5 Essentials to a High-Converting Email Opt-In For Fashion Ecommerce (Plus 24 Examples)

40% of all luxury purchases are influenced by the customers’ digital experience. This means that a luxury brand’s website, digital marketing, and CRM are key to making the sale happen whether it is online or offline.

If you work in a luxury or fashion brand, you know that making potential customers interested in your brand, and getting your existing customers to come back to buy more is critical to your ecommerce sales, and collecting email addresses is the easiest way to do that.

In this article, you’ll learn the essentials of a high-converting email opt-in form.

We’ve also reviewed the email forms of 24 of some of the world’s leading fashion brands to provide real-life examples on how to apply the principles taught below.

Take out your notebook, and let’s dive-in.

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The 5 essentials for better converting email capture forms

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1. Lead with value

The single biggest mistake I see when it comes to email sign up forms is what I call the lack of the “what’s in it for me” factor. You see, people already get tons of emails in a day, and the last thing they want is another marketing email clogging up their inboxes.

This means that if your email sign up form says something like “sign up for email updates”, “get our emails”, “sign up to our newsletter”, you’re losing on an opportunity to increase conversions.

Think about this – who wants to get more email updates? More newsletters? What’s interesting in that? Why should anyone care about your emails? A high-converting email signup form communicates value, it makes the benefit of signing up clear to the website visitor.

For example, offering a discount or free shipping on the first order to people who sign up is value, and a valid incentive to get people to sign up. On that note, know that you probably want to avoid discounts if you’re a luxury brand, in order to keep people’s attention away from the price, as in the case of luxury, price is secondary.

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Canada Goose’s email opt-in form is a great example of a form that offers a benefit (“get exclusive access to products, experiences and more”), without offering a discount.

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A great idea to play with for a luxury brand is the notion of exclusivity. People often buy luxury because it is more exclusive, and provides them with something most people don’t have, so using this concept with your email signup forms is a tried and tested approach. Here are a few examples of headlines you could use for your forms that uses the notion of exclusivity:

• Sign up to get access to exclusive events, private sales and the latest collections
• Be the first to get access to new collections, and insider exclusives
• Become an insider and be the first to know about new collections and events

You’ll find many more examples in my reviews of multiple brands’ forms further below.

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2. Have a clear call to action

On an email sign up form, the call to action is generally the sign up button. It’s also one of the most overlooked elements of such form, because at the end of the day, it’s just a button, right?

Wrong. Buttons can make a huge difference, and I’m not talking whether a green button performs better than a red button, that’s not even something worth spending time thinking about.

What really matters is the button’s text. You need that button to get clicked, and what’s written on that button can make a huge impact on conversions.

You’ll see in the brands’ examples below that a lot of email sign up buttons have text such as “submit”, “sign up”, “subscribe”.

Even if on the surface that text seems to make sense, it does not communicate the value that visitors will get from signing up, what’s going to happen next, or simply make this a button enticing to click.

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Vince has one of the best email opt-in forms around. The button text clearly indicates what you’re going to get once you sign up and click on that button. Let’s not forget that their headline leads with a benefit, there’s a clear call to action pointing out what to do (“Enter your email address below”), there is a minimum number of fields, and there’s a “I’m not interested button”, which has shown to frequently increase conversions as forces the visitor to make a conscious decision – to get 10% off, or not to get 10% off.

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Sumo tested button text to see if it would make a big difference in conversions, and a small change increased their email signups by 182%

“Getting your buttons noticed (and making sure your visitors know you want them to press them) is important, but the biggest difference to your conversion rate will be the words you use.

Change Your Button Copy.

One of the biggest game changers on your conversion rate for your call to action button is your button copy. In fact, we did an A/B test and found that just by changing the button copy on one of our Welcome Mats, we increased conversions by 182%.

We didn’t change a single thing except the copy, and we collected 182% more emails just by testing that one small change.”

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Below, for each brand we’ve reviewed, you’ll learn what we recommend for each.

