Convert Pro

There are a lot of list building tools and opt-in form builders for WordPress. Funny, too, how almost all of them label themselves as “the best” or call themselves #1. And Convert Pro is no different.

Convert Pro has most of the features you would expect of a solid opt-in form builder. That includes stuff like:

• Drag and drop visual builder to build your opt-ins and calls to action
• Multiple opt-in types, like popups, info bars, slide-ins, in-content forms, widgets, welcome mats (they call it “convert mat”), full-screen, etc.
• Multi-step optins
• Exit intent
• A/B split testing

In terms of tool integrations, it works with pretty much all the big players. Chances are, it will work with whatever list tool you use.

The visual form builder is… interesting. It is incredibly flexible, but at the same time so flexible that it can be a little tedious to use. If you start with a blank template, you can drag elements into your form one by one.

Interestingly, when you drag an element into the builder, it is literally an exact placement down to the pixel. Wherever you let go of the mouse button, that’s where it will go. Here’s a quick client opt-in I built and you can see how easy it is to place elements anywhere:

As you’re building the form, you can “snap” these elements to center as various guiding lines appear over top the form. Also, when you drag elements in (like simple text or headers), they drop in there with default formatting and you need to manually change it (colors, etc.). Obviously, this is not a design problem. However, I do think most people would prefer a little more “hand holding” so as to be able to create opt-ins faster.

There are pre-built templates. But, again, because it is so easy to drag things all over the place, it wouldn’t be difficult to mess it up.

I see the power of the builder in Convert Pro. Certainly, you can use it to visually build a call to action in any way you want. However, there’s also something to be said for a more guided tool such as the builder inside of ConvertBox. There, the forms don’t have as much visual flexibility, but you can quickly build a high-conversion, professional form much faster because the editor provides some instant assumptions that you’re pretty much always going to go with.

Some things, too, are a little tougher to find than they should be. For instance, when I went to determine what page a user will be sent to after submitting the form, I expected that to be some kind of global setting for the entire form. Instead, I found that option buried under the “Action” toggle of the settings for the “Submit” button. That’s not a very user-friendly place to put such as important setting.

Just overall, while the editor gives a lot of flexibility, I think some things could (or should) be able to be controlled globally rather than via individual elements of the form. It feels like it takes a lot of clicking and hunting to find things which should be easier to access.

Interestingly, there seems to be no STATS. No ability to track the conversion rate of any of your opt-in forms with Convert Pro. Instead, it just integrates with your Google Analytics account via an add-on.

With the add-on, it does have some ability to import conversion stats from Analytics and show that data in your WordPress backend. That’s an interesting choice on their part seeing as pretty much every competitor offers built-in stats and conversion tracking as part of their software.

One other observation is that if you use ad blocking in your browser, things get weird. I use Brave Browser and I was having opt-in forms simply not show up. Not only that, I couldn’t even CREATE an opt-in form in the backend because all of the call-to-action types were missing and I couldn’t select anything. Apparently, Convert Pro detects the ad blocking (which is fine, I guess), but applies it even in the admin area. I had to turn my blockers off to get Convert Pro to work properly.

One thing that many will find quite attractive about Convert Pro is the price.

The plugin is built by the same folks who built Astra, the Ultimate Addons plugins for Elementor and Beaver Builder, WP Portfolio, etc. So…

You can buy Convert Pro for unlimited websites (yes, unlimited) for $87 (at the time of this writing). Yet, their Growth Bundle sells for $100 more and comes with all of their other stuff, too. That means you’re getting Astra Pro, the addon plugins for page builders, plus their other stuff. They also have lifetime options for both if you don’t want to deal with recurring fees.

That’s a pretty good deal.

In the end, Convert Pro gets the job done. I can’t say it really excels at anything here. You will be able to build calls to action pretty easily and you’ll have a lot of design flexibility, but other plugins offer that, too. It doesn’t have any built-in stats and I don’t like the reliance on Google Analytics for that.

The pricing makes it a pretty good deal, though.