OptinMonster and Sleeknote can both help you build your email list and generate leads from your website. But which can get you better leads, faster? See our point-by-point comparison before you decide.
Are you looking for a software that can help you drive traffic, boost leads, and increase conversion rates? If so, you’ve probably come across many companies.
Two popular options that often pop up are OptinMonster and Sleeknote. Both do a great job of helping small to medium-sized businesses grow their email list. That said, there are some substantial differences between the two software.
So, in this OptinMonster vs. Sleeknote comparison, we’re going to look at the following aspects of each company:
So here’s the thing with Sleeknote that we should get out of the way right up front: our entire team is a big fan of their marketing strategy and their web design.
They’ve done a great job branding, and it’d be wrong to say otherwise. So as we would expect, Sleeknote’s campaign building process is detailed, intuitive, and easy to understand.
They walk you through all 6 steps when it’s time to build your build campaign and force you to define your goals upfront.
That said, it quickly becomes obvious that Sleeknote’s campaign options are more limited than OptinMonster.
This is evident as soon as it’s time to choose your campaign type:
As you can see, you have 3 options for a campaign. To be more accurate, you have 2 options at this stage (and one more later, but we’ll get to that in a second).
Center screen popup
Slide-in on either the right or left-hand side
With OptinMonster, you have 5 different campaign types to choose from:
Popup
Fullscreen
Slide-in
Floating Bar
Inline
But then with these 5 options, you can also build:
Sidebars
Spinning Wheel Optins
Content Lockers
Countdown Timers (static or dynamic)
You can show all of those campaigns through anchor texts with shareable MonsterLinks™. Another popular campaign type is a sidebar widget (mentioned in the list above) for optin forms on the side of your content.
You’ve probably seen those before. Sidebar optins look like this:
Again, when it comes to OptinMonster campaign types, we’ve got loads to choose from!
This means that, right away, the scale tips toward OptinMonster for clients looking to build a variety of campaigns across their site or sites.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The very first thing that Sleeknote asks you to do is define your goal:
Your selection will determine which campaign templates you see. Choosing your goal upfront helps you get more clarity on what you want to achieve and helps you design a more targeted campaign throughout the entire process.
But what about the customers who want access to all the templates right from the get-go and have the ability to filter options if needed.
Because there may be a template that matches the campaign design you want, but you’d never see it if you chose the wrong goal.
That’s why at OptinMonster, our engineers created over 50 templates that we show you upfront. Then on the side, you can filter all those templates depending on your specific goals:
We know you have a particular style in mind for your campaign, so we want to give you all the options to choose from if it can save you time.
Again, two different approaches, but a big enough consideration to mention here.
As we continue this comparison, we’re going to choose Sleeknote’s Center Screen Popup so we can Collect Email Addresses. Now, we can explore the templates.
Sleeknote has 50 templates to choose from (45 themed templates and 5 blank ones). They allow you to filter between themed and blank templates though we’re not 100% sure why this filter exists:
It doesn’t change your options or simplify your template choice. If you want to see the blank templates, you can scroll to the bottom of the page.
There’s also another thing to point out at this stage. Only 3 of the 50 templates allow you to create a Multistep campaign (which is the equivalent of OptinMonster’s high converting Yes/No campaign):
This is important because Yes/No optins are super effective.
They rely on the Zeigarnik effect, which suggests that people are more likely to finish a process once they’ve started. So if you ask your wesbite visitors a simple Yes or No question, they’re more likely to engage with the campaign:
Consequently, there’s a good chance they’ll finish by opting in because they’ve already begun the process of doing so.
That’s why OptinMonster allows you to make any template a Yes/No campaign. It turns most site visitors into subscribers. So out of all our 50+ templates, you can use the power of the Zeigarnik effect with all of them!
Making the transition to a Yes/No campaign is how ChinaImportal boosted webinar attendance by 18%, subscriber growth by 200%, and recovered 11% of abandoned visitors.
