Wouldn’t you love to find an easy way to add 40+ qualified leads to your contact list every single day? Shotkit used OptinMonster to do just that after trying (unsuccessfully) to grow their list with other lead generation tools. Let’s look at how Shotkit grew their leads exponentially with the same amount of traffic.

Meet Shotkit

Shotkit offers a peek inside the camera bags of the world’s best photographers. It features photography reviews, inspiration, and advice for every level of photographer.

Shotkit is all about inspiring, teaching, and supporting photographers worldwide to become better at art and in their business.

They display portfolios of professional photographers, provide users with educational “gear guides,” and reviews the latest photography equipment to get you the best deals possible.

Before using OptinMonster, Shotkit had been using ThriveLeads for years. But there were a few things they weren’t satisfied with, including:

• Missing reporting features
• Glitchy editing forms
• Unreliable popups
• And more…

At the time, they were getting between 30-60 email signups per day. Then they started experimenting with other platforms before settling on OptinMonster. In their own words, here’s what Shotkit had to say:

“We tried a few other WP plugin solutions to find something more reliable, and easier to implement new designs quickly, but found they all had issues. Our goal was to grow our email list and increase conversions for the particular products we were promoting, especially with exit popups.

We also wanted to experiment more with Yes/No optins and quickly launch A/B tests. We’re fortunate to have a lot of traffic, so we can conduct A/B tests quickly and efficiently. The templates OM offers are also better than the competition.

Another issue we found with competitor optin products was that mobile (responsive) displays were always dodgy! They never worked properly, and editing the standard templates was annoying. OM has solved all this.”

After testing out multiple competitors, Shotkit finally landed on OptinMonster and hasn’t looked back since. As a result, they report having faster site speeds, more email conversions, and higher sales.

Now they get over 100 new email signups per day, which is a 60% increase in conversions or an added 40+ leads per day.

Mark Condon is the photographer behind Shotkit and also has his own photography business, Gold Hat Photography. He told us a bit more about how Shotkit uses OptinMonster for growth.

How ShotKit Uses OptinMonster

Shotkit gets a lot of traffic to their site. But since the site is mainly monetized through affiliate marketing, traffic isn’t enough. They also need conversions.

That’s why Mark focuses on combining OptinMonster’s powerful Exit-Intent® Technology with a lead magnet like a coupon.

Now, you may be wondering, “Do exit-intent popups still work?” And Mark had actually asked himself the same question before coming to a realization:

“Showing coupons, sales, discounts, [and other campaigns] with exit intent may sound like a slimy marketing tactic, but it’s beneficial to the visitor – they’re visiting your review because they’re interested in the product, and without something popping ‘in their face’, they may miss the offer… I consider the exit-pop to be like a final reminder, in case the visitor missed seeing it the first time.”

And Mark’s hunch about how exit-intent popups improve user experience (UX) wasn’t only 100% right; it also led to higher conversions for Shotkit.

Here’s an example of am exit-intent popup that he created for a discount on a powerful photo editing software:

This campaign currently has a conversion rate of 5.57%, well above most email optin standards.

But he uses other kinds of campaigns to grab his audience’s attention, as well. He has a fullscreen campaign that offers a free gift to users. This one starts as a Yes/No campaign:

When users click Yes, they’re taken to an email optin form:

This campaign is currently converting 5.77% of people who see it.

What’s been so fun about watching Mark use OptinMonster is seeing how many high-converting campaigns he was able to create in such a short amount of time.

This simple exit-intent popup, for example, converts at over 21%:

These are just a few of the examples taken from Shotkit, but there are many others. A few factors that play into Mark’s success include:

• Consistent A/B testing
• Creating two versions of campaigns: one for desktop and one for mobile
• Knowing what his target audience wants (discounts on their favorite photography gear)

And, of course, OptinMonster’s powerful features along with its easy-to-use builder. In fact, here is Mark’s experience from editing campaigns in OptinMonster:

“I’m not a designer, but I ‘design’ all the OM templates because it’s the quickest way of implementing changes. Also, the base templates provide a good starting point to make minor edits. Side note: our ‘ugliest’ optin is currently performing the best! (it doesn’t include any images or pretty graphics…)”

In just a few months, Shotkit has created dozens of optin campaigns of all kinds (popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, and so on), bringing him tons of new leads every day.

By our last estimate, Shotkit had 32 campaigns with conversion rates of 5% or higher.

Results

As a result of using OptinMonster, Mark reported the following results:

• Faster site speeds
• 40+ new leads signing up every day

Neither result should be surprising. Since OptinMonster is a standalone service, it doesn’t rely on your shared hosting plan to function.

In other words, OptinMonster won’t use any of your site’s bandwidth or resources to display its campaigns. Plus, any added scripts to your site are minimal. This leads to much faster load times and keeps your site speed high.

As for generating new leads, that’s to be expected as well. Though it’s impossible to say for sure, Mark’s team thinks more of his traffic is seeing the OptinMonster campaigns than when they used a competing service even with the same display rules configured. In Mark’s own words:

“It’s hard to measure, but we have a feeling that by switching to OM, our forms are shown to more people than with previous optin software, despite having the same display options.”

This is a good reminder that any lead generation tool you use doesn’t just need to work; it needs to work reliably.

And after dealing with many unreliable services, Shotkit was happy to find that OptinMonster solves their problems.

Summary

Shotkit turned to OptinMonster because they felt like they were leaving conversions on the table. Turns out, they were right.

After using OptinMonster for a few months, Shotkit increased site speeds and added over 40 new leads every day (that’s roughly 1,200 new leads a month by conservative estimates).

Now they have over 30 campaigns that convert at a rate of 5% or higher, some of which convert as high as 21%. But at the end of the day, Mark was able to sum up his experience with OptinMonster best when he said:

I held off switching to OptinMonster for a long time, initially because of the premium pricing, but mostly because I was too lazy to make the big switch!

Needless to say, I’m kicking myself I waited this long – the increased cost has more than paid for itself, and switching wasn’t half as painful as I expected. Email signups are up, and so are conversions. High five, OptinMonster!
Mark Condon, Owner, Shotkit.com

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