By adding a widget that displays how many users subscribed in the past week to the email step of the popup, we believed we could create social proof and real-time validation. Encouraging more users to opt in to email and SMS lists.

An A/B test was conducted across several brands’ popups to evaluate whether showing a “last week’s subscribers” widget could increase conversions. Two versions were tested:

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Site visitors were randomly assigned to:

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• A control experience with a clean, CTA-focused popup, or
• A variant that included a live subscriber count on the email step.

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We tracked:

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• Email Conversion Rate – % of visitors who submitted their email
• SMS Conversion Rate – % of visitors who submitted their phone number

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Conversion rates were calculated as opt-ins divided by total popup impressions.

The control outperformed the variant across all tests:

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Across all brands, the widget did not improve performance and in most cases led to a drop in conversion.

Adding a “subscriber count” widget to the email step did not yield positive results. While the intention was to build trust through social proof, it may have introduced cognitive friction or distracted from the core message. The takeaway: sometimes less is more. In this case, the streamlined, distraction-free popup proved to be the more effective path to conversion. Social proof can be powerful, but only when it’s implemented with precision and clear value.