Thrive Leads vs Bloom: In Depth Comparison

hey everybody John here from unbeatabletech.com

and in today's video we're going to

start doing some dog fights between some

of the best tools on the internet for

different purposes for digital marketers

and this first dog fight we're going to

do here is about thrive leads versus

bloom by elegant themes and these are

two very very powerful very easy to use

plugins for email opt-in capture and

lead generations but they're also very

different so in this video we're going

to talk about the companies behind these

plugins kind of what is elegant themes

all about what is thrive themes all

about and kind of the pros and cons of

those two different choices the feature

set of bloom versus thrive leaves this

is where the competition really starts

to diverge you get to decide which route

you want to go very very interesting

part of this video the integrations

between bloom and thrive leads what type

of email providers link into each one

and that might be a very obvious choice

for you if you use a particular email

provider this on one not the other for

threading how about the simplicity of

each of these tools having a great

feature set is one thing but if it's too

overwhelming and over encumbering to use

you're not gonna use it anyways and

lastly we're gonna talk about the costs

because obviously as digital marketers

we want to make sure we're picking the

right products but within our budget

okay so with that let's go ahead and

dive into the first comparison okay so

I've pulled up the sales letter the

sales page for thrive leads and you can

see the goal here is to build your

mailing list faster than ever and as you

scroll down you see some big names some

big features that this can do you can

see animations of all the different

types of opt-in forms you can do with

thrive leads 76,000 users can't be wrong

I do agree with that

a lot of different features here so you

can go through and review this at your

own time but essentially I'll kind of

boil it down to thrive themes is all

about conversion optimization and you'll

see in as we go into thrive leads this

is their probably their second tier

product their first tier being thrive

architect and optimized together and

then thrive leads is a very close second

what I've seen a lot of people who

choose a different page builder but they

still come back to thrive leads for

their email opt-in captures and

placements on their website because it's

very very powerful but let's not get too

far ahead of ourselves

you guys can review this but we'll go

ahead

dive into that one and a little bit

later next we have bloom which is from

elegant themes elegant themes is best

known for their Divi theme and Divi

Builder their visual page builder and if

you scroll here very similar sales page

where you can see the different types of

forms you can make there's definitely a

big difference in the feature set

between bloom and thrive which will get

into different six different types how

they display a lot of other things so

you can go kind of go into it the

breakdown kind of the difference here

from the company perspective is I have

always felt that Divi is one of the four

front page builders when it comes to

design perspective like the aesthetics

their web pages kind of just look

prettier than thrives web pages things

tend to work a little bit nicer together

things feel a little bit more just kind

of tight when you're using the Divi

builder with thrive you can find

yourself kind of finicky and and kind of

trying to get things to work just right

on you and you have to spend a little

more time to make the design look as

clean as Divis does the counter side to

that is when it comes to conversion

optimization and getting the data behind

how your tools are performing how your

website is converting I don't think that

in the WordPress space anybody can

really hold a candle to thrive that's

kind of their their lifeblood and one of

the reasons why I'm speculating here but

why I think they spend a little less

time on the prettiness or the I guess

the aesthetics of their pages is because

I think the data shows that even if your

sales page isn't the most beautiful

thing in the world if it has the right

content if it has optimizations built in

it's still gonna convert higher than a

beautiful web page that doesn't have the

right content so content is king is kind

of the key there but let's go ahead and

dive into the tools now and I'll show

you kind of an overview of their feature

size all right so I've pulled up a

sample website my thrive demo website

and I've pulled up a brand new

installation of thrive leads we're gonna

go ahead and walk through some of these

features together here not all of them

because we'd be here all day but just

kind of show you a little bit about what

thrive is all about with their leads

plug-in so as we look here you'll have

an area for statistics about how many

impressions you're getting on your

thrive leads per day how many

conversions you've gotten and what your

kind of conversion rate is over time

I'll pull up later on the video as some

real examples of that as we

then he also have several different ways

of displaying thrive leads opt-in forms

on your website lead groups is something

that is extremely powerful it's kind of

beyond anything that Blum has from a

from a smart perspective is basically

the way it works is a thrive leads group

will be a set of opt-in forms let's just

make one together here it's a set of

opt-in forms that can all kind of work

together so let's say we want to create

an in content form we'll come back to it

