ConvertBox Review: The Smart Way To Capture Leads On Your Site

Want to grow your email list even faster?

Then use a more targeted offer.

I’ll admit, this isn’t groundbreaking advice.

Brian Dean showed us along time ago that a targeted content upgrade is much more effective than a generic opt-in offer.

This works great and I’ve been using this tactic on my site very effectively.

But what if we could create something better than a content upgrade?

Something even more personalized that speaks directly with every visitor to your site.

This is what ConvertBox helps you do and more. 

So in this ConvertBox review, I’m going to show you what it’s capable of and how you can use it on your site to grow your email list.

Here is what I am going to cover:

• What Is ConvertBox?
• How I’m Using ConvertBox on this Site
• What Are the Best Parts About ConvertBox?
• What Are The Most Annoying Things About ConvertBox?
• An Inside Look ConvertBox
• ConvertBox Pricing
• Final Thoughts
• ConvertBox Pros and Cons

Grab the ConvertBox Lifetime Deal!

What Is ConvertBox?

ConvertBox, founded by Dean Saunders in 2018, is a self-hosted SaaS product designed to capture email addresses from your website.

If you’ve ever used tools like Thrive Leads or OptinMonster, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect here. ConvertBox is different in a fundamental way, however.

It’s intelligent. And no, I don’t mean you’ll be able to have deep, philosophical discussions with it.

What I mean is, unlike the current crop of lead generation tools out there, ConvertBox allows you to tailor your capture forms and even create simple funnels that are personalized to each individual visitor.

All of this is tied together with a robust testing and reporting system that gives you powerful insights into what’s working and what isn’t.

Grab the ConvertBox Lifetime Deal!

How I’m using ConvertBox On This Site

You may have noticed I am using ConvertBox on this very site.

I’ve played around with the Slide-in Box a bit, but currently, I’ve settled on using the Sticky Bar ribbon that you see at the bottom of this post.

One of my main uses of it is to advertise my Six Figure Affiliate Roadmap lead magnet, and you can see it converts pretty well for a general, non-targeted offer.

Another high ticket affiliate offer I promote, the Amazing Selling Machine runs different limited time promotions during the year. 
So when that happens I’ll add a more targeted ConvertBox to my ASM related content which you can see converts even better.

I have yet to play with their latest feature, the embedded ConvertBox which will allow me to embed one inside my blog posts.  However, I see some really cool possibilities with this, so you will likely see this added to the site in the near future.

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What Are Some Of My Favorite Things About ConvertBox?

Awesome thing #1: Create Scheduled ConvertBoxes

This is actually a relatively new feature of ConvertBox, but it’s one of my favorites.  Now you can schedule ConvertBoxes that run during a specific date and time!

I’ve always been hesitant to do time-sensitive promotions because I know I’d end up forgetting to remove them whenever it ended.  And then I would have stale content on my site.

But now you don’t have that issue anymore because you can now set a start and end date for any ConvertBox you create by checking the schedule option.

I used this during the last Amazing Selling Machine launch and it worked really nicely.

Awesome thing #2: Stupid easy A/B testing

Split-testing was once considered a technical marvel, but this often underutilized feature has since become very common in marketing tools.

For ConvertBox, it’s the implementation that makes this truly awesome.

You can enable A/B testing right from the customizer; the same interface for building and editing your capture form.

A small window will open allowing you to make a variant.

When you click to create the variant, it will automatically make a copy of your existing form. You can also do this multiple times if you want to test multiple variants.

As you can see, there’s also the option to add notes and adjust the settings which include two options, cookied testing or regular testing.

• Cookied testing remembers the visitor and always shows them the same variant (assuming they’re on the same device)
• Regular testing will show a random variant to any visitor, including returning visitors

Awesome thing #3: Display popups on third-party sites

The concept of showing overlays on third-party sites has been done before, but like much of this platform, it’s the sheer simplicity of it that makes it so viable.

When setting up your capture form, one of the ‘Location’ options will include overlays, and you’ll need to enter the URL where the popup should show.

ConvertBox will generate an overlay link.

Now, whenever someone goes through that link, they’ll see the destination website with your capture form.

I tested this on Pat Flynn’s website, and it worked like a charm:

One interesting way to use this would be with guest posts.

If you’re guest posting on industry-leading sites, you could share that guest post with your audience and still maintain your email capture forms.

Awesome thing #4: Reporting that just makes sense

I’ve never liked WordPress-based reporting. Having all that data crunched locally on my website just slows everything down.

ConvertBox is a hosted service, so all the numbers are tallied off-site and that’s exactly how it should be.

When you log into your account, you’ll see a brief summary or “snapshot”:

Clicking into the ‘Stats’ section gives you a more detailed breakdown, yet not overwhelming in the slightest.

