Ninja Popups vs Icegram Engage: Which is the Best WordPress Popup Plugin for You?

Pop-ups are a wildly popular marketing message type on the internet today. Thousands of people are looking for the best pop-up plugin for their WordPress sites every day. And the problem is that there are plenty of choices. Both free and paid.

Battle of the WordPress pop-up plugins

Popups have always been the center of a fiery discussion. Some marketers outrightly favor them, while others criticize their annoying possibilities. However, one cannot ignore the immense power of conversion that a pop-up possesses.

In this post, we grill totally mind-blowing popup plugin, Ninja Popups with Icegram Engage.

Nina Popups is a highly popular WordPress popup plugin, sold on CodeCanyon and developed by arscode. Ninja Popups has been around for quite some time and has an excellent collection of themes and features.

We will try and give you a fair, unbiased review of both these plugins, so you can make an informed choice.

Ninja Popups vs Icegram Engage

Honestly, a direct comparison of both tools is not possible. Mainly because Ninja Popups is only about popups, while Icegram Engage does much more than popups. It includes:

• Messengers: Such as Facebook Messenger and others that are highly converting.
• Action Bars: Such as HelloBar and others, but with more features.
• Toast Notifications: Such as desktop / mobile operating systems, but not found on WordPress yet.

Download Icegram Engage

Themes

The whole point of pop-ups is to draw your customers’ attention. So themes do carry a lot of weight.

Ninja Popups provides a whopping 22 theme packs. And they have more available. These are well-designed, appealing and easy to integrate. The only downside is that if you wanted to customize them, it would be difficult.

Customization is where Icegram Engage shines. By default, Icegram Engage comes with 20 good-looking themes. Icegram Engage then gives you the fully powered WordPress editor, with the ability to add custom CSS and JavaScript in the pop-up body. So if you are a power user, Icegram Engage lack of themes shouldn’t bother you.

For people looking for a quick, ready-made theme, Ninja Popups certainly has an upper hand.

Ninja Popups and Icegram Engage both have themes that are responsive.

Styling: Minimalist or extravagant?

Ninja Popups is loaded with styling options. You can select the color of your header, the button, the background, the text and more. (Caution: People with shorter tolerance levels can get annoyed!)

The more choices, the more confusion! So, Icegram Engage will be a treat for guys who love simplicity. It gives you basic options for styling – background color and text color.

The rest of the styling is in themes. This makes it much quicker.

If you know CSS, you can fully customize Icegram Engage messages by adding CSS to the popup body itself – Icegram Engage WordPress editor supports adding custom CSS and JS.

Download Icegram Engage

Overlays

Ninja Popups allows you to set the opacity percentage and also an image if required. Icegram Engage doesn’t provide any overlay-related features.

Close button customization

Ninja Popups allows you to customize how the close button looks. Icegram Engage does not have this option.

Targeting & scheduling: Control your Ninja Popups campaigns

Both plugins allow you to target your popups on particular pages or posts. Icegram Engage allows targeting by users and devices also, which can be very useful.

Icegram Engage puts popups (and other messages) together in a campaign. You can define targeting rules for the campaign, and all messages within that campaign will be shown when the rules match.

So you can create a campaign that will be shown on the homepage, and which will show an action bar at the beginning, a messenger after 5 seconds and a popup after 10 seconds.

Ninja popups does not offer such flexibility because it’s only used for popups.

In terms of scheduling, Ninja Popups lets you set a start date and an end date. It also allows you to set the number of seconds before the pop-up shows up.

Icegram Engage also offers both these options, but in a slightly different manner. The reason for this different approach is that Icegram Engage is made of campaigns, and each campaign can contain multiple messages. So, scheduling a date range is part of the campaign. Whereas the display delay time is on a message.

The time when the pop-up should show up while on a page is set up under the campaign, where all messages in the campaign are shown.

Exit Popup: An excellent way of winning back a losing lead

Ninja Popup provides for exit popups. This means a pop-up will show when the user is about to leave your page.

Such popups have converted better than any other popups and this feature is very useful.

Icegram Engage has a premium addon behavior triggers and advanced targeting, which provides exit intent and a lot more powerful triggers.

Cookies and retargeting

In Ninja Popups, you can set a cookie and decide how often a user should see a popup.

Icegram Engage does this a bit differently. It makes the choice less difficult by giving a simple checkbox that asks – “Once shown, do not show the message again for this session.”

JS & CSS: The developer’s delight

Ninja Popups also gives one the privilege to use custom JS and CSS for your popups.

With Icegram Engage, you can add custom JS or CSS directly to the message editor (use the Text mode to do this easily). Icegram Engage smartly preserves your custom code and renders it along with the pop-up.

The final verdict

A quick summary of Icegram Engage vs. Ninja Popups:

Conclusion

If you just want popups, Ninja Popups is a great deal for just $24+$7.13(12-month customer support). If you want more extensive targeting rules and want to use new, innovative message types that convert even better, go with Icegram Engage.

Let us know in the comments, which worked out for you!

FAQs

What types of popups can I create with a WordPress pop up plugin?
Common types include exit-intent popups, timed popups, click-triggered popups, scroll-based popups and popups triggered by user inactivity. You can also create specific popups for promotions, announcements, or capturing leads.

Do WordPress popup plugins affect website speed?
Some pop-up plugins can slow down your site if they are not optimized or if too many are installed. It’s important to choose a lightweight plugin that is optimized for performance.

What features should I look for in a WordPress pop-up plugin?
Look for key features such as customization options, targeting rules, responsiveness, integration with email marketing tools, analytics and A/B testing capabilities.