will also add a scroll mat and we'll

come back to that as well but these two

can be part of a family that are in this

first test lead group and what you can

do here is you can define the targeting

options at the lead group level so that

means that both of those opt-in forms

will kind of take the same shape and

they'll show up on the same pages that

you can define here so you can set

specific categories for them to show up

on specific posts if there's one post

you really want to smash with an

entirely group or you know you get the

idea

oh you can also say you know all posts

all pages only on the index page only on

the 404 page etc etc so we will say if

we had a tag which I don't think we can

add the tag right now so we'll say these

are only Uncategorized Uncategorized

posts and you can also set up exclusions

to say Uncategorized posts and not the

blog index for example so you could set

that up there you also save that to come

back to it at a later time and now these

will have the exact same display

settings

okay then kind of moving on down here

you've got lead short codes and short

codes are a lot of what bloom does for

their in content forms and this

basically is a an individual form you

can build and it won't show up unless

you actually put the shortcode into your

content someplace so we'll just make one

real quick and thrive box's is like

short codes but instead it's a trigger

Abul event so this is something that

thrive so thrive boxes is something that

bloom really leaves on the

Kable they don't have anything that

directly competes to it and as what I've

found in marketing is that the two-step

opt-ins where you make them click a

button you don't actually show them that

it's an opt-in form on the first pass

those convert higher because they've

already said yes by clicking the button

they already show that they really want

it and there's like oh just put your

email in here and you can get it okay

they're more likely to do that and then

signup segue we'll talk about that in a

moment so let's look at blooms options

here by going into the bloom setup here

and this is a little bit simpler what

you'll find a lot of this is that bloom

is simpler than thrive leaves no doubt

about it so when we make a new opt-in

you have these options here of what

types you want to make in the widget

area locked content inline which is

gonna in content below a post fly-in and

pop up so already these are very similar

bloom and thrive leaves they're very

very similar and what type of posts

forms you can make there are a few that

are missing on bloom for example they

don't have the full page you know

landing that like we're kind of snack

see in the face and you can't ignore it

the closest they have there is a pop up

but that doesn't take the entire area at

the screen they're annoying yes but I

think they're pretty effective so

probably be good for them to add that

they also don't have to my knowledge the

ribbon where you can kind of put

something very non non intrusive at the

top of the screen at the bottom of

screen there just hangs out there with

you as you go through the page but the

rest is very similar so we'll make an

inline form here and we'll just call

this okay

so what we'll do next is go ahead and

set this up we'll talk about the opt-in

forms in a second there integrations in

a second but let me just set one up here

real fast

okay so I've integrated mailer Lite with

this account here and what you get once

you've integrated your account is and

you've selected it you'll have all the

different tags or forms or groups it

depends on the actual email provider

that you're using what you get but for

me for me I'll let you get all the

groups available and so what this does

is if somebody signs up through your

bloom opt-in form they're going to

directly go into that group in Miller

Lite and it works very similar for

thrive leads but there's a couple

additional features in

as well okay so let's go ahead and while

we're on the screen just design in an

example a form here in bloom and then

we'll do the exact same thing in thrive

leads and show you the differences so in

bloom

you have just template Bonanza you've

got a bunch of different templates the

problem I have with these templates is

they all look kind of the same right

it's just you know icon some text and

your signup form not that's really bad

but it's very generic and the color

schemes are customizable but not very

much so let's go ahead and just pick

this guy here a nice dark form and we'll

scroll all the down to the bottom and

say customize now here you can adjust

the text so so subscribe to our

newsletter we'll say join our tribe and

then you can also give it an opt-in

message and you can see here it's not

front and editing you're editing this

all on the back end and you'll be able

to see it in a minute on the front end

you'll always have this preview button

up here you can see kind of what you're

doing so you can see we've adjusted it

here I mean it is a very nice-looking

opt-in form but it's it's just it you

you can do what you can do and that's it

join our mailing list that's fine you

can obviously bold it or underlined or

italicized so I'll do that image

settings the only options you have are

what they give you so you've got no

image image above the text switch we can

take a look at that okay not too bad

image below the text also not to that so

they all look quite nice I mean you can

tell they're they're designed well image

to the right of the text not a big fan

of that one you get the idea so let's go

ahead and image above the text I like

that one and then for the image URL you