The default view will show you all your ConvertBox data across every group, but you can easily dial this down to specific groups or individual ConvertBox’s if you prefer.

You can also switch tabs to get an overview of Views, Interactions and Leads independently, though these figures are all displayed at the bottom regardless of which tab you’re on.

I particularly like the ‘Interactions’ metric, telling you if you managed to catch the visitor’s attention but didn’t necessarily convert them. Not a metric you usually see.

Is it the most detailed reporting interface? No… but ConvertBox consistently strikes a great balance of functionality and usability. The reporting interface is no exception.

Grab the ConvertBox Lifetime Deal!

What Are The Annoying Things About ConvertBox?

Annoying thing #1: It has some design limitations

After a recent update, the customizer is a lot more flexible and fluid than it was previously, but don’t expect an Elementor-like experience.

In particular, the mobile editor is still lagging behind.

I say “editor” lightly because there aren’t many mobile-only editing options aside from some very basic font styling, element resizing and hiding elements altogether.

Strangely, some of the styling options are carried over from the desktop editor while others are just left behind. It hardly makes sense that you can change button size on mobile, but not button roundness.

Fortunately, from my testing, ConvertBox does an amazing job of handling responsive design without any manual tweaking. So it’s unlikely you’ll ever have a problem with this.

Annoying thing #2: No page-by-page reporting

I know I just praised the reporting aspect of this platform, but it wouldn’t be an objective review if I didn’t mention its one glaring flaw.

While it has no trouble clawing back statistics for individual ConvertBox’s, there’s currently no way to see how these performed on a page-by-page basis.

For example, a ConvertBox may have a 10% conversion rate on Page A, but only a 2% conversion rate on Page B. A pretty wide gap by any standards.

In this case, you’d see an average conversion rate of 6% without any insight into how much influence your individual pages had over this number.

An Inside Look at ConvertBox

To get started with ConvertBox, the first thing you’ll want to do is create a group.

At the most basic level, this will create a container where your ConvertBoxes will live, so it’s useful for categorization.

You can also set goals for your groups.

The only two options you’re given here are:

• Met the goal of any ConvertBox inside this group
• Visited a specific web page

While I love the concept of group-based goals, I’m not enthusiastic about the limited selection in the conditions department. Hopefully, this will be addressed in a future update.

To clarify, you will need to create a group before you can create a ConvertBox, but you don’t have to use the goals feature.

With your group set, you can click the ‘New ConvertBox’ button to start building your first capture form.

You’ll be pleased to know that the clean, minimal, Thrivecart-like interface is consistent throughout the rest of the platform, including the ConvertBox setup process.

Fun fact: This similarity in the interface isn’t a coincidence. Josh Bartlett of ThriveCart is an advisor for ConvertBox.

First, you’ll need to select from four classic designs:

• Sticky Bar (Ribbon)
• Callout Modal (Slide-in)
• Center Modal (Popup)
• Full Page (Screen filler)

ConvertBox also just added the ability to embed a form directly into your blog post or sidebar.  I didn’t get a chance to test this feature out yet for this review, but you can imagine some of the possibilities you can do with that.

After choosing your preferred ConvertBox type, you can build from scratch or select from one of the pre-designed templates:

Each type has a unique set of templates, and whole most template libraries focus on variations in colors and fonts, ConvertBox focuses more on the fundamental design differences.

You’ve got templates with multiple buttons, templates with input fields, and even a template with a countdown timer.

The ConvertBox Customizer

After selecting your template, ConvertBox will move you into the customizer where you’ll be able to make a number of changes.

Here’s where you’d make those basic design changes to match your business branding, including fonts and color schemes.

But you can also adjust the core design of the form by adding or removing elements to suit your needs. You can even create hybrids of the templates presented earlier.

Like many web-based design editors these days, most of the magic happens in the sidebar:

In terms of design flexibility, most people will find the customization options to be decent.

But if you have a background in design or you’re just very particular about how you want things to look, you may find the presets frustrating to work with.

One example of these limitations is the button styling. You can only select between three pre-defined size presets, meaning you can’t set a specific pixel height and width like with most editors.

Fortunately, limitations like this are few and far between in the functionality department.

Since we’re using a multi-choice capture form, it’s only fitting we talk about the Button Actions feature.

As you can probably guess, this allows you to dictate what happens when any button on your form is pressed, and you have a surprising number of options to play with.

The first thing you can do is change the state of the popup, which technically means changing to a new popup entirely. ConvertBox calls these “steps”, and we’ll talk more about that in a moment.

You can also set a button to close the current popup, redirect to a URL, or even fire a custom script.

But the most interesting feature here is the automation capabilities. You can set your ConvertBox to trigger automations through your email marketing platform, assuming you have a way to collect the email address.

