Animated forms: a vending machine for new contacts

An animated form is a form for collecting contacts that slides in or pops up on your website by itself, instead of waiting for someone to notice it. Our measurements at several Quanda customers show that it collects up to two and a half times more contacts than a form in a fixed place. A typical pop-up form turns two to five people out of every hundred who see it into a contact. Below you will find out why animation works, when to show the form so that it does not annoy, what Google says about pop-ups and how to set up an animated form in Quanda without any coding.

Key takeaways

1. According to our measurements at several Quanda customers, an animated form collects up to two and a half times more contacts than a form in a fixed place.
2. The average conversion of pop-up forms is 2.1 % (Omnisend, 2025) to 4.82 % (Wisepops, 2026). In B2B around 2 %.
3. Forms that appear after a few seconds or after scrolling work best, not those shown right after the page loads.
4. Up to three fields, conversion hardly changes. From four fields on, it drops significantly.
5. On mobile, Google penalizes windows that cover the content. A bar or a small window with a close button is fine.
6. In Quanda you create and deploy an animated form without coding, you just insert two short codes.

In short: what it is, when to use it, what it brings and what to watch out for

• What it is: a form that appears on the page by itself as a pop-up window, a sliding bar or a sliding window.
• When to use it: anywhere you want to reach people who came to your website for something else. Typically for newsletter subscriptions and lead magnets.
• What it brings: more new contacts from the same traffic than a form in a fixed place.
• What to watch out for: a pre-ticked consent box, a website without https and a used up contact limit, which switches the forms off.

What has changed since the article was published: The article was first published in 2021. We have added current data on the conversion of pop-up forms for 2025 and 2026, comparisons by timing and number of fields, Google's rules for the mobile web, accessibility and GDPR consent principles, and a step by step setup procedure in Quanda. We have replaced the original estimate of "20 to 250 % more contacts" with the finding from our own measurements at several Quanda customers that animated forms collect up to two and a half times more contacts than forms in a fixed place.

What is an animated form

An animated form is a form for collecting contacts that appears on a web page by itself at the moment you choose. It pops up in the middle of the screen or slides in from the side, the top or the bottom. It is also called a pop-up form or a popup.

An active form is a Quanda tool in which you build a form, design it so that it blends in with your website, and insert it into your pages. When someone fills it in, a new contact is created in Quanda. An active form can be fixed or animated.

A fixed form is part of the page, for example in the footer, in the right column or below an article, and it waits for the visitor to notice it. An animated form goes out to meet the visitor.

You can place the form on your website without having to code anything or set up anything complicated. And you can do it yourself.

Why animated forms work

The principle of their effectiveness lies in active movement on the page. When the form slides in or pops up on the page without the visitor doing anything, it draws attention very strongly. And once the visitor notices the form, we have a chance to catch their interest with an attractive headline and the rest of the form's content and get them to sign up.

Lots of people come to a website and don't buy, send an enquiry or call straight away. According to the global Dynamic Yield Conversion Rate Benchmarks for the 12 months to August 2026, only 2.71 % of e-shop visits end with a purchase. The analytics service Littledata measured an average of 1.4 % in a sample of 2,800 Shopify stores for 2023. The remaining 97 or so people out of a hundred leave. Many of them would be happy to stay in touch with you, they just need a simple opportunity. That is exactly what a form gives them.

A real life example: The travel agency Delfín travel had a simple sliding form on its website with the headline "Get news about our tours and holidays" and a single email field. On its best days it collected up to 130 contacts a day, and over roughly five years of operation more than 50,000 email addresses. It is an extreme case, the travel agency has high traffic. But it shows what a simple form shown at the right moment can do.

What the data say: conversion of pop-up forms

The conversion of a pop-up form is the share of people who fill in the form after it is shown. It is calculated as the number of emails collected divided by the number of form views.

The most extensive public data are published by two tools for pop-ups and emailing, Wisepops and Omnisend. Both measure only forms for collecting emails and both are based on more than a billion views.

Source: Wisepops, Popup statistics 2026; Omnisend, Email popup statistics (updated February 2026); Sumo, Pop-up statistics (updated April 2019).

Both figures are averages across websites of all kinds of industries and sizes. To estimate your own numbers, the industry matters more:

So in B2B, count on roughly two contacts per hundred views. If 2,000 people a month see the form on your website, that is around 40 new contacts a month from the same traffic you are already paying for.

The data also show what increases conversion. According to Wisepops, forms with an image have a conversion of 5.71 % against 3.98 % without an image, and multi step forms 5.17 % against 4.62 % for single step ones. According to Omnisend, offering a discount raises conversion from 1.7 to 2.4 %.

Be careful when comparing with a fixed form: We have not found public data that would reliably compare pop-up and fixed forms. The "pop-ups have X times higher conversion" figures circulating on the internet come from unsubstantiated roundups. The two and a half times figure above comes from our own measurements at several Quanda customers, not from a public study.

When should the form pop up

The moment of display decides whether the form catches the visitor's interest or annoys them. A form that pops up over the whole article in the first second of the visit puts most people off before they even have time to read the headline.

Omnisend sees the optimum between 6 and 10 seconds, Wisepops between 11 and 15 seconds (6.45 %). They agree that a form shown right after the page loads works worse than a form that lets the visitor read for a while. According to Omnisend, however, waiting long does not help either, after 16 seconds or more conversion drops to 1.8 to 1.9 %. Nielsen Norman Group, which specializes in web usability, recommends in its article Popups: 10 Problematic Trends and Alternatives from 2019 not showing a pop-up before the person has got some value from the website.

