OptinMonster and Bloom can both help you create popups and other email optin forms on your WordPress site. But when you dig a little deeper, there are a few key differences and powerful features that make OptinMonster stand out.
Are you looking for the best WordPress popup plugin to grow your email list as quickly as possible? Not sure whether you should use OptinMonster or Bloom by Elegant Themes?
Both Bloom and OptinMonster are popular solutions for growing your email list, but there are some significant differences between the two.
The goal is to make sure you choose the WordPress plugin that best suits your needs. So, in this article, we’ll give you a detailed comparison of OptinMonster vs. Bloom.
If you’re in a hurry, here’s a table of contents to help you navigate through both platforms’ features:
OptinMonster vs. Bloom: Platform Integration Comparison
The first question we need to address is what kind of website OptinMonster and Bloom will work for?
Let’s start with Bloom:
Bloom is strictly a WordPress plugin, so you can only use it on WordPress sites. All your settings and optin forms are stored on your WordPress site, so you’ll need to create your own backups.
That’s because if your site is hacked or you lose access to it, you’ll lose all your forms, settings, and conversion rate analytics. This is definitely a worst-case scenario, but it’s always better to be prepared.
OptinMonster, on the other hand, is a standalone app that lives on its own website. To create your popups and other campaigns, you’ll log in to your account on the OptinMonster website, instead of creating them within the WordPress dashboard:
You can display your campaigns on any type of website, even a static HTML site. OptinMonster is easy to implement with just a bit of code.
There’s also an OptinMonster WordPress plugin that automatically connects your OptinMonster account to your WordPress site. That gives you more control over where your campaigns display (but more on that below). OptinMonster also works with any WordPress theme.
There are several benefits to using a standalone app like OptinMonster as opposed to a dedicated plugin like Bloom:
Automatic Cloud Backup: No need to worry about losing your data since it’s in the cloud already
Fast and Reliable: The speed of your optin forms doesn’t depend on your web hosting company’s speed
Doesn’t Use Your Storage Space: Since your campaigns live in the OptinMonster app, they don’t use up your hosting storage
Bottom line: OptinMonster works seamlessly with all WordPress themes and plugins.
Campaign Types and Templates
Of course, the main features you’ll want to compare are the types of popups and other campaigns you can create with OptinMonster vs. Bloom.
Let’s take a look at Bloom first. Bloom specializes in creating optins, which means you’ll create email signup forms exclusively.
Bloom allows you to create 6 different optin types:
Pop up
Fly in
Below Post
Inline
Locked Content
Widget
OptinMonster allows you to create all of those, as well:
However, you might notice that OptinMonster uses the word “campaigns” instead of “optins.” That’s because OptinMonster isn’t just limited to simple email signup forms. We also specialize in creating a variety of campaigns for different marketing purposes.
We’ll show you more in the Campaign Design and Customization Comparison section below.
In the OptinMonster app, you choose from 5 different campaign types:
Lightbox popup
Fullscreen
Slide-in
Floating Bar
Inline
Now, at first glance, you’re probably thinking that’s less than Bloom. After all, they have 6 optin types, and OptinMonster only has 5 campaign types, right?
But the fact is that you can do a lot more with these 5 campaign types than any other conversion optimization kit, Bloom included. You can create sidebar widgets, Fullscreen or Floating bar optins (not offered by Bloom), build Content Locking optins, and much more:
At the end of the day, what’s important to remember is the difference between creating a simple “optin form” and a full-fledged “campaign.” Bloom only lets you do the former, whereas OptinMonster includes both.
But now, let’s look at the campaign design and customization between both software.
Campaign Design and Customization Comparison
Both OptinMonster and Bloom have some great templates to choose from so let’s take a closer look at how the platforms handle campaign design and campaign customization.
Campaign Design
If you’re building your email optin forms with Bloom, you may notice that they have a lot of templates.
In fact, it may even appear that Bloom has more templated options available than OptinMonster.
And while they definitely do have some killer template designs, it’s worth pointing out that many of these stem from one original design with slight variations:
OptinMonster, on the other hand, has over 50 unique form templates to choose from:
Plus, each template can be formatted for all the optin form types that you want to build. For example, here are the templates for our Floating Bar campaigns:
You’ll also notice that you can filter your templates depending on your needs (including an awesome new Mobile filter):
We even have one template the is designed to grow your followers on social media:
This one works well for most companies right out of the box. These templates come stock full with other cool options, too. For example, you can choose templates with a countdown timer to build scarcity, a marketing tactic proven to improve eCommerce sales:
Not only that, but you can also design and code your own campaigns from scratch using OptinMonster Canvas technology. So if you’re very particular about the campaigns you need, you can totally customize every aspect of your campaign and form designs.
