Pop-ups have a reputation for being annoying, but that’s not the whole story. Not all pop-ups ads are considered annoying. In fact, pop-ups advertising is highly effective when done correctly – emphasis on correctly.
It’s entirely possible to create pop-ups ads that appeal to your website visitors and add to their experience.
In this article, you’ll learn about 11 effective ways to use pop-ups to get results, but first, let’s explore the science behind why this form of advertising is so effective.
Pop-ups ads work and there’s plenty of proof, including this study performed by Sumo that looked at 1,754,957,675 pop-ups. Based on the results, at 100 visitors per day, the average pop-ups ad will generate about 90 subscribers each month, while a highly effective ad can generate closer to 275 subscribers per month.
The study found the following:
This begs the question: if pop-ups ads are so effective, why does it seem like people complain about them so much?
Isn’t that contradictory?
It might be in part because some people tend to complain about things.
Many people who complain about pop-ups have likely subscribed to those same pop-ups they’ve complained about.
However, there’s another reason: Pop-ups are displayed to every visitor.
Your conversion rate is based on your view rate. Since pop-ups need to be viewed to be closed, they’re basically being seen by 100% of your visitors.
Your conversion rate might be high, but the percentage of people who close your ad will be higher.
The people who complain about pop-ups are likely the ones who aren’t converting, and that’s going to be a large number of people.
Now let’s talk about why pop-ups are effective. There are a few main reasons this form of advertising works so well:
Now that you know why pop-ups are effective, it’s important to grasp some best practices to ensure you aren’t annoying your visitors. Yes, there is a way to deliver effective pop-ups without annoying your visitors.
Even when visitors close a pop-up window, that doesn’t mean they’re annoyed. The best pop-ups will appear smoothly and offer visitors an easy and fast way to close it. Most people only become annoyed at pop-ups that feel intrusive and can’t be closed easily.
You’ll only get improved conversions to your landing pages when people want what you’re offering. Make your offer irresistible and make sure it delivers on the promise. Over-deliver if possible.
Pop-ups become intrusive when they’re not easy to close. Make sure you have a clearly visible “X” in the upper right corner that is fully responsive to both clicks and finger taps on mobile devices. Create a thick, solid colored border around your pop-up to make the “X” more visible.
Don’t be afraid of people closing your pop-up – you want people to close it if they aren’t interested. If they can close it easily, they’ll be more likely to return to your site. If your pop-up is a barrier to accessing your content, they’ll bounce and hesitate to return.
Once a visitor closes your pop-up, don’t display it to them again. Most pop-ups can be programmed to not show up for returning visitors who closed it out, and it’s wise to program yours this way. You’ll lose a chunk of returning traffic if people have to close out a pop-up every single time they visit your website. If you’re running a blog, this will become a huge barrier.
Make sure your pop-up offer is relevant to the content on the page people are viewing.
Your offer might seem relevant to every page, but if you have any specialty pages with content that isn’t a match, turn off your pop-up for those pages or come up with a different offer.
Your offer needs to be clear and understandable right away or people will close your pop-up if they can’t figure out what you’re offering.
Studies have shown that you don’t want to display pop-ups immediately, but you should wait about five seconds. This seems to be the perfect timing. Five seconds allows visitors to understand where they are before they’re asked to sign up for your email list.
There are two elements that should be absent from your landing pages: navigation menus and pop-ups. Visitors to your landing pages aren’t the same as regular web traffic – they’re expecting something specific and a pop-up will be a frustrating barrier to access. For instance, when they’ve already read and clicked on an ad to get to your landing page, they just want to get what they’re after.
Email signup forms generate less conversions when they have more form fields. Many people ask only for an email address, while others ask for a first name as well. The latter is ideal since it allows you to personalize your emails. Three form fields tend to get the most conversions. Ask for more than three pieces of information and your conversions will likely fall.
However, getting fewer conversions isn’t always bad. Just because someone signs up for your free offer doesn’t mean they’re your market. You want to discourage some people from signing up when they’re not your target.
Exceptions to this rule vary depending on your industry and target market. For example, if you’re targeting professionals who must hold a specific credential, you’ll want to ask leads to identify their credential on your signup form for two reasons: First, this will help you disqualify leads that aren’t your target market. Second, you segment tag leads based on their credential, which will help you market to specific sub groups.