can upload an image and let's just put

this example here the teacher in front

of the class see how that looks

it looks miserable so let's go ahead and

adjust our color scheme to hopefully

look look a little bit better

we'll go for like a light blue here and

we'll see how that adjusts our our image

you also get to adjust the animations

that happen when they show up

was it tada

looks like it doesn't really let you see

what the animations do unless yeah there

it is

unless you click there and do preview

but I did like that slide up that's that

seemed to be the most unintrusive okay

so now you've got your opt-in styling we

can adjust the colors here like I said I

wanna do a lighter blue let's just see

how that looks okay better I like it a

little bit more obviously I'd probably

pick a white icon and that would look

better on the dark background you can

adjust the fonts here you've got not all

the fonts not all google fonts but you

got a good number text color top border

you can put different border styles and

do a border all the way around and it

gives you that puts that double line

there I like the default and then form

set if you got a few options here form

on the bottom right or left let's just

take a look at the right to give you a

different example okay I don't like that

it just puts a lot of empty space there

so we'll keep it we'll keep it how it

was and then the option to include

single name first name and last name

field so we'll do a single name and see

you'll see you'll make a change and then

you'll preview make a change in preview

and that's just kinda what you have to

get used to with balloon custom fields

you have the option to do additional

color settings you kind of get the idea

one thing that's nice it makes it nice

and easy for you to add additional

divider styles or edge Styles here so I

like those they're just nice and then

you can also say we will not spam you

promise success message text you can

here's where you can either give a

message kind of like a success message

or you can send them to a different URL

so we're going to send them into a

different URL because that's where you

can do some pretty nice marketing

tactics there so we'll say we're good

here and we'll go to the next success

action and now here it either displays

that success message you just set up in

the design area or you can say redirect

to a URL notice there's only those two

options that you have here so we'll show

you the difference they're in bloom and

then here you can just send them a

different page we'll just send them to

Google for right now and you can

generate the shortcode right here and

now and there's your shortcode so we'll

just copy that

and we can save and exit now this was an

in content form so there's no need to

set up any display rules it's not going

to show up anywhere unless we tell it to

here's one of the differences and with

thrive leads we'll see in a minute you

can actually automatically implant your

in content forms directly into your blog

post after a certain number of

paragraphs that gives it a nice little

effect of being kind of like a

commercial after they've read through

the intro of your blog post then they

get you know an offer there that is

really enticing and relevant so um one

thing that's not so full-fledged on

bloom so let's go ahead and see this on

a new post we'll go to all of our pages

and I've built up a thrive architect

page just to kind of show this I'm not

trying to give give the edge over to

thrive but unfortunately I can't show

off all the features of thrive unless

I'm using it so I'll do that there and

let's delete the opt-in form they have

here and instead in this area let's put

a shortcode or I would

we'll do a wordpress content support

shortcodes go put it right there and we

can just paste that opt-in form save

okay so another challenge here let me

let me save this and reload it it won't

show up automatically which I wish it

would but if we refresh I think it

should okay so here's our form here

you'll notice if you look at this it

looks terrible great like that this is

not what I wanted but if we preview it

if we get out of the editor it still

looks terrible well that's not supposed

to happen that's not very nice what's

going on here let me go back to my bloom

settings I did not plan that I really

wanted this to work nicely but this is

live this is what we're doing here so

let's go back into thrive demo go back

into bloom opt-in forms and let's just

see if I did something wrong here go

into our settings design preview that's

what I want it to look like so maybe if

I publish this it will look better let's

let's give it a shot okay

so edit page let's publish this page and

view it on the front-end

still looks bad okay well that is not

good you would expect bloom to be

working with any page builder with any

theme that's what I would certainly

expect that's that's not good but what

we can do let's go and make a post and

let's try it without going into the page

builder let's just do a bloom

second-chance page and what's nice about

the default editor is you can easily

select from your blooms that are

available so we'll just do this publish

this guy and view the post okay so that

looks much better

that gives us the exact formatting that

we had when we originally made it so it

looks like and this was honestly a first

test I didn't expect that to happen

bloom doesn't play nicely with other

page builders and I guess it kind of

makes sense because bloom is a product

of the company that made Divi elegant

themes so I guess they're kind of a one

and the same or they work really well