The comparison by device is interesting too. Wisepops measured a conversion of 4.98 % on mobile against 3.67 % on desktop, Omnisend 2.2 % for mobile only forms against 1.4 % for desktop only forms. Mobile is worth it, the form just has to be gentle there.

How many fields should the form have

With up to three fields, the number of sign-ups hardly changes. From the fourth field on, it drops sharply. In the vast majority of cases, one field is enough, and that is the email address.

The difference between one and three fields is small, from the fourth field on, conversion falls. Wisepops, on the other hand, measured the best results with three fields. A sensible compromise is the email and at most a name. You can get further details, such as industry or company size, later. Many Quanda customers add a link to a short questionnaire to the thank you email. Not everyone fills it in, but those who do tell you more than any mandatory field.

Three things that decide the number of contacts

How many contacts a form collects depends on three things.

1. The page and its traffic. When a thousand people a week visit a page, the form has a different potential than when five do. People also don't come only through the home page, so forms belong on your most read articles and product pages too.
2. What you offer in exchange for the contact. The form should complement and extend the page. Below an article about email subject lines, a handbook with sample subject lines works, on a page with tours, news about tours. How to build such an offer is described in the article Lead magnets in B2B marketing.
3. The form itself. Simple, nicely designed, with an attractive headline. It must be clear who I am giving my email to and what happens when I click the button.

Tip: Put a form with an offer related to the page on every important page, and give each one its own tag. In Completed forms you will then see which place on your website brings in the most contacts.

Animated forms and Google

Intrusive pop-ups are page elements that cover the content, usually for promotional purposes. Google writes in its search documentation that they can lead to worse search results. The rule has applied to mobile pages since January 2017 and the documentation is still current in 2026.

Source: Google Search Central, Avoid intrusive interstitials and dialogs (updated December 2025); Google announcement from August 2016.

Google explicitly mentions newsletter sign-ups as an appropriate use of a small banner. On mobile, therefore, choose a sliding bar or a sliding window that does not cover the content. Keep the large pop-up window for desktop and show it only after scrolling.

Accessibility and GDPR

A form that pops up must be closable by everyone. The WCAG 2.2 accessibility guidelines require that a person using the website with a keyboard can get out of the window and that the window does not cover the element their focus is on. Controls, including the close button, should be at least 24 × 24 pixels. In addition, since 28 June 2025 the European Accessibility Act has applied in the EU, which covers, among other things, e-shops. That is why you should always turn on the close button for an animated form.

Warning: The visitor must tick the consent box themselves. Under GDPR, a pre-ticked box does not constitute consent, as the Court of Justice of the EU also confirmed in the Planet49 judgment of October 2019. Put the full wording of the consent on your website and link to it from the form. This article is not legal advice.

Downloading an e-book does not in itself entitle you to further marketing communication. If you also want to send people a newsletter, offer a separate consent box in the form. Double opt-in verifies that the address belongs to the person who filled in the form. What consent must contain is described in the article Marketing vs. GDPR.

How to create an animated form in Quanda

You can create an active form with animation in Quanda in about half an hour. Quanda guides you through the pages for settings, content, design, animation, automations and inserting the code. Every Custom package from the Standard package up includes forms with animation.

1. In the top menu, open Active forms and choose Create new form. Name the form and choose what happens after it is submitted.
2. On the content page, keep the email address field, add only the details you will really use, and an unticked consent box.
3. On the Design page, set the colours, font and rounded corners to match your website, so the form looks like part of it.
4. On the Animation page, allow the animation with the slider and choose a pop-up window, a sliding bar or a sliding window and its place on the screen.
5. Set the moment of display: after the page loads, with a time delay or after scrolling to a specific point. In the advanced settings, turn on the close button.
6. In the automations, add a tag to the contacts, and optionally a thank you email and a notification for yourself or a colleague.
7. On the Insert code page, copy the activation code into the header of your website and the display code to the place where the form should appear. Then fill in the form yourself and check that the contact has arrived.

If the preset animation does not suit you, you can adjust the offset, the type of animation and its speed. In the advanced settings you will also find automatic closing after inactivity and dimming of the background. If the form should pop up after scrolling, insert the display code exactly at that place in the page's source code.

Warning: The form only works on a website with the secure https protocol. Also keep an eye on the contact limit of your plan. When it runs out of room, Quanda switches off all active forms on your website.

You will find the procedure with pictures in the guides How to create and set up an active form, Form animation and Inserting the form code. What the automations can do after a form is filled in is described in the guide Automation in a form.

How to set up the animation so that it does not annoy

Animation is a powerful tool and, like any powerful tool, it can be overdone. Before you launch the form, go through this list.

Animated form checklist

• The form does not appear until after a few seconds or after scrolling.
• The close button is clearly visible.
• On mobile, a sliding bar or a small sliding window is selected.
• The headline says what the person gets in exchange for their email.
• The form contains only the email, and possibly a name.
• The consent box is not pre-ticked.
• The ban on repeated submissions is turned on, so the form no longer appears to anyone who has already filled it in.
• The form has its own tag and a thank you email.
• After two weeks, you look at Completed forms and adjust the display time or the type of animation based on the results.

Setting it up is not a one off decision. Try one variant, measure it and then try another. Zero sign-ups after changes to your website are often the first sign that the display code has gone missing.

In conclusion: build yourself a vending machine for contacts

An animated form is one of the cheapest ways to get more contacts from traffic you are already paying for. Just give it a good offer, show it at the right moment and let it do its work.

The online course Collecting contacts: forms and lead magnets will guide you all the way from your first form to a lead magnet. If you are not sure what to do, write to us at support@onquanda.com or call us on +420 605 163 892. We can also go through your form settings together in a free consultation.

Fingers crossed for you
Jan Spáčil