Campaign Customization
After you choose your template, you can begin to customize your design.
Here’s how that looks in Bloom:
You won’t be able to see your optin form as you make changes, so you’ll need to constantly click the Preview button at the top right to make sure you’re happy with how your campaign looks.
Then, as you scroll down, you’ll see plenty of options to change the colors, fonts, and layout of your optin form.
You can even choose the style of the form edge if you’d like, as well as a field to customize the text people see after they subscribe.
To be honest, they’ve got some neat things you can do to customize your optin form. We were definitely impressed with the sleekness and professional look of some of their designs.
But OptinMonster’s campaign editor is quite a bit different. After choosing your template, you’re taken to an editor where you can see your campaign as you design it. That means there’s no need to click a preview button until you’re totally finished making changes:
To customize your form, you can click anywhere on the campaign in the editor. Then, all your editing tools appear on the left-hand side of the screen. You can replace images, edit the text, change colors, and format your campaign how you see fit.
And the best part is that you get to see your changes live, as you make them.
You’ll also notice there are a ton of options to customize your campaign. You’re not limited to just minor style and color changes.
For example, you can turn any of our templates into a Yes/No campaign, which features buttons instead of an email address field:
Though you would think that adding a step to your optin form would lead to fewer conversions, the opposite is actually true. Yes/No campaigns have been proven to increase conversions thanks to the Zeigarnik Effect.
According to the Zeigarnik Effect, people who begin an action are more likely to complete it. That means that visitors who click the Yes button are more likely to continue the process and opt into your email list.
With our Yes/No editor view, you can customize every aspect of your Yes/No campaign:
You have plenty of other options here to customize your Yes/No campaigns, too. You can remove the No button to emphasize the Yes option. And don’t worry, your customers won’t get trapped in your popup. They can still close it any time they want!
Also, you can customize a specific action for each button. You can:
Display your optin form
Close the campaign
Redirect to a new page
That last action is an awesome strategy for sales and promotions.
But with all these options, OptinMonster gives you the ability to create all kinds of marketing campaigns that extend far beyond signup forms.
You can use OptinMonster to build your email list, but also to:
Promote seasonal sales
Tell shoppers about cool deals like free shipping or 30-day trials
Drive traffic to your highest-converting blog post
Highlight specific benefits to overcome sales objections
Check out some of our case studies to see how real users create high converting campaigns that come in all shapes and sizes.
Kennedy Blue, for example, was able to increase their sales by 50% with simple OptinMonster popups like this one:
Ok, now let’s take a look at what happens after your visitors convert.
Success Message Comparison
A lot of people don’t give enough importance to the Success Message of their campaigns.
But the moment after a visitor subscribes is a huge opportunity. That’s because they’ve already shown interest in what you have to offer, and they’re ready to take the next step.
With the right success message, you can take advantage of that opportunity to deepen the new relationship even further.
So, what kind of success message options do Bloom and OptinMonster give you so you can take advantage of this opportunity?
Bloom gives you the option to change the success message that people see after subscribing, or you can redirect them to another page. It’s super crucial to customize this step of your optin campaign, so it’s great that they offer it!
As for OptinMonster, we include a formatted Success View with every template. That means that you get the same level of customization with your Success View as the rest of your campaign:
Again, this is one area of your campaign that you don’t want to skimp out on to save time. Success messages are great for:
Enticing your new subscribers to like your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter
Offering an immediate digital file download
Displaying a video to deepen your connection with them
Instructing visitors to complete the double optin signup process and whitelist your emails
And lots more.
Check out even more ideas for using OptinMonster success messages. Again, this is a huge opportunity to build your audience and turn casual subscribers into loyal customers.
After you’ve designed your campaign, the next step is to decide two things:
Who should see it?
What should trigger it?
Let’s start with Bloom vs. OptinMonster targeting features first.
Campaign Targeting and Triggers Comparison
The more targeted your campaigns are for each visitor, the more effective they’ll be.
So, what kind of targeting options do you get with OptinMonster vs. Bloom?
When creating your optin form in Bloom, you have a few options for targeting different pages on your site. Page-level targeting is more effective than using the same popup on every page.
That’s because you can customize your popup campaign to match the content of the page for which your visitors are showing the most interest:
You can also scroll down and choose specific categories, posts, or pages to display your optin form on, or to exclude them from.