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3. Display the form at the right time, in the right area

On most websites, such as on the ones we’ve reviewed below, an email signup form is displayed in the footer of the website. That’s OK, but the conversion rate for those forms are low as few people actually pay attention to the footer.

This is why some brands will opt to display “popups”, or modal windows, that appears at some point in a visitor’s session on top of the webpage they’re browsing.

As long these pop ups only appear once in a visitor’s session, and as long as the brand does not abuse these by displaying a whole array of interruptive pop ups during a session, this is a great way of collecting more email addresses to build your CRM, and the email conversion rate is usually higher than subtle footer forms.

That, however, is only true if the popup form is displayed logically. Let me explain:

If I land on your brand’s website, and instantly, before I even start looking at your products, a popup appears asking me to sign up, it’s a fail.

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Imagine walking in the street and randomly asking someone for their phone number before even engaging in a conversation with them, it wouldn’t make sense, right?

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It’s the same thing when it comes to email sign up forms on your website. People won’t just sign up with their email because you ask them, first you need to engage with them. This means that you should let the visitor browse your website first, get familiar with your brand, and THEN, you can show that form.

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Rebecca Minkoff’s email opt-in form is non-intrusive, yet perfectly visible, ensuring people don’t miss it. It appears in the lower left corner of the page as you scroll down.

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One of my favorite ways of displaying an email signup popup is on exit-intent. In other words, the popup would not display during the visitor’s session until they’re about to leave the website. This way, you’re not interrupting their experience, and only asking for their email when they’re about to leave.

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4. Keep it simple

When launching an email sign up form, one must keep in mind the goal of such a form: to capture email addresses so you have a way to reconnect with the person who signed up, with the hopes of eventually converting them into a customer.

To do this, you technically only need to ask for one piece of information: the email address.

To personalize the emails, we do recommend that you also ask for the customer’s first name, and if you have both men’s and women’s collections, asking the person signing up which collection they’re interested in can make a big difference down the line when they’re receiving emails.

E.g. If I’m a woman and only get emails about the men’s collection, the emails won’t be too relevant to me and I’ll be unlikely to buy.

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This is a total of about 3 fields:

• First Name
• Email
• Checkbox for men or women

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What to avoid is asking for more than that. For example, I’ve frequently seen brands ask for last name, postal code, phone number and much more.

I understand brands wanting to capture as much information as possible, but keep in mind that before you can ask for so much information without hurting your conversion rate, your visitors will need to build a relationship with your brand. They’ll need to trust you. And what’s the goal of capturing email addresses? To build a relationship!

Asking for too much information would simply be counter-productive to the very reason why you’re capturing email addresses. Plus, filling out all those unnecessary fields means that you’re asking the visitor to do more work. If the form feels like work to fill out, forget about it.

And at the end of the day, if you’re asking people to sign up to get email updates, why would you need their phone number? These can all be cause for concerns for visitors, so only ask for the information that you really need.

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5. Test, test, test

At the end of the day, not interrupting a visitor’s visit by displaying the email popups at the proper time and place, having a great value-driven headline to entice people to sign up, having a clear call to action button, and so on, are great best practices.

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Create an offer that people can’t refuse, make sure your presentation stands out, and serve up the offer at the right time and in the right location. – BigCommerce

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What exactly should your email form’s headline say? How should it look? Where is the best place to display it? There’s no one-size fits all answer to this.

Best practices, and the recommendations I’ve listed for each brand below are great starting points, but A/B testing, and at the very minimum, following a conversion optimization process, is truly the only way to see what works best when it comes to increasing your email sign up conversions so don’t forget to test.

And remember that if you hire a digital marketing agency to do this for you, they don’t have a crystal ball either. They may be familiar with best practices, but they, without exception, should measure the performance and constantly A/B test your email forms.

