In the digital age, building an email list is crucial for bloggers, marketers, and business owners using WordPress. Thrive Leads emerges as a standout solution, designed to streamline and enhance your list-building efforts.
As an all-in-one WordPress plugin for creating and managing opt-in forms, Thrive Leads promises to boost your lead generation with a suite of powerful features and integrations. Whether you’re new to email marketing or looking to elevate your existing strategies, understanding how Thrive Leads stacks up is essential.
Thrive Leads sets itself apart with its comprehensive toolset.
It offers a wide range of opt-in form types, including popups, sticky ribbons, inline forms, and much more, catering to diverse website needs.
Coupled with its drag-and-drop form builder, Thrive Architect, the plugin simplifies the creation of eye-catching opt-in forms. Moreover, its integration with popular email marketing services ensures a seamless flow of leads into your campaigns.
In this comprehensive Thrive Leads review, we’ll dive into its best features, pros, and cons to see if it truly is the best WordPress list building plugin.
In this article:
Thrive Leads Review – best features
Thrive Leads is a comprehensive WordPress plugin for those looking to grow their email list. It stands out as an all-in-one solution, offering a broad array of opt-in forms such as popups, sticky ribbons, and slide-in forms, among others. This plugin not only provides the tools to capture email subscribers but also integrates seamlessly with major email marketing services.
Also, Thrive Leads comes with Thrive Architect, a robust drag-and-drop page builder that makes form creation as simple as a few clicks.
It supports all the major types of lead capture forms including:
- Lightbox popups
- Sticky ribbon bars
- Slide-in forms
- Content lockers
- Inline forms
- Multiple choice forms
- Screen fillers
- Scroll boxes
The plugin focuses heavily on conversion rate optimization. It provides granular targeting options to display forms to your high-value site visitors.
Beyond the basics, Thrive Leads dives deeper with advanced features like A/B testing, SmartLinks, and targeted asset delivery.
Its comprehensive set of features ensure that your opt-in forms are not just visible but also effective in converting visitors into subscribers. Whether you’re a blogger, marketer, or business owner, Thrive Leads aims to be the key to unlocking greater engagement and growth on your WordPress site.
Available as a standalone purchase starting at $99/year for one site, it provides a cost-effective option for individual site owners.
1. List Building Capabilities
Thrive Leads shines when it comes to capturing email leads and subscribers. It offers an impressive 10 different types of opt-in forms to choose from – including lightbox popups, sticky bars, slide in forms, screen fillers, and more. Each form is customizable with different designs, content, and calls-to-action.
One of the standout features for list building is the ability to target forms to show only for specific categories, tags, URLs, referrers, and other advanced rules. This allows you to be highly strategic with who sees opt-in forms.
The plugin also provides triggers like scroll depth, time on site, and exit intent to display forms only to engaged visitors.
With built-in A/B testing, you can experiment with different form types, locations, and design elements to determine what converts best. Detailed analytics provide impression and conversion tracking for each one.
Its drag-and-drop builder, part of the Thrive Architect integration, simplifies form creation, making it accessible to users of all skill levels.
2. Conversion-focused Designs
Design matters when it comes to opt-in forms.
Thrive Leads provides a plethora of pre-made templates that are not only eye-catching but also designed with conversion optimization in mind.
These templates, coupled with the power of Thrive Architect, allow for deep customization, ensuring that your opt-in forms blend seamlessly with your site’s design and appeal directly to your target audience.
3. Advanced Targeting Options
Targeting the right audience with the right message is crucial.
Thrive Leads offers advanced targeting options, allowing you to display specific opt-in forms based on the content your visitors are viewing, their behavior on your site, or even their device type.
This level of precision helps in delivering a personalized experience to your visitors, significantly boosting conversion rates.
4. A/B Testing Functionality
Guesswork doesn’t cut it in the realm of digital marketing.
Thrive Leads’ A/B testing functionality enables you to compare different versions of your opt-in forms to determine what works best.
A/B testing with Thrive Leads is straightforward to set up. Users can choose the different variations they want to test, such as different form layouts, headline text, call-to-action copy, images, and more. Thrive Leads will then split traffic between the different variations, serving each one randomly to visitors.
A/B testing opt-in forms with Thrive Leads provides several key benefits:
- Optimizing conversion rates – Running A/B tests allows you to refine an opt-in form to maximize how many visitors convert to subscribers. Even slight changes to things like button color or image selection can impact conversions.
- Improving copy and content – Test different headlines, subheadings, and body text to see which resonate best with your audience. This helps create more compelling opt-in forms.
- Testing designs – Experiment with different layouts, form types, and visual styles to determine the optimal one for conversions.