This page-level targeting is an excellent way of making sure your readers are only seeing optin forms that they’ll be interested in.
And OptinMonster has all these options, as well. But we also have quite a few more. In fact, this is really one of our strongest points.
OptinMonster’s Display Rules are what make it such a robust conversion optimization and lead generation solution. Take a look at the targeting options you can choose from:
Current URL path
Pages viewed
Visitor’s device
Visitor has or hasn’t opted in
Visitor is new/returning
Visitor’s location
The URL query arg
A cookie
The referrer URL
Visitor’s ad-blocker
Current URL hash
And way more (too many to list here, in fact).
But targeting your campaigns for specific pages is just the beginning.
If you want to really fine-tune your lead generation to get the most possible conversions, you can use OptinMonster to set up advanced targeting rules like showing campaigns to:
Visitors who have already opted in to another campaign of yours
New visitors to your site
Visitors in a specific geographic location (which is great for retail stores and location-specific offers)
Visitors who click on a link to your site from Facebook
Visitors who click on a guest post on a specific site or a particular ad campaign.
Visitors who are using adblocking software
Visitors who view a certain number of pages on your site (and that number is up to your discretion)
And, again, that only scratches the surface. This opens up a LOT of advanced options for skyrocketing your email list and conversions.
But targeting your visitors isn’t the only key to conversions. You also need to make sure that people are seeing your campaigns at the right time. These popup cues are known as “triggers.”
First, let’s see how Bloom lets you trigger your popups:
There are some great options here that can help you to show your popups at the right time and grow your email list.
For example, showing a popup after your visitors finish reading your post is likely to convert higher than a popup that appears before you get a chance to see the content you came for.
And like we said, Bloom has a ton of options to help you trigger a campaign.
Here are OptinMonster’s Display Rules for when your campaign should appear:
Time on page/Time on site
Exit detected
Visitor clicked MonsterLink
Distance scrolled
Visitor inactive time
Current day/time/date/month
In other words, any of Bloom’s triggers can be easily accomplished with OptinMonster as well. Plus, there are a few more powerful options.
OptinMonster is famous for its signature Exit-Intent® technology, which detects user behavior and prompts them with a targeted campaign at the precise moment they are about to leave.
This is a valuable feature because, on average, over 70% of people who leave your website will never return. With an exit-intent popup, you can convert those abandoning visitors into email subscribers and paying customers.
We’ve seen OptinMonster users get incredible results with our exit-intent® technology. This includes companies like DealDoktor, who saw a2100% increase in conversions when they started using exit-intent popups, or Yoast, who saw theiremail list double in a month.
If you only ran one campaign for your entire site, it should definitely use exit-intent® technology. But let’s be honest, you definitely want more than just one type of campaign, right?
So let’s turn our attention to how you can manage all the different campaigns you build.
Account Management Features Comparison
The fact of the matter is that Bloom is a good plugin for WordPress if you’re working with one site and just a few campaigns. Oh, and you’re the only one who needs access to them.
But what if you have:
multiple websites
many campaigns
more than one user managing them
Then, honestly, Bloom probably isn’t the best tool for you.
Bloom is strictly a WordPress plugin, which means everything happens from your WordPress dashboard. It also means managing multiple sites is tricky because everything is separated.
If you have multiple users on your WordPress site and want to limit or control how they can edit your Bloom optins, there’s simply no easy way to do that.
These are some of the problems that OptinMonster has tried to solve from the beginning.
OptinMonster gives you plenty of account management features to organize your campaigns and manage multiple users.
In the OptinMonster dashboard, you can:
Search through your campaigns
Manage multiple websites
Drag and drop to reorder your list of sites
Collapse or expand all campaigns for each site
Archive campaigns for later
And with OptinMonster sub-accounts, you can easily give access to your co-workers, clients, and others you work with.
As an account administrator, you can set user roles to decide who else can view, create, or publish campaigns. This is a great feature for agencies, who can give each client access to their own campaigns while preserving the privacy of other clients.
There’s also an Activity Log so you can monitor every action taken on your account. This can be an excellent resource, especially when you’re training new employees.
Finally, let’s take a look at what you can expect for situations where you just feel stuck. In other words, what does each company’s documentation and support center look like?
Documentation and Support Comparison
While both OptinMonster and Bloom are easy to use, it’s important to have access to fast and helpful support if you have a question or need help.
Let’s take a look at how OptinMonster vs. Bloom support measures up.
Elegant Themes Documentation and Support
Elegant Themes has documentation on their site to help you get started with Bloom. They have loads of articles on the basics of how Bloom works and how to create optin forms. Many of their tutorials also include videos.