Now, let’s dive into some real-world examples of how 24 brands can improve their forms for higher conversions:

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How Versace Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• Versace makes signing up to their newsletter quite appealing. They’re clearly outlining the benefit of signing up (“…to be the first to shop and pre-order from our brand new collections”).
• The email field has a call to action clearly indicating people what to do (“Please enter your email”)
• The form does not appear as soon as you arrive on the website. It’s a popup/modal window, which makes it impossible not to see, but it only appears after the visitor has been browsing the website for a while. This is great, because it lets the visitor browse without interruption.

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What could be improved:

• The copy of the paragraph could be improved by leading with the benefit. At the moment, “Sign up for our newsletter” are the first words, which makes it instantly unappealing. Who wants to sign up to a newsletter these days? Instead, I’d recommend flipping the copy like this: “Be the first to shop and pre-order from our brand new collections by signing up to our newsletter”. That way, we’re leading with the benefit.
  I would also consider dropping the word “newsletter” altogether.
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How Tod’s Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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• The only way for people to subscribe to the newsletter is by navigating to the newsletter sign up page. There’s no form on any of the main pages. Simply because of that, I can’t see too many people signing up, because in addition to not communicating the benefits of signing up, the only way to access the newsletter sign up page is by clicking on the minuscule “Newsletter” line of text at the very top right of the website, or by clicking on Subscribe Now in the footer.
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• This form asks for way too much information, and just by glancing at it, it seems like filling it out will be a chore. Out of all these fields, the Title, Confirm Your Email, State, and City fields should be removed.
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• I’m no lawyer, but the way this privacy policy is displayed is overwhelming. This will scare people away. Privacy policies are a must, but I’ve rarely seen them fully displayed on a newsletter sign up form like so, which means there must be other legal ways to make it look less aggressive.
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• Again, I’m no lawyer, but these two checkboxes seem redundant and could likely be combined into one.

• The button could be improved by simply removing the word “Send”. Think about this, this page asks for a lot of information for a newsletter page, then displays a whole legal document on the same page, and then asks you to “send” it. It gives the feeling that you’re sending an application form or some sort of document to be processed. This is too much for a newsletter. Instead, simply using the word “Subscribe” would fix it; or, writing “Subscribe to the Newsletter” would make it even more clear.

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How Thom Browne Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What’s good about this form:

• There’s a huge opportunity to improve here, but I like that they’re asking for Male/Female, which will help personalize the emails for customers once they start receiving the emails
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What could be improved:

• “Sign up for our newsletter” is not enticing. Most people don’t want to sign up for a newsletter, so instead, I recommend that they replace this with copy that communicates a benefit in exchange for signing up.
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• The “sign up” button is a minuscule arrow within the email field. This is something to change as soon as possible and avoid at all costs. First, I’m sure most people don’t even see this, which means some people who entered their email address likely didn’t end up signing up.Second, the arrow points to “Follow Us”, which makes it seem like that could be the button. In addition to that, the Follow Us text is so close in proximity to the form, that it actually ends up looking like the button for that form.
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• And to add to the confusion “Follow Us” is a line of text that would actually make sense for a newsletter sign up button. After all, if you’re signing up to the newsletter, you’re signing up to follow them through emails. If we were to watch session recordings of website visitors using this form, I’m sure we’d see people try to click on “Follow Us” all the time.

How Theory Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• This form hit many right notes. First, from what I’ve been able to see (but note that I’m unable to confirm), this form appears on exit-intent. This means that I’m not being shown the form prematurely, and it’s not appearing randomly while I’m browsing, but only when I’m about to leave the website or hit the back button in my browser.
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• There’s a clear benefit to signing up: In exchange for your email, you’ll receive 15% off your first purchase.
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• The “No thanks” button is a brilliant psychological trick. When you don’t have such a button, the visitor can either accept the offer and enter their email address, or simply ignore the form and close it by clicking on the sides. Not signing up becomes an option that is subconscious, something that people don’t really think about.

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Therefore, when you add a button such as “No thanks”, or “No, I don’t want 15% off”, you are actively asking people to make a decision to either say Yes, or say No about the offer, and they have to actually think about it.