- Trying different offers – Test different lead magnets or content upgrades to see which ones entice more visitors to subscribe.
Test different designs, triggers, and content to refine your approach based on solid data, ensuring your list building efforts are as effective as possible.
5. Integrations and Email Marketing
Seamless integration with popular email marketing service providers is another feather in Thrive Leads’ cap. Whether you’re using Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, or any other major email service, Thrive Leads ensures you can easily funnel new subscribers into your existing campaigns.
Thrive Leads supports integrations with all the popular ESPs including:
- AWeber
- Constant Contact
- ConvertKit
- ActiveCampaign
- Campaign Monitor
- Mailchimp
- And 30+ more
The integration happens behind the scenes when a visitor signs up via your opt-in form. Thrive Leads automatically adds the new lead’s email address to the associated list or campaign in your email service provider (ESP) account.
For instance, you can create an eye-catching popup with a compelling offer. When a visitor enters their email and subscribes, they get immediately added to your “Blog Subscribers” list in MailChimp. Thrive Leads essentially acts as the conduit between your website and email marketing system.
This integration extends to webinar services too.
Thrive Leads Opt-in Form Options
Some of the key opt-in form options include:
- ThriveBoxes (Popup Lightboxes) – These are modal popups that slide in with a form for visitors to subscribe. ThriveBoxes capture leads through exit-intent and timed triggers.
- Sticky Ribbons – The ribbon notification bars stick to the edge of the screen even during scrolling. They are less intrusive than popups.
- In-Line Forms – Embed opt-in forms within blog posts and pages to convert engaged readers.
- Two-Step Opt-in Forms – This involves showing a preliminary form to capture just the email, then showing a secondary form for more details.
- Slide-In Forms – As the name suggests, these slide in from screen edges either immediately or based on triggers like time delay or scroll depth.
- Screen Filler Overlays – Fullscreen background overlays that load a subscription form, often when visitors try to exit the page.
- Content Lock Forms – Hide a piece of content behind a popup that only displays after a visitor subscribes.
You can choose from hundreds of pre-made templates or build custom forms from scratch. Advanced targeting and triggers take personalization to the next level.
Targeting and Triggers
With Thrive Leads, you can target forms to show:
- For specific types of content like categories, tags, post IDs, taxonomy terms, archives
- On certain types of pages like the homepage, posts, WooCommerce pages
- For logged in or logged out users
- On desktop or mobile devices
Additionally, forms can be triggered to display based on:
- Scroll depth (% of page scrolled)
- Time on page
- On exit intent (when visitor moves to leave the page)
- Page load
- Clicking a text or image link
This advanced targeting and smart triggers ensure your forms are only shown to relevant visitors who are engaged, increasing the chances that they will convert rather than get annoyed by overly aggressive popups.
Thrive Leads Standout Features
Thrive Leads enables you to laser-focus your list building efforts:
Smart Links
This nifty feature displays different calls-to-action (CTAs) to visitors depending on their subscription status.
For example, you can showcase a lead magnet to non-subscribers enticing them to join your list. For existing subscribers, you display an upsell or promotional offer instead.
Content Locking
Content locking allows you to gate access to your premium content behind an email subscription. Visitors can only access the full content after they enter their email address.
This tactic can tremendously boost opt-in rates, especially for long-form content like ebooks, checklists and guides.
Asset Delivery
Managing delivery of your lead magnets and bonuses can be complicated. Thrive Leads streamlines the process with automatic asset delivery.
When a visitor signs up via your opt-in form, they gain instant access to download your lead magnet from a personalized URL. This automated system saves you tons of time while providing a superior user experience.
Thrive Leads Pricing Plans
Thrive Leads is available via two pricing options:
- Standalone License: $99 per year
- Thrive Suite: $299 per year
The standalone license provides access only to Thrive Leads. The Suite plan unlocks all Thrive Theme conversion plugins including Thrive Architect, Thrive Optimize, Thrive Ovation, Thrive Ultimatum, and more.
Considering the depth of features, a standalone Thrive Leads license provides excellent value-for-money. For bloggers and small business owners, it represents a worthwhile investment for building an email subscriber base.
Agencies and power bloggers who want access to additional conversion tools can opt for the Thrive Suite. It provides a holistic solution for optimizing user experience across the customer journey starting at only $299 per year.
While the initial cost might seem steep to some, the features and potential ROI from increased conversions can justify the investment.
Installing and Setting Up Thrive Leads
The installation process for Thrive Leads is quite straightforward.
As with most premium WordPress plugins, you simply purchase a license key and activate the plugin on your site.
You can then use the form builder to create your opt-in forms.