Thanks to the simplicity of the Bloom plugin, these tutorials should be enough to get you started creating optin forms.
If you need further support, you’ll have access to the Elegant Themes support forum as long as you’re a member. You can post your issue or question as a new thread, and get a response from an Elegant Themes team member.
Keep in mind that your thread will be visible to all other Elegant Themes members, so you’ll need to be careful not to post private information in the forums.
Before posting for help, you need to disable all your plugins, which might be impractical for some users.
Elegant Themes doesn’t make any promises about their response times, but most tickets are responded to within 24 hours.
Finally, they also have a new system where you can contact them via live chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:
This doesn’t mean instant support or feedback, however. If you need specialized help that a canned response doesn’t cover, you’ll be connected with a member of Bloom’s customer support.
This usually takes about a day.
OptinMonster Documentation and Support
OptinMonster documentation features 200+ articles that walk you through everything from creating your first campaign to integrating with dozens of email marketing service providers. It also includes advanced topics like setting up MonsterChains to display campaigns based on your visitors’ responses to other campaigns on your site.
If your question isn’t answered in the documentation, you have several support options including live chat, email, or a detailed support tickets:
Official support hours are Monday through Friday, 9am–5pm EST. Typically, tickets are responded to within 24 hours and even faster during official support hours.
Bottom Line: OptinMonster vs. Bloom
Look, here’s the total honest truth:
We like Bloom, a lot!
They have some great designs, they’re easy to use, and their customer support is full of knowledgeable, helpful staff. In other words, even though they’re considered our direct competition, we’ve got nothing but glowing things to say about them.
If you have a WordPress site and simply need some straightforward optins to grow your email list, they’re worth considering.
But does that make Bloom the right choice for you? Well, that depends on your needs.
If you…
Have any kind of website (WordPress, Shopify, or any other platform)
Are serious about building a targeted email list
Need to reduce shopping cart abandonment and recover lost sales
Want to maximize your conversions and revenue
…then OptinMonster is the tool you need.
Plus, our pricing is simply unbeatable. OptinMonster’s basic plan is only $14 per month:
Note: The image above shows a promotion we ran at the time this article was written. Head over to our pricing page now to see if the offer is still valid!
Bloom, on the other hand, is a 1-time payment of either $89 per year or $249 for lifetime access. This is an all-or-nothing approach that works for some companies, but we prefer tiered pricing. That way, you can choose what features you need and not be charged for extras you don’t.
OptinMonster is designed to help all levels of marketers boost their site’s traffic, grow their email list, and increase conversions. So whether you’re a beginner blogger looking to monetize your killer writing, or you’re a seasoned marketer with complex campaign needs, OptinMonster has the right tools for the job.
OptinMonster has everything you need to grow your email list. Here are the features that makes OptinMonster the most powerful customer acquisition & lead generation platform.
Design and Customization
Design Beautiful Forms That are Proven to Convert
Start with our high-performing templates and make them yours. Our design builder gives you full control of the messaging and branding.
Mobile Friendly
Multiple Form Types
400+ Pre-Made Templates
Targeting and Personalization
Show Personalized Messages at the Right Time with Behavior Automation
OptinMonster's powerful targeting and segmentation engine lets you show personalized messages based on user's behavior to maximize engagement, conversions, and sales.
Advanced Page Level Targeting
Custom Display Rules
Dynamic Text Replacement
Conversion Analytics
Easily A/B Test Your Ideas and Make Data-Driven Decisions
OptinMonster’s A/B testing feature helps you eliminate the guess work by letting you try different headlines, content, layouts, and styles to see what converts best.
In only 7 months, we added more than 95,654 names to our email list using OptinMonster's Exit Intent™ technology. We strongly recommend it!
Michael Stelzner - Founder Social Media Examiner
★★★★★
Exit-intent popups have doubled my email opt-in rate. When done right, you can see an instant 12% lift on driving sales. I highly recommend that you use OptinMonster for growing your email list and sales.
Neil Patel - Founder QuickSprout
★★★★★
OptinMonster gives us the freedom we need in terms of what we want to do with the subscribers’ data and their path through our funnel right after they sign up. Our OptinMonster forms are set to redirect people to different success pages, and, in result, offer them different resources / free gifts after they subscribe.
Ionut Neagu - Owner, Codeinwp.com
★★★★★
No higher quality optin forms and variety than OptinMonster! They take great strides to educate me on how best to use the powerful features of their forms. I love the data-driven decisions that I can make using split testing. I'm a believer!
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