Joanna Wiebe from Copyhackers explains why you would likely want two buttons:

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“When a visitor is presented with an opt-in form, it’s so often the case that said opt-in form has just one button, and that button is there to be clicked if you choose to opt in. If you choose not to opt in, you do not have to click a button to state your preference; you simply X out, click out or otherwise ignore the opt-in button. Most of our opt-ins are active and opt-outs are passive.

That’s the problem.

With passive or undeclared opt-outs, your visitors never have to actively state that they do not want your offer”

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What could be improved:

• The main benefit of signing up here is 15% off your first order. That’s great, and that’s how people are incentivized to take action. I like that it’s in bold so it’s visible, but I’d test swapping “Stay in the Know” for “Get 15% Off Your First Order”. This way, the benefit would be the first thing a visitor would read, and it would be more enticing on a glance than simply “Stay in the know”. Making the benefit visible first will most likely get people to pay more attention to the form; thus potentially increasing sign up conversions.
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• Again, the “Submit” button could be improved by changing the copy. I’d replace it so it is indicative of what’s going to happen next, or so that it communicates the benefit of signing up once again. I’d recommend changing the text to something like “Sign Up”, “Sign Up & Get 15%”, “Claim Your Coupon”.

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How Sandro Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• Imagery is relevant, catches attention.
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• Segmentation of the men and women’s collections for personalization.
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• There is some benefit communicated in the paragraph that can be an incentive for signing up: “stay up-to-date with new collections, events and exclusive offers”.

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What could be improved:

• The headline needs work. No one wants to sign up to a newsletter, we all get too many emails, and at the end of the day, what’s in it for me? To improve it, based on what’s written in the paragraph below the headline, I’d go with something along the lines of “Become a Sandro Insider” or “Sign up for Sandro Exclusives”.
  
  That way, we’re clearly communicating that by signing up, they will get a benefit that people who don’t sign up won’t get. It’s much more powerful than asking them to sign up for emails.
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• Most headlines and subheadlines are written in reverse. Read the subheadline / paragraph text in the newsletter window, what does it start with? “Subscribe to our newsletter and…”. Is that interesting? No. Does it catch my attention? No. It’s quite boring. But what do people really care about? The second part of the paragraph where it talks about the outcome of signing up “stay up to date with new collections, events, etc…”.
  
  In other words, the fix here is quite simple, it simply requires swapping those two parts in the paragraph. To capture people’s attention, start with the benefit. The paragraph, fixed, should look like this: “Stay up-to-date with new collections, events and exclusive offers by signing up to our newsletter”.

• The email label is shown twice. Once above the field, and once in the field. This may be a detail but I’d try renaming the label above the field to “Enter your email”, so it becomes a call to action.
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• The buttons lack context. If I glance at the form quickly, it’s hard to tell if those are related to the form, or if they’re just options for me to pick so I’m directed to the right section of the website.
  
  It would be good to test replacing these buttons by either checkboxes, or by converting them as selectors (they would be clickable for people to select if they’re interested in the Men or Women’s collection, but to complete the sign up they would have to click on a clear “Sign Up” button that could be added). Again, this is something that I would test, and not just change right away.
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• This email popup appears too quickly. In fact, it appears as soon as you land on the website. People need time to browse, familiarize themselves with the brand, find items they like, and develop a relationship with the brand, so to speak, before they give their email addresses. Don’t ask for marriage on the first date! Only display this window on exit-intent, or after the visitor had time to browse the website.

How Rebecca Minkoff Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• Hats off to the Rebecca Minkoff team, because this is a nearly perfect form. Let’s start with the headline: the benefit of signing up is big, bold, and instantly noticeable. If you want to get 15% off today, you know what to do.
  