Upon activation, the plugin provides you templates for common lead capture forms like popups and slide-ins. You can easily customize colors, fonts, sizes and more using an intuitive drag and drop interface. For more advanced custom designs, Thrive Leads integrates seamlessly with Thrive Architect.
The settings section within Thrive Leads deserves special mention. It provides incredibly granular options for targeting your opt-in forms:
- Display forms on certain pages, posts or custom post types
- Target forms by category, tag or taxonomy
- Show forms to logged-in users or guests
- Restrict forms by traffic source or URL parameters
- Set frequency capping rules
Creating effective lead capture campaigns requires experimentation. Thrive Leads supports A/B split testing for all your opt-in forms. You can test different form layouts, button colors, copy and placements to maximize conversions.
Thrive Leads User Interface
Thrive Leads provides an intuitive user interface that makes it easy for even beginners to start creating effective lead generation forms. The dashboard layout contains different sections for managing all aspects.
When you first create a form, you can easily choose from a variety of templates and then customize it using a drag-and-drop editor.
The editor allows you to modify elements like form layout, colors, fonts, content, and images through a visual interface, without coding.
For more advanced users, there is also the ability to add custom CSS and HTML to further tweak the design. But the editor is beginner-friendly enough that you can create great looking forms with just a few clicks.
Some key highlights of the user interface include:
- Clean, uncluttered design that is easy to navigate.
- Dashboard sections for form management, email integration, lead groups, and analytics reports.
- Pre-made form templates to start from.
- Visual drag-and-drop editor for modifying form design and content.
- Options to preview forms on mobile and desktop.
- Easy targeting configuration for displaying forms.
- Settings to customize confirmation messages and redirection after submission.
With its simplicity and intuitive controls, Thrive Leads makes it possible for anyone to create high converting lead generation forms, even with minimal design or technical skills. The user interface is optimized for efficiency, so you can start collecting more leads faster.
Thrive Leads Support Options
- Email Support – Direct email support is available by submitting a ticket through the Thrive Themes support page. Email inquiries typically receive a response within 1 business day, which is pretty fast.
- Documentation – Comprehensive documentation for Thrive Leads is provided, explaining all features and usage in detail. The docs are searchable too.
- Video Tutorials – The Thrive YouTube channel contains dozens of tutorials on creating and customizing opt-in forms, setting up integrations, using targeting options, and more.
- Thrive University – Free and paid online courses are offered on topics like email list building, lead generation, and using Thrive tools.
Thrive Leads Pros and Cons
Pros of Thrive Leads
- Variety of highly customizable opt-in form types and templates.
- Makes it easy to create professional, sleek looking opt-in forms using the Thrive Architect drag-and-drop page builder.
- Advanced targeting options to precisely control which website visitors see opt-in forms. Can target by URL, post/page, categories, user status, and more.
- Allows A/B split testing of opt-in forms to optimize conversion rates.
- Integrates easily with all major email marketing platforms.
- Built-in analytics for tracking opt-in form metrics and conversion rates.
- SmartLinks feature to avoid showing opt-in forms to existing subscribers.
- Automatic asset delivery for offering lead magnets and downloads.
Cons of Thrive Leads
- Can take some time to learn how to fully utilize all options.
- Targeting options, while advanced, still lack certain rules available in some competing plugins like OptinMonster or ConvertPro.
- No native scheduling functionality for date/time-based opt-in form displays.
- As a WordPress plugin, site performance is impacted.
Thrive Leads Review Conclusion
Thrive Leads stands out as a powerful, feature-rich WordPress plugin for users looking to boost their email list growth and conversion rates. Its diverse opt-in forms, ease of use, integrations, and robust testing and targeting features make it a strong contender for the best WordPress list building plugin.
While it’s important to consider the pricing and explore alternatives like Convert Pro and OptinMonster, Thrive Leads still offers a compelling package.
Whether Thrive Leads is the best fit for you depends on your specific needs, budget, and how you plan to engage your audience. Given its comprehensive features and benefits, it’s certainly worth considering for any WordPress site owner serious about email marketing and conversion rate optimization.
So, is Thrive Leads the best WordPress list building plugin? In my experience, it ticks all the boxes for a high-quality email opt-in solution:
- Gorgeous templates and customizable forms
- Robust targeting and split testing
- Seamless integrations and automation
- Great value at an affordable price point
So, if you’re looking for an all-in-one list building solution for your WordPress site, Thrive Leads is clearly a plugin worth investing in. Sign up for a free trial today to experience its features firsthand.
If you have the budget, Thrive Leads is a recommendable option.
Is Thrive Leads the best list building plugin? Yes, it ticks all the boxes for a high-quality email opt-in solution.