A click trigger pop-up appears when a visitor intentionally clicks on a link or image. The advantage to this method is that your visitors want the information provided by the pop-up since they have to click to get it. It should be no surprise, then, that click triggers convert 12 times better than standard pop-ups.
This pop-up will show up when a user shows intent to leave your website. An exit-intent pop-up is usually triggered when a visitor moves their mouse away from the website and toward the top of the browser.
Most exit-intent pop-ups say something like, “Wait! Before you go, here’s an offer just for you…” and many offer a generous discount. Use this to your advantage because exit-intent pop-ups work!
This is similar to the exit-intent pop-up, but with a conditional twist. This pop-up will only show up if a visitor has an item in their cart when they start to leave the page. With nearly 70% of all shopping carts abandoned, you want to capture as many sales as possible by bringing people back to complete their purchases.
You won’t capture everyone, but you will capture some people. The reason you won’t capture everyone is simple: not everyone is looking to buy.
Many people add items to their cart to compare prices, get shipping quotes, and some use shopping carts as a “wish list.”
Although word around the ‘net is that pop-ups are annoying, now you know that’s not the case. It’s not that pop-ups are annoying – it’s that improperly implemented pop-ups are annoying. And by following the best practices outlined in this article, you can craft effective and unwanted pop-ups ads that will capture more signups from your target market while avoiding annoying those who aren’t interested.
Your revenue is directly tied to your ability to generate targeted leads, and pop-ups are one of the best ways to get those targeted leads.
When you have a desirable product or service, your ads will be welcomed by your visitors and they’ll be happy to sign up for your email list.
To recap: when your goal is to generate leads, pop-ups will prove to be an invaluable addition to your site. When properly implemented, pop-up ads will help you capture leads that you can nurture to conversion in order to generate the revenue you deserve. If you haven’t yet implemented this effective advertising strategy, there’s no better time to start than right now.
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This report compares the month over month performance across the date ranges of December 1st - 31st 2025 and January 1st - 31st 2026.
For the month of January, we found the results to be quite impressive and optimistic, with the highlighted results below:
Overall, the results for Nutrition/Health Product Company in January were positive across the board, with each campaign garnering more conversions, lower cost per conversion, and significantly increased month over month ROAS.
Management of this account is going better than anticipated, and we will continue to find opportunities to garner more conversions and drive ROAS up as much as possible through bid modifications and the addition of new, contextually relevant keywords.
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January’s performance demonstrates a meaningful shift from learning to efficient acquisition:
This indicates that every £1 spent returned £7.90 in revenue; 6.5x more than December’s 122% ROAS.
MoM Campaign Comparison
January - Nutrition/Health Product Company - 29.33 conversions, £6.76 CPA, 14.04% conversion rate (1389% ROAS)
December - Nutrition/Health Product Company - 8.28 conversions, £42.84 CPA, 3.30% conversion rate (129% ROAS)
MoM increase of 1260% ROAS
January - REMARKETING - 6.27 conversions, £9.41 CPA, 8.33% conversion rate (627% ROAS)
December - REMARKETING - 3 conversions, £55.88 CPA, 0.44% conversion rate (168% ROAS)
MoM increase of 459% ROAS
January - PMAX - 15.10 conversions, £10.56 CPA, 5.74% conversion rate (422% ROAS)
December - PMAX - 5.22 conversions, £63.11 CPA, 1.29% conversion rate (negative ROAS)
MoM increase of 422%+ ROAS
January - Local Doctor Campaign - 4 conversions, £16.55 CPA, 5.71% conversion rate (264% ROAS)
December - Local Doctor Campaign - 3 conversions, £30.58 CPA, 3.26% conversion rate (160% ROAS)
MoM increase of 104%+ ROAS
This campaign benefits from high intent brand-adjacent queries combined with carefully controlled generic terms, making it one of the most reliable drivers of low-cost, and more volume of conversions. Continued prioritization here will compound returns.
Day-of-Week Performance
Certain regions are showing higher purchase intent, such as the UK and Greater London this month. Geographic bid multipliers can be further refined to capitalize on these micro-markets, all the way down to the zip code, and we’re in the process of doing this.