  Note that I’m not always a big fan of giving a discount in exchange for email signups for luxury brands, as it can place too much focus on the price of the items, when in luxury, the focus should be on the emotional value of the items instead. Rebecca Minkoff leans more towards being a premium brand than a luxury brand, and will attract slightly more price-conscious customers than say, Gucci. So in this case, it works, and they’re doing a good job.
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• The subheadline is also super clear and straight to the point. The best part? It gives you even more reasons to sign up: “Get the latest news, and save on your first order.”
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• The text within the email field is a call to action. It directs people to enter their email address. Excellent.
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• It has a “No Thanks” button, which, as I’ve explained in my review of Theory above, is a great psychological trick to make people consciously make a decision (to sign up, or not to sign up). Without this button, it’s easier for people to simply ignore the form and close it without even really having to make a decision.

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What could be improved:

• My only suggestion is to make the sign up button more directive. As it is right now, it’s just an envelope in a black rectangle. It doesn’t look like a button, and it’s not enticing me to click on it. I would test replacing the icon with actual text such as “Sign Up”, “Send me my 15% code”, “Save 15%”, “Sign Me Up”, or something else along those lines.

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How Prada Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• This form from Prada is visible sitewide in the website’s footer. That’s ok, but it’s easy to miss. There is also no value proposition, and as you’ve learned by now, “Receive our Newsletter” is not an attractive reason to get people to sign up. It’s a missed opportunity, because luxury brands can easily play on exclusivity. That’s often what customers want when buying luxury goods. So why not incentivize people to sign up for a little bit of exclusivity instead?
  
  For example, being the first to know about the latest collections, being the first to be able to shop the new products, get access to subscriber-only products or get exclusive event invites, could be very attractive reasons to sign up, and it would be quite simple for the brand to set up.
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• Minimalism is on trend when it comes to web design, but we can’t neglect usability at the same time. This sign up button is unfortunately, not user friendly, and it also fails on a conversion standpoint.
  
  First, it’s too small. It’s easy to miss, doesn’t look like a button and can be hard to click. Second, it doesn’t direct an action. Great call to action buttons have text that incites the visitor to complete the action (e.g. “Sign Up”). Here we’ve got nothing.
  
  My recommendation, replace that arrow by a real rectangular button with the words Sign Up written on it. It will already be a massive improvement.
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How Mulberry Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What could be improved:

• “Sign up For Updates” is a generic way to ask people to sign up. Who wants updates? What are those updates? New collections? Random news? This has to be more precise, and has to communicate value for the visitor. This won’t cut it.
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• The sign up button is a button, which is better than a simple arrow, but the text on it is not ideal. “Go”? Go for what? What’s going to happen next, am I going to receive an update? Simply renaming this button “sign up” would make more sense contextually and may improve the conversion rate.

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How Max Mara Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• This form is quite confusing. The headline says “Follow Us”, then you’ve got an email field, and right underneath it, as if they’re related, you’ve got social media icons. This is what we call a visual hierarchy problem – it’s hard to distinguish which elements go together.
  
  In this case, the email field and the Privacy Policy checkbox are together. Still, because there is no spacing underneath the privacy policy checkbox, visually, it’s like it’s lumped-in with the social media icons.
  
  My hypothesis is that because of that, a lot of people probably enter their email address and click join without ever checking the box which is required. This then causes friction, and likely lowers conversions.
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• What I see as the biggest problem with this form is actually the “Follow Us” headline and the “Join” button. Contextually, it makes no sense.
  
  For example, if you think about it, there is zero explanation about what entering my email address in this field will do. The visitor is left to guess by themselves that it’s going to sign them up to a newsletter. Then, when it comes to the “Join” button, what does it mean? What is the visitor joining? This creates confusion, and nowhere does it talk about the benefit of signing up.

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How Marc Jacobs Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• They offer a great incentive in order to convince people to sign up (“10% off, hear about new arrivals, exclusives, etc). That’s quite compelling to customers who are interested in following the brand.
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• It only asks for the minimum. Email, zip code, and checking a box for legal purposes. Compared to the brands whose forms have 6 fields, this is great.

