Variant A 👆 VS Variant B 👇

Variant A led with the percentage: "Up to 67% OFF Micro-Infusion"

Variant B led with the outcome: "Get 5 Months of Micro-Infusion for $199"

Which one do you think won?

Keep reading, we'll come back to this.

Test 2: Does a bigger, bolder offer outperform a passive one?

The brand: Ruff Rover

Variant A was quiet about the discount: a small mention of 5% off. Polite. Easy to ignore.

Variant B went straight for it: "Want Up To 56% OFF + An Extra 5%?"

Same brand. Same product. One of these drove:

• +25.53% submit rate on desktop 
• +21.43% revenue on desktop
• +34.16% submit rate on mobile
• +10.20% revenue on mobile

Both results are statistically significant.

The winner: Variant B. The one that made the value impossible to miss.

The lesson isn't "always go bigger." It's that passive copy asks visitors to work to understand why they should care. Explicit copy does that work for them. 

At the moment someone's deciding whether to bounce, every second you make them think is a second closer to losing them.

Back to Qure. Here’s Who Won.

Going in, we expected the outcome-framed variant to win. 

"5 months of Micro-Infusion" is concrete. It's a picture, not a math problem.

Conventional wisdom says that always beats a percentage.

It didn't.

Variant A won.

Why? Because "Get 5 Months of Micro-Infusion for $199" only lands if the visitor already knows what Micro-Infusion costs. If they don't, it's just a number with no reference point.

"Up to 67% OFF" needs no context. 

The saving is self-evident—and with an urgency timer running and a sale banner already on screen, visitors were in deal mode. 

The percentage met them there. The outcome frame asked them to do math they didn't have the context for.

But what if the copy isn't even the real problem?

Both tests above tweaked what the pop-up said.

Kiyoko Beauty asked a different question: what if we changed the whole experience?

Their existing pop-up was clean and on-brand; half-screen, free shipping offer, email field. It was doing its job. Just not doing it well enough.

We rebuilt it as a full-page, four-step J-Beauty quiz. No form at the front door. Just one low-friction question: "Which Japanese flower are you?"

The idea was simple: get a click first, ask for the email second. Once someone's answered a question, they're already in. The form feels like a natural next step, not a toll gate.

The results across US and Canadian desktop traffic:

• US: +116.7% revenue. +66.7% submit rate. +342% step-1 engagement.
• Canada: +81.8% revenue. +105.3% submit rate. +293.5% step-1 engagement.

Step-1 engagement tripled in both markets. And because more people started, more people finished.

The pop-up didn't lead with a discount. It led with curiosity. That's what moved the number.

→ Check out the full Kiyoko case study

What this means for your pop-up

Three tests. Three different levers. All pointing at the same thing: your pop-up is either working for you or it isn't, and most brands don't actually know which.

Here's the ladder, in order of effort:

Level 1 — Test your framing (30 mins) 

Outcome vs. percentage. 

Neither always wins—Qure proved that. 

What wins depends on your price point, your audience, and what mode they're in when they land on your site.

The mistake is picking one and never questioning it. 

Run the test. Let your visitors tell you which picture lands harder.

Level 2 — Make the value impossible to miss (a few hours) 

If your offer is buried or understated, drag it to the front. Ruff Rover's polite "5% off" wasn't pulling its weight. 

"Want Up To 56% OFF + An Extra 5%?" did. The difference was clarity. 

At the moment someone's deciding whether to close the tab, passive copy loses every time.

Level 3 — Rebuild the first interaction (a week, worth it) 

Stop leading with the form. 

Start with one low-friction question that earns the click, then ask for the email.

Kiyoko's submit rates more than doubled. 

Revenue followed.

"Which Japanese flower are you?" isn't a form. It's an invitation. Once someone clicks an answer, they're already in and everything that follows feels like a natural next step, not a toll gate.

You don't have to start at Level 3. 

But if your pop-up hasn't been touched in 90 days, every visitor it fails to convert is a buyer who never made it into your flows.

That's not a list problem. That's a revenue problem.

Cheers, 

Josh

P.S. Not sure where yours is leaking? Reply and tell me what you're running. Happy to give you a quick read.