Partnered with the front-end developer, I identified three types of popups and their respective show-hide logic: 

1. Subscription pop-ups that appear when a visitor lands on a blog post,

2. E-book download pop-ups that show up a few seconds later,

3. Exit pop-ups that show up when the cursor moves outside of the page.

To provide a better reading experience, the team aligned on a series of guidelines for popup usage:

1. Visitors decide when to subscribe

Visitors won't see the subscription popup until they reach the end of a blog post.

2. Treat e-books as educational materials, not promotional pieces

Partnered with two copywriters, we connected e-books to related blog posts to educate visitors if they are looking for more on the same topic.

3. If visitors want to leave, let them leave without any resistance

I fought for the idea of eliminating the exit pop-up since we saw neither any noticeable return, nor did it provide any value to the user experience. The management team agreed to put it to test for two months.