Keyword Performance
Top keywords show clear brand and authority alignment:
These terms demonstrate exceptional intent density and should remain protected with:
Expansion into close-variant and long-tail branded queries
January’s performance reflects extremely strong numbers month over month and we are more than thrilled with the performance, with main highlights being:
With continued optimization and controlled scaling, we expect further efficiency gains and revenue growth in the coming months, and will be modifying based on the increase in CPCs.
Cybersecurity is arguably one of the toughest industries to compete in when it comes to paid advertising. You’re basically selling to tech-savvy, skeptical buyers like CISOs, IT directors, compliance officers, and security teams. Most cybersecurity companies tend to expect hard proof of all claims and you can’t capture their attention easily. Generic ads and broad PPC marketing tactics won’t cut it in this competitive landscape. Because of this, high CPCs across major search engines, vendor saturation, and long evaluation cycles mean that poorly targeted cybersecurity PPC campaigns can be a huge waste of advertising spend.
To win in this arena, firms need advanced PPC for cybersecurity strategies like targeted intent segmentation, tightly aligned messaging, intelligent audience modeling, AI-powered optimization and bid strategies, technically accurate ad copy, and conversion paths designed for enterprise-level buyers. In this article, we’ll dive into the advanced cybersecurity PPC techniques modern cybersecurity firms must use to generate high-quality leads, reduce wasted ad spend, and stand out in a highly crowded search space.
Cybersecurity search queries represent a wide range of intent that spans from broad research to urgent remediation needs. You don’t want to treat all search terms the same or you’ll waste most of your ad spend. Here’s what you should do:
1. Segment keywords by intent
Start by dividing your PPC ads into cybersecurity PPC campaigns based on the following general categories of user intent:
· Educational. These searches might include terms like, “What is endpoint security?” and “Types of cyber threats.” They support content marketing, awareness-stage paid campaigns, and early-funnel marketing efforts.
· Research. These are phrases like “Buy SIEM software” and “24/7 SOC as a service price.” These keywords align with cybersecurity marketing services, gated assets, and evaluation-stage marketing strategies.
· High urgency. Urgent searches are phrases like, “Ransomware removal help now” and “Breach response service.” These searches demand immediate cybersecurity solutions and direct-response PPC advertising with strong CTAs.
This segmentation ensures you match your ad copy, ad relevance, landing pages, click through rates, and offers to exactly where the buyer is in their journey. This improves the relevance of your ads, reduces wasted ad spend, and increases conversions and overall campaign performance.
2. Prioritize longtail and high-intent keywords
Using long tail keywords and targeted keywords attracts higher-quality website traffic. These terms usually reduce marketing costs, improve conversion rates, and drive more efficient paid advertising.
3. Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic
Since a wide range of people search for cybersecurity terms, including students, hobbyists, and researchers, every marketing agency should use a negative keyword list to filter out irrelevant searches will protect advertising spend. For example, filter out queries using the terms “free course,” “tutorial,” and “certification exam.” Anyone searching for these phrases is unlikely to be looking for a cybersecurity product or service. This ensures your PPC campaigns reach potential customers, not job seekers or students.
The best compelling ad copy will fall flat if they don’t reach the target audience who make purchase decisions. If you cast your net too wide, you’ll miss those people. Many people searching for keywords related to cybersecurity are just curious or looking for free solutions. AI-driven ad targeting allows cybersecurity marketers to refine their highly targeted audiences and focus on the people who are most likely to convert.
To identify the right targets, you can use AI and upload campaign data from your CRM, like MQLs, SQLs, demos, and closed deals into Google Ads and Google Analytics so the model can learn what a “good lead” looks like. This will help you build a lookalike audience that represent your best customers – the people most likely to buy your cybersecurity offers.
Cybersecurity buyers are usually high-level roles in regulated industries. To reach them you can use filters for specific industries like healthcare, finance, enterprise tech, etc. and also filter for company size, geography, and job titles (like CISO, IT director, compliance, etc.). This is the best way to minimize wasted clicks and build targeted campaigns that improve campaign effectiveness and drive better data driven decisions.
Cybersecurity buyers expect total clarity, accuracy, and trust. They don’t respond to vague or sensationalized copy. To get their attention, use specific terms thar resonate in the cybersecurity world. Terms like: SEIM, MDR/XRD, SOC as a service, IAM/PAM, 247 monitoring, zero trust, end-to-end encryption, and compliance-ready. These phrases signal credibility.