These automations are also stackable, meaning you can trigger multiple events across multiple integrated platforms from a single button click.

Try doing that with other email capture tools. It’s no easy feat.

Now, as I alluded to earlier, the customizer has a subtle but powerful tab for creating various steps (or states) for your form.

Creating a new step will give you a blank canvas to work from:

I love how easy this is to implement, and you can even clone existing steps to save you from having to create the same aesthetic each time.

Part of me wanted to see a workflow-type interface here, just so I can visualize how these steps are interlinked, and even open the doors to more complicated concepts — like quizzes.

ConvertBox Display Rules

Sometimes, you can get away with creating a single popup for your business and have it display across your entire website.

Other times, you may need a more focused approach — and ConvertBox offers some nice options.

Let’s start with triggers; or what causes the popup to appear on the page.

By default, this is set to show immediately. But you can also apply a delay, set a scroll-depth condition, an exit-intent condition, and a click condition.

The only thing missing is a trigger for “scroll to element”, meaning a popup displays when someone hits a specific section of the page. This is the same concept as scroll depth but slightly different.

I particularly like the click-trigger as I’ve personally struggled to set this up properly with similar tools *cough* Thrive Leads. It can be done, it’s just nowhere near as simple as ConvertBox makes it.

You simply copy a string of code and make that the hyperlink. Done.

Next, we’ve got Duration; or how often the popup should show.

You can choose between an unlimited amount or a restriction of views based on the total amount and daily amount.

Again, this will be perfectly adequate for most people but I think there’s still room for more flexibility. For example, having a separate value for returning visitors or existing subscribers, as well as specific days of the week.

Finally, we have Location; or where on your website the popup should show.

By default, this is set to display everywhere on your website, but you can change this to include or exclude specific pages.

Pretty standard stuff.

As I mentioned at the start of the article, there’s also the option to overlay your popup on an external URL using a pre-defined “overlay link”.

ConvertBox Targeting Rules

You can almost think of targeting rules as advanced location rules (from the previous section). This is where you can start to get REALLY granular with what visitors see this popup.

By default, this is set to show to everyone who comes to your website, assuming they meet the display rules criteria.

Where this gets interesting, however, is when you switch it to ‘Target specific visitors on my website’.

With this selected, you’ll be able to add additional “visitor rules” that target very specific individuals with very specific opt-in popups and incentives.

This is how you skyrocket your opt-in rates.

And ConvertBox is no slouch when it comes to the range of targeting rules on offer.

You can target based on how many times they come to your site, where they’re located, what device they’re using, what pages they’ve visited and if they’ve seen one of your ConvertBox’s before.

While these are fairly common targeting rules across popular lead capture platforms, ConvertBox throws something else in to sweeten the pot.

Autoresponder activity allows you to show a capture form based on real-time data from your email marketing service. Since we use ActiveCampaign, we can tap into both lists and tags for this.

This means you can show tailored popups and offers for warm prospects, upsells to existing customers, and an entirely different proposition for those who aren’t yet subscribed.

Note: This will only work if a visitor has filled out a form after installing the ConvertBox script on your site, otherwise it has no way of connecting visitors to your list.

Even better, you can stack multiple targeting rules across so you don’t have to settle on just one.

My only complaint here is that the visitor has to meet ALL of the targeting rules and there’s no way to set it to ANY. It’s all or nothing.

Finally, ConvertBox is smart enough to disable targeting rules if you’re using a click-trigger or third-party overlay, as those eliminate the need for advanced targeting altogether.

ConvertBox Pricing

While ConvertBox will eventually become a monthly subscription product, it’s actual pricing is not known at this point.

But as an early adopter, you currently have the opportunity to purchase a one-time lifetime subscription for $395.

This also comes with a full 30 day, money-back guarantee.

Grab the ConvertBox Lifetime Deal!

Final Thoughts

Want to grow your email list even faster?

Then learn to create more targeted, personalized offers to get your visitors to sign up.

Doing this ensures that you get the highest optin rates possible.

This is the mission of ConvertBox and I love the results I’ve gotten so far when using the product.

Plus it has the potential to do so much more.  Give it a try on your site and take advantage of their lifetime deal while it’s  available.

Grab the ConvertBox Lifetime Deal!

ConvertBox Pros

• Minimal UI, extremely easy to use
• Good selection of popup types
• Clean, intuitive design editor/customizer
• Create form steps (states) and link with button actions
• Create scheduled ConvertBox’s for time sensitive offers
• Integrate with autoresponder for seamless automation
• Advanced display and targeting rules (stackable)
• Form overlays on third-party websites

ConvertBox Cons

• A relatively small library of popup templates
• Limited design flexibility (especially mobile)
• No page-by-page analytics