together but not with each other

which is a little bit sad but let's go

ahead and now dive into thrive leads and

build out a very similar looking opt-in

form we're not going to go through all

the different opt-in forms because I

would just be too much and we'll show

you the difference in the editing

experience okay so now in the in content

we're gonna go ahead and add a form in

here and create our first form just give

it some gibberish there and now here you

can see this is different than the

actual bloom opt-in where with bloom you

had to put in the shortcode every single

time you can do that as well with thrive

leads but you also have this ability

here to automatically show this content

into the blog post on demand in a

specific position on the blog post so

here I can say whether it's after two

paragraphs after three paragraphs and

then this will kind of pop in as almost

like a commercial in your content

without you having to add shortcodes

every single time so that's pretty cool

let's go and add edit the design and

this is what I really wanted to show on

this part of the video is the design

differences between bloom

and thrive leads and now here this is

kind of like how in bloom you're

selecting your template but that was

really all the customization you can

make and they all look kind of the same

here with thrive leads every single one

of these looks very different like this

looks very similar to a thrive to a

bloom opt-in form but that's just one of

the many many different types you can

make here the other thing you'll notice

I kind of scroll don't find a good

example of this is a guy like this where

it's a two-step operation so let's go

ahead and choose this template to show

you a little bit of the differences so

now that I've loaded this guy in you can

notice it's not just a bunch of menu

prompts or a wizard where you're kind of

select the background color now select

the text this is actually what it looks

like and so as I move things around it's

actually drag-and-drop where I have

complete customization control of this I

can actually change that image out I can

even add shadow or remove shadow since

it already has shadow and maybe even add

a shadow it changes the direction that

the Sun was pointing at it so you've got

a full front-end editor this is the

exact same editor that you use for

thrive architect there premium plugin

for building front and word wordpress

split pages and I could even add a

Google map right you know you can just

go nuts with it so from a customization

perspective bloom doesn't touch thrive

leads there does come at a cost though

we'll talk about a little bit later in

the video the other thing I want to show

you on this piece is that there's no

actual opt-in form there's no email text

box for them to put into what you

actually have here is this little hover

button where you can add multiple states

of an opt-in form so what that means is

that when you click the button on the

previous view it'll actually open up

this view that will give you the email

and the show-me button there which is

pretty cool so let's go ahead and

preview this to show you how that works

show me boom so it's kind of a it's a

two-step so they say yes they want the

thing and then you realize then you

reveal to them oh I need your

information before I give you the thing

and then they're like okay well I've

already gone this far may as well go

ahead and type in my name and and

get to gettin so pretty useful tactic

there to be able to do two-step

operations what's nice about thrive

leads as well we'll go and show you this

is you don't have to have only one state

you can actually have a second state and

you once you click this you've got three

different options if you go for the new

state option here it's going to be kind

of similar to this one where it shows

the exact same content and but you can

add additional things there could be a

different offer this could be offer a

and you can create another offer let's

just show you here for a second

this would be offer a and this could be

offer B and what I can do is I can

create a new state and so now we have

state 1 state 2 and what we can do is on

our default state here I can take off

offer B and change the action from

switching state to state one so now I

can say switch state to state two now

let's go ahead and look at state two and

see what that looks like right now and

right now it just duplicated things out

let me make sure I'm in state two yes I

am so then you could adjust this all

around and let's say I want to delete

the buttons and instead I want to you

know change the images or whatever but I

let me just to show you we could say

this is stage two and what's kind of

cool about this is with thrive leads you

don't only need it's not only there to

collect email addresses it's also good

to share things you can put a tweetable

phrase in there or you could put like a

need to find the share buttons social

share buttons so you can have different

calls to action based on which different

states they select so let's go ahead and

save this and preview this as well so

now if I go to offer a I see the email

kind of back may just preview it again

and if I go to offer B it shows me a

different state so you can imagine like

you can kind of go down different paths

you can have an e-book on this one

or a course on another offer or you

could say hey do you want to learn more

yes or no if they click no you can close

the forum a lot of different things you

can do here let's just go back here real

quick and show you this right here is

one of the advanced features that thrive