Keep in mind that regulated industries are highly concerned with compliance, so highlight frameworks like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 when relevant. These small signals can be powerful triggers. Including compliance language boosts ad quality, improves search engine rankings, and increases ad visibility across search results.
The best cybersecurity ads will create urgency and offer a benefit-led call to action. Ads like “Protect your business from ransomware now – schedule a free security assessment” and “Ensure 24/7 threat detection for your enterprise” work better than vague promises. By speaking the language of your buyers and addressing their real fears and needs, your ads will appear more credible. This approach consistently produces successful PPC campaigns and supports scalable cybersecurity PPC advertising.
Great ads will get clicks, but your landing pages decide whether someone converts. For cybersecurity brands, generic “contact us” landing pages (and homepages) won’t cut it. Successful PPC campaigns rely on intent-matched landing pages to convert potential clients. You need threat-specific, offer-focused landing pages where the copy matches exactly what’s in the ad. For instance, if the ad is for ransomware protection that’s what the landing page needs to promote. Whether it’s a cloud security audit, SOC as a service, or a compliance assessment, make sure your ads and landing pages match. This improves seamless user experience, increases conversion rates, and supports long-term business growth.
Use case studies, certifications, compliance credentials, client logos if they allow for that, audit results, and security whitepapers to build trust with your audience. These elements can help buyers overcome their initial skepticism and compliance concerns.
Using a value-first approach is a great way to get more relevant clicks through cybersecurity lead generation and filters buyers actively seeking solutions. All you need to do is offer value people can access immediately. For example, free vulnerability assessments, security posture quizzes, and compliance readiness evaluations are all valuable on the spot. They also filter high-intent leads that are more likely to book a demo or discovery call with you. This strategy improves campaign performance, increases lead generation, and helps convert leads into pipeline opportunities.
Cybersecurity sales don’t usually happen on the first click. They often involve multiple stakeholders, extended review processes, compliance checks, and internal approvals. It won’t work to use one-click, last-click attribution.
· Use data-driven, multi-touch attribution models. These models credit all meaningful touchpoints (not just the final click) to give you a clear picture of how your PPC ads are contributing to real conversions over time. It helps justify ad spend and reveals which ads, keywords, and campaigns are influencing your decisions.
· Sync PPC leads with CRM and offline conversion data. Track your leads through all stages (MQL, SQL, Demo, Proposal) and feed this data back to your PPC platforms to train the algorithm on what quality conversions actually look like for you. This is how you’ll improve your targeting and bid optimization.
· Combine retargeting and content marketing. Buyers often visit a site multiple times before deciding to buy. Use remarketing gated content (like whitepapers and threat reports, webinars, and email sequences to nurture leads and lead them toward a purchase.
For B2B cybersecurity firms, a multi-touch, multi-step conversion funnel is the most realistic way to measure PPC ad success. Multi-touch attribution allows teams to track key performance indicators, analyze campaign data, and uncover valuable insights.
Using data insights, actionable insights, and data driven insights helps teams refine PPC strategy and justify marketing costs.
Cybersecurity keywords can be pretty expensive. Without intelligent bidding, you’ll overspend and underserve. AI-driven bid strategies, including a smart bidding strategy, optimize bids across search engines in real time. This reduces marketing costs, improves efficiency, and drives sustainable revenue growth.
Automated bidding strategies like Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Max Conversions are ideal when trained with clean, qualified conversion data. These strategies will adjust your bids based on the time, device, location, user behavior, and competitive factors – all elements humans can’t easily track at scale.
While it’s nice to get leads who visit your site and even fill out your form, keep your priority on conversion quality, not just volume. Don’t just optimize for clicks or form fills. Feed your bidding models real conversion events like qualified leads, demos booked, and deals closed. Empty form submissions aren’t helpful – your goal should be to build a real pipeline.
Most importantly, test and refine your ads continuously by split testing your ad copy and landing pages to see what works best. In cybersecurity PPC, even small tweaks can yield big results because you’re targeting a narrow, high-intent audience. With a well-trained AI bidding system, your campaigns will do well even in a competitive market.
Since cybersecurity buyers don’t convert on hype, value is essential. Long-form assets like whitepapers, threat reports, case studies, and compliance guides strengthen content marketing, improve online visibility, and support paid advertising across social media platforms, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and Bing Ads.
