger offers excellent value for its reasonable pricing and is significantly less expensive than SiteGround after the first year. I love its intuitive dashboard, and it’s been so easy to use that I haven’t needed to use its customer support. It’s also an especially good choice for developers and agencies because even the cheapest plan allows for up to 100 websites and 100GB of storage.

Downside: The site migration process is a little clunkier than SiteGround’s. I had some hiccups because of the size of some of the files I was migrating. However, that didn’t prevent me from successfully migrating my site.

Hostinger Managed WordPress Hosting Pricing

Hostinger offers extremely discounted prices for customers willing to pay for the first 48 months in advance:

• Hostinger Premium (100 websites, 100GB storage, ~25K monthly visits): $2.99 per month for 48 months. Renews at $7.99 per month.
• Hostinger Business (100 websites, 200GB storage, ~100K monthly visits): $3.99 per month for 48 months. Renews at $8.99 per month.
• Hostinger Cloud Startup (300 websites, 200GB storage, ~200K monthly visits): $8.99 per month for 48 months. Renews at $19.99 per month.

Sign up for Hostinger today!

4. WP Engine

WP Engine is fast, reliable, and hassle-free. As a result, it’s one of the best managed WordPress hosts.

This premium WordPress hosting solution has daily backups, SSL certificates, updates, security features, and more.

With WP Engine, you also get the Genesis Framework, which provides a suite of site-building tools for building custom Gutenberg blocks, as well as 10 premium StudioPress themes. That makes it an excellent option for busy business owners running an online store.

WP Engine Speed Test

WPBeginner’s speed tests show that WP Engine boasts strong server response times, especially in the US and Canada:

WP Engine Features

• Development, staging, production, and hosting environments
• Real-time, page-level reporting, and analytics
• Site-building tools with Genesis
• StudioPress themes
• GeoTargeting add-on available
• Caching
• Woocommerce hosting available

Features may vary by plan.

Why We Like WP Engine

I’ve found that WP Engine offers more advanced security features than most other hosting options. The included site-building tools and themes increase the value of the product, as well.

Downside: The cost is higher than other non-cloud managed WordPress hosting options, especially in the first year.

WP Engine Managed WordPress Hosting Pricing

• Startup (1 site, 10GB storage, 25K monthly visits): $20 per month for the first year. Renews at $30 per month.
• Professional (3 sites, 15GB storage, 75K monthly visits): $40 per month for the first year. Renews at $60 per month.
• Growth (10 sites, 20GB storage, 100K monthly visits): $77 per month for the first year. Renews at $115 per month.
• Scale (30 sites, 50GB storage, 400K monthly visits): $194 per month for the first year. Renews at $290 per month.

Sign up for WP Engine today!

5. DreamPress by DreamHost

DreamPress is the managed WordPress hosting service from web host giant DreamHost.

This host provides 1-click WordPress installation, automatic updates, a custom dashboard, and SSDs.

DreamPress Speed Test

The western US is the fastest, as that’s where this company is located. Response time increases to just over 1/4 second in Mumbai and Sydney.

DreamPress Features

• 30+ GB storage
• SSL certificate
• Daily backups
• Automated migrations
• CDN
• Built-in caching system

Features may vary by plan.

What We Like About DreamPress

In my research, I’ve seen time and time again that customers boast about DreamPress’s top-notch customer support team. If you have a problem, you can expect to get a response and solution quickly.

Downsides: DreamPress only offers a small introductory discount, so you won’t get as fantastic of a deal as you can with some of the other hosting options. Also, none of their base pricing includes multiple websites, so you’ll also need to factor that into your decision.

DreamPress Pricing

• DreamPress (1 site, 30GB storage, ~100k monthly visitors): $16.95 per month for the first year. Renews at $19.99 per month.
• DreamPress Plus (1 Site, 60GB storage, ~300K monthly visitors): $24.95 per month for the first year. Renews at $28.99 per month.
• DreamPress Pro (1 site, 120GB storage, ~1M monthly visitors): $71.95 per month for the first year. Renews at $74.99 per month.

All prices billed annually.

Sign up for DreamPress today!

6. HostGator

HostGator has an easy-to-understand dashboard so you can manage your site. It also offers cPanel to manage your email, domains, and more.

You can choose HostGator without worries as they offer a 45-day money-back guarantee.

HostGator Speed Test

HostGator is a nice middle-of-the-pack option for speed.

HostGator Features

• 1-year free domain name registration
• 99.9% uptime
• Automatic website updates
• 24/7/365 hosting server monitoring
• SSL certificate

Features may vary by plan.

Why We Like HostGator

HostGator doesn’t limit the number of website visitors for any of its price tiers, unlike many of its competitors. Their site provides this guide to website traffic limits to help you determine how much traffic your site can handle.

Downsides: Hostgator used to be a great choice for website owners needing inexpensive managed WordPress hosting. Hostinger is now more affordable, however, and it offers better features and performance.

HostGator Pricing

• Baby Plan (2 sites, 20GB storage): $4.50 per month for the first 3 years. Renews at $14.90 per month.
• Business Plan (3 sites, 40GB storage): $6.25 per month for the 3 first years. Renews at $19.99 per month.
• Pro Plan (5 sites, 100GB storage): $13.95 per month for the first 3 years. Renews at $26.99 per month.

Sign up for HostGator today!

What Is the Best Managed WordPress Hosting Plan?

I’ve evaluated numerous prominent managed WP hosting services, including but not limited to: Flywheel, Kinsta, Cloudways, Pagely, GoDaddy, InMotion Hosting, Pantheon, NameCheap, Pressable, HostGator, Amazon (AWS), and others.

Our selected list highlights the hosting companies offering the most valuable features at competitive prices.

After comparing the features of the best WordPress hosting plans, we recommend SiteGround. It has everything you need for a hassle-free fully managed WordPress hosting solution. If SiteGround is too pricey, you also can’t go wrong with Hostinger, which offers phenomenal prices when you pay upfront.

Managed WordPress Hosting FAQs

1) Do I have to have WordPress hosting to start my website?

No, you don’t need a managed WordPress hosting plan to start a site. If you are getting started, check out your host’s options for shared hosting. If you later need managed hosting, you can upgrade.

2) How much does managed WordPress hosting cost?

Managed WordPress hosting costs vary by company and plan. We’ve created a guide about how much it costs to start a website. It includes advice about cost control.

3) What if I have a domain but need a managed WordPress host?

You can use your domain with any hosting company. All you have to do is change your domain settings and point your site’s DNS to your chosen host. The best managed WordPress hosts offer migration services, too.

4) Can I change my managed WordPress host?

Yes, you can change managed WordPress hosts. Most hosting companies offer migration services to help you make the switch.

After Choosing a WordPress Host

Now that you have your managed hosting plan all figured out, you’re ready to run a successful website.

OptinMonster, a premium WordPress plugin, helps ensure your site runs even more smoothly. After you’ve chosen the best managed WordPress
host for you, we can help you with customer conversion.

For instance, if you want to get started on building your email list, sign up for OptinMonster now!

We also offer a ton of free resources, like the ones below.

• 17 Proven Methods to Get More Email Subscribers Today
• 7 Best Scroll Popup WordPress Plugins to Personalize Offers
• How to Generate More Leads From Your Website: 9 Expert Tips

If we’ve piqued your interest, contact us at OptinMonster today.