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What can be improved:

• I’m not 100% sold on the “Let’s Be Friends” headline. Although this is something to test, I’d try something that communicates some of the benefits of signing up, or at least, something slightly more genuine.
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• I’m picky when it comes to the text of a call to action button, and this one is no exception. One can do better than “Submit”, which really means nothing. What are you submitting? I’d replace it with text along the lines of “Sign Up”, “Get Benefits”, or “Join Now”.

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How Mansur Gavriel Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• Short and to the point. No unnecessary fields, it looks good, and the Sign Up button is clear.
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What could be improved:

• The “Sign Up” text at the top of the window is unnecessarily small. If you’re going to have text there, such as a headline, make it bold and valuable. Something like “Become a Mansur Gavriel Insider” would already be a big improvement.
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• If the headline becomes what I suggested, I would also consider re-naming the call to action button “Become an Insider”, to tie-in the context.
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How Maison Margiela Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• The headline “Subscribe to our Newsletter”, again, doesn’t cut it. Few people want to subscribe to a newsletter – it must communicate value, and should incentivize people to sign up for something exclusive to them for doing so.
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• I like the text “As a privileged member, receive tailor-made attentions responding to your personal profile”. It hints that by subscribing, you will benefit, in some sort of privileged way. That’s great! The problem with this is that it’s located right above a chunk of legal text, which makes it easy to ignore.
  
  I’d recommend moving it below the “Subscribe to our newsletter” headline as it would be instantly visible, and outline the benefits before the form fields, where people must make a decision to sign up.
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• This is a long form, in fact, it’s longer than the size of most screens. This means that the “Submit” call to action is hidden below the fold, and once the form fields are filled up, one must scroll to actually sign up to the newsletter. This is friction that we do not want..
  
  To avoid this, I’d recommend finding a way to make the form shorter so the sign up button is always visible.
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• This popup appears as soon as someone lands on the website, leaving no time for the visitor to get acquainted with the brand and its products before asking for their email address.
  
  This is something to avoid, we recommend displaying the form only on exit- intent, or around the average session time (for example, if in Google Analytics you see most visitors spend 2 minutes on your website, it may be a good idea to set up your email popup to appear between 1:30 seconds and 1:50).

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How Louis Vuitton Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• The headline “Receive Louis Vuitton Digital Communications” should be changed. It sounds quite corporate, and again, communicates no benefit in exchange for signing up.
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• The “Subscribe to the newsletter” sub-headline is unnecessary. It doesn’t add anything to the user experience, or to the value of signing up.
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• There are too many form fields. I get that the CRM team may want to collect as much information as possible, but the conversion rate will suffer. There’s virtually no need to ask for a person’s title and last name for a newsletter sign up, so I would recommend removing those in exchange for a possibly higher sign up conversion rate.
  
  The email confirmation field is also unnecessary. The percentage of people who usually have a typo in their email address is quite small. Having this field, which makes the form longer, and makes it more intimidating to fill out, will very likely reduce the potential amount of signing ups the brand could get.
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• The “Proceed” call to action button could be improved. Think about this, “Proceed” to what? It almost sounds like there’s an additional step after this form. Changing the button to “Sign Up”, “Become a Louis Vuitton Insider”, or something similar, would likely improve the performance of this button.

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How Longchamp Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• “Subscribe to Longchamp Newsletter” is not a great incentive to get people to sign up. It needs to convey a benefit, as no one wants to subscribe to newsletters anymore.
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• “News, in-store events and special offers” is already better than the headline. It at least conveys value, and tells you what you’ll get other than newsletters. That being said, “News” is rarely an appealing offer, so I wouldn’t put it first, but rather in-between in-store events and special offers, as typically, elements in the middle get less attention than the first and last words (this is called the serial-position effect).
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• I’d also improve the clarity of the subheadline to make it more clear that these are things the subscriber will get when signing up. The result? The subheadline would look something like this: “Be the first to know about in-store events, news, and special offers”, or even better, “Get privileged access to in-store events, news and exclusive special offers”.
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• The button “OK” does not communicate any type of action. “OK” what? I’d change the text to “Sign Up”.
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How Loewe Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What could be improved:

• Let’s start with the location of the email form. It’s never visible on the pages themselves nor does it popup anywhere. The only way to access it is by clicking on a barely visible “Subscribe” link in a list of links in the website’s header.
  