We’ll show you how we can help you do that in just a minute.
Today, we’ll choose a Multistep campaign from Sleeknote so we can explore everything as thoroughly as possible. Now it’s time to decide whether you want your campaign to be at the center of the screen, or on the bottom left or right-hand side (like we saw earlier):
Again, we’ll go with Center.
Ok, in Sleeknote, we’re shown the Multistep campaign, and we can begin editing. This multistep feature was frustrating. That’s because it’s broken down into 4 steps:
Form I
Form II
Teaser
Success
Here’s Form I of the template we chose:
You’ll notice that right away, your reader is asked to put in their email address. This defeats the purpose of a multistep optin,and, in a second, we’ll explain why. First, here’s a glimpse of Form II:
Form II’s default template asks for a name, phone number, and, for some reason, gender. We can’t imagine a scenario in which this default template meets the majority of their user’s needs without major customization.
So, why does asking for an email in Form I defeat the purpose of a Yes/No (or “multistep”) campaign?
Because the first part of a Yes/No campaign should be as simple as possible with zero information to fill in. After all, that’s what gives these campaigns their power.
Again, notice the first step from one of OptinMonster’s Yes/No campaigns:
The user is prompted to click Yes or No.
The goal is to get them to take a tiny action so they can warm up to the idea of giving their email address later. Once the email is obtained, if our users need more information, we teach them how to use progressive profiling to get it.
The point is this: each field you ask your users to fill out is another obstacle that can prevent them from doing so.
Put even more simply, more fields = fewer conversions (and vice-versa).
Here’s the second part of our Yes/No campaign for that same template:
Again, this is as stripped down as can be. Once the user has clicked through the Yes option, they’re asked to provide basic details about themselves, like name and email address.
You can always customize this form to collect more information if you need it, but the default will work out-of-the-box. In fact, our clients have found that most of our templates need very little (if any) customization before putting them on a website.
But not everything about Sleeknote’s template was frustrating. In fact, there was one part that caught our team’s attention (in a good way). Their third form is called a teaser and is a nice addition to their software.
It looks like this:
The teaser is like a miniature version of your campaign at the bottom of their screen. This functions like a Floating Bar from OptinMonster:
It’s essentially a 2-step optin that gets users to click something before they see the optin form. This, too, takes advantage of the Zeigarnik effect. With OptinMonster, though, Floating Bars aren’t the only way to use a 2-step optin.
Both of these options allow you to make smaller campaigns throughout your site and encourage higher click-through rates. Then, once a customer has started the process, they’re more likely to finish.
However, neither of these options are offered by Sleeknote.
Finally, we have the Success page view. This is standard across both platforms. They both allow you to send a warm message to your customers, provide discount or coupon information, or redirect users to a different site.
So now, let’s move away from the types of campaigns you can build with OptinMonster vs. Sleeknote and look at design customization features.
Campaign Design
In terms of how to customize your campaign with OptinMonster or Sleeknote, our editors are similar. Both have a drag and drop editor with user-friendly customization.
One of the many benefits of OptinMonster is the variety of elements you can add to your drag and drop builder. For this area of campaign design, OptinMonster goes far beyond what Sleeknote allows you to do.
First, let’s look at what Sleeknote lets you add to your campaign’s layout:
Text
Image
Divider
Container
Countdown
Button
Then they have a few form options that you can add, including:
Input
Numeric
Dropdown menu
Checkboxes
Radios
Text area
With OptinMonster, you have all of these options and more! Here are the Blocks you can add to any template design (or when building from scratch!):
Button
Chatbot
Countdown (static or dynamic)
Divider
Custom HTML
Icons
Images
Spacer
Text
Video
Yes/No buttons
Optin fields
Name
Email
Phone number
Privacy policy statement
Note: That custom HTML makes this list unlimited. You can design your campaign to do pretty much anything and are only limited by your JavaScript skills.
