Add a promotional pop-up

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Add a promotional pop-up

Last updated September 28, 2026 21:08

Set up a promotional pop-up that appears when visitors land on your site.

A promotional pop-up appears on your site when a visitor lands on a page. Use one to invite visitors to sign up for your mailing list, or display a call-to-action button that leads to a page on your site.

Also try: Add an announcement bar

Promotional pop-ups are available in the Core, Plus, and Advanced plans.

Video on how to create a promotional pop-up

This two-minute video reviews how to add a promotional pop-up that appears when visitors land on your site.

Add a promotional pop-up to your site

To add a promotional pop-up:

1. Open the Promotional pop-up panel.
2. Choose a layout.
3. Customize the pop-up's content, action, display and timing, image, and style settings.
4. Switch the Display pop-up toggle on, then click Save.
5. (Optional) To test the pop-up, visit your site in an incognito window.

Customize your pop-up settings

Click the setting in the Promotional pop-up panel to customize the pop-up. You can customize the these settings:

• Layout: Choose the size of the pop-up, and if it will cover the entire page or part of it. You can only add images to templates that include them. Hover over a layout and click Select to preview, then click Save to apply the layout. Larger layouts may affect SEO.
• Action: Choose if the pop-up will prompt visitors to sign up for a newsletter or click a button.
• Content: Add text to the pop-up. Click the Headline and Body fields to add text, then click Save. Keep this text short. Too much text may cause display issues.
• Display & timing: Choose when, where, and how often the pop-up will display.
• Image: Add an image to the pop-up, if the layout you chose supports one.
• Style: Style the pop-up to match your site's look and feel. Click an area of the pop-up to display only the style tweaks available for that area and hide the rest. Click Show all to see all available tweaks. The post-submit message follows the Body font and color tweaks.

Add a newsletter signup to your pop-up

To use a pop-up to invite visitors to subscribe to your email list, open the Action settings in the Promotional pop-up panel and choose Sign up for a newsletter. This displays a pop-up that captures a visitor’s email so you can send them Email Campaigns.

Change the newsletter pop-up's text

Click the Button tab to change the text in the newsletter pop-up:

• Email field placeholder text - The text in the email address field. The default is Email Address.
• Submit button label - The text on the button visitors click to submit their email address. The default is Submit, and you can change it to something like Join us or Sign up.
• Disclaimer - The text below the email address field.

Store newsletter submissions

To collect visitor responses, click the Storage tab, then click Squarespace Email Campaigns. To use Mailchimp or Google Drive instead, click Connect other services and choose a storage option.

Choose a verification method

Mailing lists in Squarespace Email Campaigns need at least one verification method.

Click the Verification tab to review subscriber verification options. The default is Send confirmation email. If you enable Google reCAPTCHA, you can turn the confirmation email off.

Change the post-submit message

Click the Post-submit tab to change the text visitors see after they sign up:

• Post-submit message - The text that appears after a visitor submits the form, below the headline, body text, and disclaimer.
• Post-submit HTML - Custom code that displays with the post-submit message, below the headline, body text, and disclaimer. The post-submit HTML doesn't replace the post-submit message.

Can I send newsletter email submissions to another email or third-party service?

No. You can’t send newsletter email submissions to another email or third-party service. You can only store emails in Squarespace Email Campaigns, Mailchimp, or Google Drive.

Can I collect names and phone numbers with a newsletter signup pop-up?

No. You can't collect a subscriber's name with this action. To collect names and other contact information, add a button that links to a page with a newsletter block.

Add buttons to your pop-up

Add up to two buttons that link to your site's pages, a file, a different site, or anything else you want visitors to discover.

To add a button:

1. In the Action settings, choose Click a button.
2. In the Link Label field, enter the text for the button.
3. Add a link in the URL field, or click for more link options.
4. Repeat these steps to add a second button.

Choose the pages where your pop-up appears

In the Display & timing settings, use the Pages section to choose where the pop-up appears. To show it on the first page a visitor lands on, select Any first page from the dropdown menu.

To choose the pages where the pop-up appears, select Only certain pages. If you select several pages, your timing and frequency rules apply to all of them, and the pop-up still appears only on whichever page the visitor lands on first.

After you choose the pages, click outside the page menu to close it.

Set your pop-up to appear on a timer or on scroll

In the Timing section of the Display & timing settings, choose whether the pop-up appears on a timer, when a visitor scrolls to a certain point on the page, or both. Use the other dropdown menus to set the time and scroll percentage.

If you set both a time and a scroll position, the pop-up appears when the first one happens. For example, if you set the time to After 10 seconds and the scroll percentage to 25% Down, the pop-up appears in either of these cases:

• The visitor lands on the page and scrolls down 25% of the page right away.
• The visitor lands on the page, doesn't scroll, and stays for 10 seconds.

