Stop Asking for SMS in Your Main Email Form
Most ecommerce brands make the mistake of trying to capture both an email address and a mobile number in their primary popup. Even when you split it into a multi-step form where SMS is requested on step two, you introduce major friction.
When you ask for phone numbers upfront, roughly 25% to 45% of shoppers abandon the form before reaching the final screen. That is a massive drop-off rate.
When users drop off on step two, they never see the discount code displayed on your success screen. That forces them to leave your website to dig through their inbox, which spikes bounce rates and kills on-site conversion rates. That's a mistake.
Keep your initial form focused entirely on email. Ask for their email address, display the popup after an 8-second delay, and immediately show the discount code on the success step so they can check out right away.
Deploy High-Intent Flyouts on Product and Cart Pages
A standard popup shown after 8 seconds will inevitably be closed by a large portion of your visitors. If that is the only form on your store, those visitors are gone for good without opting in.
To capture those missed opportunities, clone your main offer into a discreet flyout form. Target pages where the URL contains strings like product, cart, or checkout, and set the delay to 45 seconds.
This flyout only triggers for people who dismissed the initial popup and have stayed on high-intent pages long enough to demonstrate real buying interest. On one client store, this single secondary flyout captured roughly 230 additional subscribers who would have slipped away entirely.
Capture SMS with a Dedicated, Segmented Form
Collecting phone numbers is still valuable, but it needs to happen on its own terms. Instead of cluttering your initial email form, build a completely separate form dedicated exclusively to SMS capture.
Use Klaviyo's targeting rules to show this form only to visitors who meet specific criteria:
- They are already subscribed to your email list
- They are not currently subscribed to SMS marketing
- They subscribed to email zero times in the last 3 days (to prevent form overlap)
Trigger this dedicated SMS form as a popup after 15 seconds. By separating the two channels, you protect your core email conversion rate while steadily building a compliant, high-value SMS list.
Remind Non-Buyers to Use Their Welcome Code
Getting someone to opt in is only half the battle. A huge portion of new subscribers take their welcome discount code and then get distracted before completing their first purchase.
You can recover these potential sales by creating an automated reminder flyout. In Klaviyo, configure the form targeting to show only to profiles in a segment defined as subscribed to email and placed an order zero times all time.
Set this reminder form to appear as a flyout after a 20-second delay, with a frequency cap set to once every 7 days. It gently reminds non-buyers of the unused discount waiting for them without irritating existing customers who have already purchased.
Final Thoughts
Your sign-up forms should remove friction from the buying journey, not create it. By keeping your primary email capture clean, targeting high-intent pages, and separating SMS into its own trigger, you protect site conversion while scaling your list. These tweaks take less than 10 minutes to set up in Klaviyo, but the impact on revenue is immediate.
Get Your Forms Built Properly
If you want high-performing forms and tailored Klaviyo strategy implemented for your brand, take a look at our sign-up forms service to see how we help ecommerce stores turn casual traffic into loyal customers.