But as you can see, we have you covered for anything you could need for your optin campaign.
Plus, where Sleeknote offers a “Container” as an option to put into your campaign, OptinMonster offers many versions called “Columns:”
These allow for more personalized campaigns than any single column addition. But how can you target your customers once you’ve built the perfect optin form?
OptinMonster vs. Sleeknote: Triggers and Targets
When it comes to creating custom rules to display your campaign, there’s no beating OptinMonster, and Sleeknote is no exception.
And let’s be clear: this is nothing against Sleeknote. OptinMonster has the advantage of having been around for many years and working hard to make our campaigns as targeted as possible.
It’s one of the areas where our software shines brightest, and there’s not a competitor on the market who can outperform us there.
That said, Sleeknote does have a few good options for targeting campaigns:
Timed (which can be customized)
Scroll depth
Exit-Intent®
Click
Custom JavaScript triggers
They also have a Smart Trigger functionality that tracks your most popular campaigns and then shows them accordingly. While this is good in theory, we recommend never taking your hands off the wheel like this.
Like self-driving cars, it sounds cool until something crashes. There’s no better way to target your audience than monitoring, tracking, and tweaking your campaigns over time after seeing what your visitors engage with most.
Then Sleeknote has a variety of conditions to personalize when these campaigns are triggered, including:
URL rulesets
Geo-targeting
URL paths
Page count
Times a campaign has been viewed
Site data
Newsletter subscribers
New visitors
Return visitors
UTM parameters
Cookies
Queries
Referrals
HTML detection rules
As we played around with creating rulesets, there was one thing that bothered us from a user’s standpoint. The trigger default is set to Timed (for 7 seconds), which is fine. But the following condition by default is set to Hide Campaign If in smaller writing:
When you change the first default condition, you want to make sure you’re setting it to hide specific campaigns rather than Show If. When it’s your first time creating a campaign with Sleeknote, this small detail can lead to building a campaign that is hidden from the people you want to see it most.
If you would like to set a Show If campaign, then you need to activate those conditions further down the screen.
OptinMonster, on the other hand, has all of these triggers and more. Plus, they are organized more intuitively.
In fact, there are too many triggers to list here because OptinMonster has over 30 unique triggers for each campaign, each of which has its own sub-conditions to make the targeting more accurate for your audience.
In other words, we have the same triggers as Sleeknote and more.
One of the examples of unique targeting tools that stands out is our AdBlocker, which helps display campaigns to your users who may have ad blocking software.
All too often, clients build campaigns with one of our competitors only to learn that the majority of their traffic never even sees the campaign!
We’ve worked hard to make sure that our campaigns reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message. That includes getting around ad blocking software, which is crucial for lead generation.
Some other targeting options OptinMonster gives you that are not available with Sleeknote include:
Again, with OptinMonster, you can rest assured that your campaigns will be seen by the exact type of client you’re targeting.
Now that we’ve created, designed, and made rules for our campaign, let’s compare how many email service providers each platform allows you to integrate with.
Email Service Provider Integration
Once you have your leads, most marketers want to store them in their email marketing service. That way, they can feed the leads into an automated email series to nurture the relationship and grow a solid base of lifelong customers.
As of right now, Sleeknote is more limited in the number of integrations they offer. They currently have 14 email provider integrations available. We should also mention that some of these are small companies such as Apsis, Dot Digital, and Ubivox.
But to be fair, they do have a few of the bigger players like Mailchimp, Active Campaign, and HubSpot as well.
OptinMonster, on the other hand, offers over 35 integrationsfor all of your favorite email service providers.
We also offer lead storage directly on our platform with Monster Leads so you can keep track of and monitor your new leads from OptinMonster.
The difference in the number of integrations offered is important to point out for two reasons.
First, it’s more likely that you’re going to have your current email service provider with OptinMonster than with Sleeknote. To be more accurate, you’re 2.5x more likely to find that we offer whichever email service provider you currently have.