Use your PPC ads to drive traffic to content offers like “2025 Ransomware Trend Report,” “Enterprise Security Readiness Checklist,” or “Cloud Compliance Guide.” These types of content will draw in decision makers who are researching solutions.
Make sure you gate the content you provide to people who click on your ads. Use progressive profiling forms that adapt to the user’s role or company size (if possible) to capture qualified leads. Then feed those leads directly into your lead nurturing workflows and retargeting sequences.
After a lead has downloaded your information or has made the first engagement, retarget them with ads offering free audits, demos, case studies, or consultations. This approach increases immediate visibility while building trust in the cybersecurity space and is highly effective for the long B2B sales cycles that exist in cybersecurity.
Since cybersecurity buyers usually need time to make a purchase, retargeting has to be precise. General remarketing will just burn through your ad budget and will be ignored by serious buyers.
To create specific segments for remarketing, start with intent and behavior. For example, if a user visited a ransomware page, don’t show them ads with general security content. Serve them ransomware-specific ads.
For the best results, segment your remarketing audiences based on:
· Pages visited (threat type, service)
· Actions taken (whitepaper downloaded, demo requested, form filled)
· Role/company size (if available)
Then tailor your messaging by funnel stage. Start with the awareness stage and offer more educational content like guides and webinars. For those in the consideration stage, push case studies, vendor comparisons, and ROI calculators. Finally, for those making the decision to buy, offer demo scheduling, free audits, and compliance checklists.
Be sure to always exclude low-intent and irrelevant audiences. There will always be researchers, students, job seekers, and random curious tire kickers searching for cybersecurity keywords. As discussed earlier, use negative keywords and exclusion lists to avoid wasting your ad spend.
Segmented remarketing improves ad relevance, strengthens marketing messages, and boosts click through rates. This approach supports successful campaigns while reducing wasted advertising spend.
Since many cybersecurity buyers are evaluating multiple vendors at the same time, competitor conquest campaigns can be highly effective if done correctly.
The right way to do this is to target your competitors’ weaknesses while maintaining compliant messaging. Avoid naming your competitors directly to stay within ad policies but highlight how your offering solves common complaints about your competitors. For instance, you might note that you have “Faster setup,” “Better support,” “Flexible pricing,” or “Stronger compliance reporting.”
Build out landing pages that compare your features to your competitors’ features without naming names. Show real differentiators like detection speed, compliance, and support, and highlight testimonials or case studies from clients who “switched from Vendor A.”
Never expect single clicks to convert. Treat competitor conquest campaigns like the first touchpoint in a series. Pair it with remarketing, content nurture, and follow-ups to maximize conversions from buyers who are currently in evaluation mode.
PPC ads can generate plenty of leads for your cybersecurity business, but closing deals will require a strong sales strategy. That’s why aligning your PPC campaigns with your sales workflows can help.
Sync your ad data with your CRM for full visibility. Capture data on keywords, ad groups, landing pages, and funnel stages for every lead. This will help your sales team know exactly what triggered their interest so they can tailor their follow-up conversations accordingly.
Provide your sales teams with assets to help your messaging stay consistent. For example, give them your case studies, compliance docs, whitepapers, audit reports, and technical comparisons. Doing so will help them maintain credibility when engaging with potential clients.
When PPC efforts align with sales workflows, marketing teams help cybersecurity businesses close deals faster. This improves campaign effectiveness, reduces friction, and lowers customer acquisition cost.
The cybersecurity industry is a battlefield. A basic PPC campaign won’t work when you’re competing for attention in the cybersecurity industry. The firms that invest in cybersecurity marketing, cybersecurity PPC, and data-backed marketing strategies know that precision and trust win conversions across digital channels. To win leads, you need to reach targeted audiences with intent-driven keywords and technically correct messaging, and it all needs to align with your sales process.
If your competitors are using these strategies and you’re not, you’re invisible. This is the time to sharpen your strategy and strengthen your funnel by implementing a stronger PPC strategy.
If you want to generate qualified enterprise leads, reduce wasted ad spend, and build a scalable, data-driven PPC engine that speaks directly to cybersecurity decision makers – an experienced cybersecurity marketing agency like us can help.
At PPC.co, we specialize in building paid ad strategies that convert clicks into real clients. Contact us today and we’ll position your firm as the credible, trusted authority cybersecurity buyers want.