  This is a mistake, because first, it’s nearly impossible to find. To see it, you really need to be engaged with the website and want to click on that subscribe link. The visitor is never given a reason to click there, and a simple “Subscribe” link is not the most enticing element to click on.
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• When the “Subscribe” link is clicked and the form appears, it never tells you what you are subscribing to. This is worse than a headline asking you to sign up to a newsletter, because here, it’s just asking for your info and you have no idea what to expect, and you aren’t given any reason to sign up.
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• Right below the “Subscribe” text on the form, it says “Title”, yet, the checkboxes below asks for your gender, and not your title. It simply does not make any sense.
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How Kenzo Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• Congrats Kenzo! This is a pretty good form. The subheadline is, honestly, what makes it better than most other examples listed on this page.
  
  They very clearly point out that by signing up, you are getting something exclusive, something that not everyone has access to. Of course, anyone can get the same by signing up, but it communicates a feeling of exclusivity that is ever so important in the luxury industry.
  
  Let’s break it down: “Get the inside scoop before everyone else” – I love this part because right away, it communicates an incentive for signing up.
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• Then, “the latest trends, shows, and exclusive offers” dives into the actual perks, which is so much better than simply “getting the latest news” that so many brands write on their forms.
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• Finally, “…reserved for our community” is a key line in this small paragraph. It outlines that not everyone gets this, only people part of the “Kenzo tribe”, so to speak; people who join, will get access to this. This paragraph is really about creating motivation for the visitor to sign up, and that’s how every sign up form should be!
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• This form also only asks for the essentials: the email address. No lengthy form that feels like you’re signing up for a credit card. Well done.

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What could be improved:

• The subheadline is fantastic, but to get people to read it you’ll need to capture their attention using the headline first. Unfortunately, “Subscribe To Our Newsletter” is unlikely to motivate people to read the subheadline below.
  
  Instead, I predict that most people will simply click on the X to close the window once they see it.
  
  My recommendation is simple: remove the “Subscribe To Our Newsletter” headline, and replace it with the first part of the subheadline “Get the inside scoop before everyone else”. That line will catch people’s attention, will get more people to read the rest, and increase the chances of people singing up.
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• I think this form has huge potential with just a few tweaks, so I’ve modified based on my recommendations, and here’s what it would look like:

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How Kate Spade Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What’s good about this form:

• This form from Kate Spade is great, and I only have positive comments about it. First, the headline is clear and incentivizes people to sign up by offering 15% off their next purchase after signing up.
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• The form asks for minimal info – email and zip code. Keeping it simple is key.
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• And finally, the Call to Action button “JOIN” makes sense. The text matches the call to action that is in the headline (“join our mailing list”), and it hints at what’s going to happen next when clicked (you’ll join the list).

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How John Varvatos Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

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What’s good about this form:

• It has clear benefits for signing up: early access to new arrivals, private sales, exclusive offers, and 15% off your first purchase.
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• The headline, “All Access” is not bad. It catches my attention and makes me want to read the rest. This is infinitely better than “Sign up for the newsletter” that we see on so many forms in the industry. Could it be better? Possibly, but anything else should be A/B tested.
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What could be improved:

• The timing of this popup. At the moment, it appears as soon as you get to the website, asking you for your information before you’ve even had a chance to explore the brand, or even find a product that you like and would love to get 15% off for.
  
  I’d recommend displaying this popup a little later, or on exit-intent. The timing of these popups are great things to test too.