But second, and more importantly, you may decide to change email service providers as your company grows. In fact, you should change email service providers as you scale.
Over time, your needs may change, and you may find another provider has a better offer to suit your email list building needs. When that’s the case, you want to make sure that you don’t paint yourself into a corner because your conversion optimization software doesn’t have the right integration.
So while it may seem less important now, we’ve found that many of our clients are happy to have as many options for their integrations as possible.
Documentation and Support
In this last section, we can’t do anything other than tip our hats to the team at Sleeknote. We started this post by saying how impressed we are with their marketing team.
That compliment extends to their thorough documentation and friendly support team, too.
While they don’t have many video-based tutorials, they have an extensive resource hub to help users troubleshoot any issues. It’s easy to navigate, detailed, and overall impressive.
They also have the following support features:
Blogs
Library
Webinar
Podcast
Free demos
When it comes to reaching their contact team, they have a live chat feature for questions. The live chat runs through standard business hours.
Otherwise, you can send them a message via their site, in an email, or (we suppose) write them a letter the good old fashioned way.
As for OptinMonster, we only hire people who are the absolute best at what they do.
And that includes our support team, too.
Our staff is trained to not just answer any and all questions our users have but to go out and hunt for answers if they aren’t sure.
This is true of people who reach out to us via Facebook, Twitter, email, live chat, or our YouTube channel.
Speaking of which, it’s our killer video tutorials that also set apart our support.
Our YouTube channel is jam-packed with tutorials that help you with every aspect of working with OptinMonster:
Plus, many of those videos can be found in our documentation to save you time when you have trouble:
So what’s the verdict for support and documentation when it comes to OptinMonster vs. Sleeknote?
Sleeknote does this well. But our video tutorials and hand-picked support staff give OptinMonster the winning edge.
OptinMonster vs. Sleeknote: Which Is Best for You?
If we thought for a second that there was a product better than OptinMonster on the market, we’d be in the wrong business.
OptinMonster has more functionality, templates, email integrations, and triggers than any of our competitors, Sleeknote included.
And when it comes to price, we’re just as competitive as well.
Sleeknote currently has a 7-day trial. But after that, you’re looking at:
$55/month for their Basic package
$103/monthfor their Plus package
$255/month for Pro
$375/month for Premium
$599/month for Enterprise
Now let’s check OptinMonster. With us, you have all of Sleeknote’s functionalities (and way more) for:
$14/month for Basic
$30/month for Plus
$47/month for Pro
$80/month for Growth
Note: The pricing in the image above is from a promotion we’re currently running. You can see the original price underneath the red line. Or you can head over to our pricing page to see if the promotion is still available at the time you’re reading this!
Yes, you read those prices correctly. Our most comprehensive package is still less expensive than Sleeknote’s more limited Plus package. Comparing OptinMonster vs. Sleeknote’s functionality gives us the winning edge. Comparing our price to Sleeknote’s?
It’s not even a contest.
So when you look at each company’s capabilities, ease of use, and support, we think the verdict is pretty clear:
OptinMonster is and remains the world’s #1 optimization conversion toolkit by a landslide.
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.
OptinMonster is the shit! Completely blows away Thrive Leads in so many ways!!
Chris Langille - Founder AdvisorEvolved
★★★★★
OptinMonster has had a snowball effect. My traffic goes up the more people I have in my email list, and I’m also able to generate new quality leads on a monthly basis. Some months, I add as many as 1000 new subscribers to my list - with no paid promotions.
Lilach Bullock - Entrepreneur
★★★★★
OptinMonster was easy to setup. And easy to get started. With a better conversion and more emails on our list, we’ve almost tripled our revenues from last year!
Nicolas Gagne - Founder, Win in Health
★★★★★
I have never before seen such effectiveness and efficiency in an optin tool than I have with OptinMonster. In under 2 hours of work, I doubled my daily optin rates thanks to OptinMonster’s incredible options.
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