Password-protected pages

On a password-protected page, your pop-up follows the same display and timing rules after the visitor enters the password.

Choose how often returning visitors see your pop-up

Use the Frequency dropdown menu in the Display & timing settings to set how often returning visitors see your pop-up. You can set it to show up again after a set amount of time, or hide it from returning visitors completely.

Choose between these frequency options:

• The next day - Returning visitors see the pop-up again after 24 hours.
• In 1 week - Returning visitors see the pop-up again after seven days.
• In 2 weeks - Returning visitors see the pop-up again after 14 days.
• In 30 days - Returning visitors see the pop-up again after 30 days.
• Never - Returning visitors never see the pop-up a second time.

How do browser cookies affect pop-up frequency?

We use cookies to identify new and returning visitors. If a visitor has our pop-up cookie in their browser, your site counts them as a returning visitor. If they clear their cache or visit from a new browser, your site counts them as a new visitor.

Hide your pop-up from visitors who already subscribed

If you're using a newsletter pop-up, check Don't show again after newsletter signup in the Display & timing settings to hide the pop-up from visitors who already subscribed.

Only subscriptions from the pop-up count toward this rule. If someone subscribes somewhere else on your site, like a newsletter block or at checkout, the pop-up can still appear for them.

Show or hide your pop-up on mobile

To show your pop-up to visitors on a mobile device, check Show on mobile in the Display & timing settings. To hide it, uncheck Show on mobile.

For the best display, the pop-up looks different on mobile. To customize it, use the style tweaks in the Mobile section of the Style panel, then test the result in device view.

Reset your pop-up for all visitors

To show the pop-up again to all visitors the next time they visit, even if your frequency settings would otherwise hide it, click Reset in the Display & timing settings.

Reset the pop-up after you change its design, so returning visitors see the new version. After visitors see the new content once, the pop-up goes back to your frequency rule.

Add an image to your pop-up

In Image settings, click the image upload box, then click Upload image. You can also reuse an image you've already added to your site, or use a stock image. To use a solid background color instead, leave the Image panel empty and choose a background color in the Style panel.

You can upload .jpg, .png, .webp, and .gif files. Format your images before you upload them, and review our stock image best practices if you're using stock photography.

Uploading several images creates a slideshow. You can't add navigation controls or change the slideshow's transition speed.

To control how your image crops and keep control of its dimensions, enable Overlay advanced layout tweaks under Overlay design in the Style panel.

Track engagement with your pop-up

Use form and button conversions to see how visitors engage with your promotional pop-ups. You can track your conversion rate, which compares the number of views your pop-up received with the number of submissions or clicks it got.

Why does my pop-up keep reappearing after a visitor dismisses it?

If visitors see the pop-up again during the same browsing session, they may be viewing your site in a private or incognito window. Private windows don't recognize individual visits, so the pop-up follows your timing and frequency rules each time a visitor refreshes the page or opens a new page on your site.

Why does my pop-up look different on mobile?

Promotional pop-ups work on mobile, but they display differently than on computers:

• The pop-up fills half the screen.
• Images don't display.
• For layouts that center text on computers, text is always left-aligned on mobile, so the X icon stays visible.

To change how it looks, set mobile-specific styles in the Style panel, or hide the pop-up on mobile.

Why does my pop-up have a scroll bar?

Too much text adds a scroll bar and can cause display issues on mobile. Limit your headline to one sentence and your body text to three.

Why is my pop-up slow to load?

Uploading several high-resolution images can affect your pop-up's load time. Try removing images or replacing them with smaller files.

Can I add a pop-up to a member site or an index sub-page?

No. Pop-ups don't appear on pages in a member site or on index sub-pages.

Will my pop-up appear on more than one page?

No. Your pop-up appears only on the first page a visitor lands on, even when you select several pages. The pages you select control which pages can trigger the pop-up, not how many times it appears.

Can I use more than one pop-up at a time?

No. You can only enable one pop-up at a time. To show another message on your site, add an announcement bar.

Can I add custom code or video to a pop-up?

No. Pop-ups don't work with custom code, and you can't upload a video file. To get the look of a video, use an animated .gif.

Can I set a pop-up to appear when someone leaves my site?

No. Promotional pop-ups appear only when a visitor lands on a page.

Can promotional pop-ups affect my SEO?

Yes. Pop-ups can lower your site's ranking in search engines. If you're concerned about SEO, choose a layout that covers only part of the screen.

It's most important that pop-ups don't block access to your content on mobile, because Google may rank your site lower in mobile search results. All promotional pop-ups fill only half the page on mobile, and you can also hide them on mobile completely.

Note: SEO strategy falls outside the scope of Squarespace support. We offer SEO-friendly features and a full SEO checklist to optimize your site for search engines and visitors, but we can't give specific advice on site ranking.

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Add a promotional pop-up