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How Hermès Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What’s good about this form:

• The headline is way better than a simple “sign up to this newsletter” headline. Does it convert well, is this really the best headline for this form? I’m not sure, and I can’t tell unless I’d have access to their data and we’d test it. However, it’s definitely more engaging and directs action more than a lot of headlines, which is great.
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• The subheadline doesn’t stop at “Receive our newsletter”, there’s a few interesting tidbits that are additional incentives for signing up: “discover our stories, collections and surprises”. This keeps it interesting.
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What could be improved:

• There’s nothing striking that could be improved right away. Headline and subheadline is pretty good, the form location is standard, and the button text fits the context. I would recommend A/B testing any changes to this form.

How Gucci Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• Gucci has one one of the best luxury fashion ecommerce websites out there, but their email capture game could be stronger. At the moment, the only noticeable email sign up form is in the footer. It’s mostly hidden, and has room for improvement.
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• “Sign Up For Gucci Updates” is not a compelling reason to get most people to sign up. What type of updates? What can I expect? What’s in it for me? Those are things that the headline should address.
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• Instead of showing the legal text below the email field, as most brands do, they show it as the subheadline, making the act of signing up for these updates even less attractive, while pushing down the already barely visible email field.
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• The email field doesn’t look much like a field. Its contrast with the page’s background is so low, that it nearly blends right in with the website, making it almost invisible. It has to be clearer that this is a field, and it’s by clicking on this that you can sign up.
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• This form has no sign up button, only a little arrow that does not communicate a call to action. This is a usability flaw, but also a communication flaw. It’s not clear that by clicking on it you’re signing up, and since there’s no text on that button, it’s not “pushing” anyone to take action. The field is just “there”, begging for someone to use it.

How Goyard Can Improve Their Email Sign Up Form

What could be improved:

• Goyard calls their newsletter the Goyard Gazette; however, nowhere on the page does it explain what I should expect to receive. Simply saying I’m signing up to the Gazette, aka, newsletters, doesn’t make me want to sign up.
  
  Adding a few bullet points or subheadline to this page explaining what I should expect to get from signing up would go a long way in improving this form.
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• The language field is unnecessary, and also lacks clarity. First, the languages listed in the field are abbreviated, which could cause confusion. If you’re to list languages, and have space to write the full word, write it out to improve readability.
  
  I’ll also argue that it’s unnecessary since the website is available in all the same languages. For example, if someone is browsing the website in french, it would likely be safe to assume they would be OK with receiving the newsletter in french as well.
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• Now, if I had to make that decision (to either keep or remove the language field) for Goyard, I’d take a data-first approach before removing it, meaning I would want to find out how many people change the language when signing up. If it’s negligible, then I would conclude it’s safe to remove it. If the number would be significant and show that a large percentage of subscribers change the language, then I would either keep it, or run an A/B test.
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• Note that if an A/B test were to be launched testing the removal of that field, most people would make a conclusion on whether the test is successful or not based on the conversion rate of that form.
  
  What we can’t forget is that people that sign up may have a higher customer lifetime value later if they were to receive the emails in their own language vs the default. This has to be taken into consideration.
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• Finally, the button text “Validate” is not ideal. What are we validating? I’d change this to something that’s more action-oriented, and that is related to what the visitor is actually doing: signing up for the Gazette. Therefore, I’d rename this button to “Join the Gazette”.
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Conclusion

If you’ve read the comments for each and every form reviewed in this post, it’ll be clear to you that most forms have opportunities for improvement, and that the changes required are quite small. The upside of making those changes, could also be quite significant.

At the end of the day, most forms can be improved by following the following rules:

• Communicate value or exclusivity as a benefit to entice website visitors to sign up.
• Make your call to action buttons clear, both on a textual and design level.
• Display your forms at the right moment, avoid making them intrusive, but make sure they’re not hidden either.

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Increasing conversions on your email newsletter forms will have an important impact on your company on the long term as you’ll be nurturing potential customers, and engaging with existing customers, increasing your chances of them coming back.

If you would like to get your email opt-in forms reviewed and improved so you can start capturing more email addresses as soon as this week, click here to request your free luxury website analysis.