We built an AI agent to do what no human could: visit the top 10,000 Shopify stores, trigger popups, sign up via email and SMS, and capture the full experience — from first interaction to follow-up messages weeks later.
In total, we collected 7,492 real popup flows, 42,000+ emails, and 18,000+ texts sent over 12 weeks.
Then we went deeper — cross-referencing our findings with 700+ A/B tests from brands like True Classic, Simple Modern, and Four Sigmatic, plus insights from 20+ ecommerce experts.
In this article, we uncover how many popups brands show, which formats win (fullscreen vs. lightbox), and which tactics dominate (spoiler: most brands still get the basics wrong). This report reveals what’s really working — and what’s quietly killing your conversion potential.
Let’s break it down.
How many popups do brands use?
We detected popups on 6,457 of the top 10,000 Shopify brands. In other words, a very solid majority of ~65% aren’t shy about grabbing attention.
The larger the brand, the more that cohort use popups:
- Top 1k: 77.5%
- Top 1k–5k: 67.2%
- Top 5k–10k: 60.6%
In total, we scraped 7,492 unique popups.
That’s 1.16 popups per brand. Most stick to one (usually welcome) offer, while ~20% show two or more to the same visitor.
Again, larger businesses — those with higher platform rank — aren’t just more like to use popups in general, they also use a higher number of unique popups per store.
Additional popups are usually age gates, newsletters, quizzes, contests + giveaways, or product-specific offers.
Our scraping reveals that testing and iteration are vastly underutilized.
Most brands deploy a popup and then forget it for a very long time, missing opportunities to A/B test incentives, messaging, and design formats over time.
What do these popups look like?
This is where it gets interesting.
82.6% of brands still use lightbox popups, while 17.4% use fullscreen versions.
Lightbox
Fullscreen
Here’s the problem …
If you’re using a lightbox, you’re leaving conversions on the table.
At Recart, we’ve A/B tested fullscreen vs. lightbox formats across dozens of client sites, each test running 2-3 weeks with millions of impressions.
The results? Fullscreen wins every single time.
- Email capture: Fullscreen outperformed lightbox by 23.64%
- SMS capture: Fullscreen outperformed lightbox by 21.63%
And before you ask …
No, fullscreen doesn’t hurt your other metrics.
We have seen zero negative impact on bounce rate, purchase rate, or SEO performance. Those concerns are leftovers from an older internet that doesn’t match how users behave today.
What information do they collect?
When it comes to form fields:
- 40.6% go email first, SMS second
- 33% collect email only
- 21% require no input at all
- 4% feature SMS only
- 1.4% collects Email+SMS with OneClick Opt-in
- 0.1% go SMS first, email second
Email and SMS are collected together for good reason. They’re different, complementary channels. You need both to build a lifecycle that converts across moments and devices.
But the 21% with no input?
These popups might include buttons, countdowns, or announcements, but they’re not capturing emails or phone numbers. Except for legally required age verification, they might drive clicks, but they don’t grow your owned audience.
If you’re investing attention without collecting data, you’re leaving short-term and especially long-term value on the table.
Takeaway?
Most brands lead with email capture, but it’s not about picking one channel over the other. The real value is in testing combinations.
Sometimes SMS drives urgency, sometimes email carries the conversion. You won’t know what performs best for your audience until you try both and measure.
Want the Full Breakdown?
This is just the surface.
In the full report, we dive deeper into the exact popup flows top brands use, the incentives that convert best, how to avoid common design mistakes, and what actually drives more revenue — not just more emails and phone numbers.
If you want to build popups that actually perform, you don’t need guesses. You need data, insights, and proven tactics.
👉 Read the full report to see what works, what doesn’t, and how to build a popup strategy that grows your list and your bottom line.