leads has that I don't have never seen

anywhere anywhere else but essentially

what this does is if you put a special

link that you can create in thrive leads

if you put that special link into an

email that you send to your already

existing subscribers so for example I

use mail or light so if I send it to my

email list on mail a light instead of

just saying hey go to in kamesh com

I could create a special link using

thrive leads that is called a smart link

and that feature will actually tell your

website that the people that are

visiting from here that have already

they clicked that special link they're

already subscribers so don't show them

the opt-in forms you can actually show

them a different often you can show them

either something totally different which

I'll show you here in a second or you

could show them just nothing and just

kind of clean it up and take all the the

stuff the clutter away from the actual

content they clicked on to see so what

I'll show you is we can create an

already subscribed State and then I

could basically I mean kind of get rid

of everything and let's just start from

scratch and you could just give them a

text that says thanks for being an

awesome subscriber and what you could do

is you could create like a thriving um

or some sort of special deal where hey

because you're an awesome subscriber

here's 20% off you use this coupon code

or click here to go straight in and

check out a lot of things you can do

with a smart links feature but that

comes at one of the costs of thrive

leaves I'm just go and talk about that

for a second is that there's just a lot

more there so what does that mean it

means it's gonna take you a fair amount

more time to build out an awesome opt-in

form because if I were to go in here and

just start with a default state if this

was a bloom I'd changed a couple things

maybe change the color and click Save

and I'm done with thrive leads and

changing out the images I'm adjusting

the text and especially for these

step off tins you know I've got all this

stuff here and as soon as I go to state

one I've gotta update it all again

thrive is not the best when it comes to

you know adjusting it here and having it

cascade over to the next state you're

gonna have to kind of do those

adjustments every single time which is a

little bit of a burden and they don't

make it as easy as they could and doing

some of those things overall it's not

that big of a deal you know for example

I would love to be able to copy this

copy this image I hit ctrl C and just

see what happens and go into let's say

they already subscribed state and paste

it in doesn't work or you know with Divi

for example I can take this and

right-click and say copy the module or

copy the module styles and paste it out

or anywhere else but because these are

separated by States

I can't just duplicate it and drag it

over no it doesn't work you'd have to go

through and create another image

Mountain module and then style it the

same way and so it's a bit of a payment

but I will be honest and though in some

of my videos I sound like a thrive

fanboy but I will you know give it its

criticism where to do and it doesn't

make it easy for you to do complex

things in the same way that like Divya I

love because they really do make copying

styles and extending styles and other

things very easy that makes your

workflows much more efficient

okay so just a round out building out

your form here you would connect it to a

service as well we can do an API

connection or an HTML connection and you

can add a new connection because this is

a brand new website so let me do that

real quick and I'll be right back with

you we'll just select our our tool of

choice and I'll ask you for an API key

alright so the API key was connected so

we'll select it and then we'll have the

same list that we had from balloon and

say next now for your opt-in actions you

have a couple different options here so

in the previous in bloom

you had the redirected custom URL or the

success notifications but here you have

a couple other options with thrive leads

because they have those multiple states

feature you can actually switch

States when they opt-in so how can you

use this I guess you could essentially

almost use another state of the opt-in

form kind of like a thank-you page so if

you say hey sign up here to get your

ebook you can actually create another

state that's like a thank-you page that

has the download link to the e-book well

if you'd really want to do that but I

guess that could be a way you could use

it or if it's like you know click here

to figure out the answer to this

question you could actually have them

submit and then find out the answer on a

different state or you could reload the

page so if for example you have some

content protection on your webpage that

you need them to be subscribers to see

that would be kind of advanced but you

could reload the page once they do that

a couple things there that you can do

but we'll just do a success notification

please check your email

completely spelling error because we are

doing this raw all right so we're done

here let's save and exit this form and

then we go back we don't even need to

embed this if we were to make this as a

shortcode we could put it in but this

was actually created as an automatic an

automatic form so this is a new post so

if I create a few dummy paragraphs real

quick alright so I've made

humming paragraphs and if I preview this

what I hope to see which I won't because

I made one small mistake so let's go

back to thrive lead sorry I'm going

through a little bit quick to save you

some time

and if I go into thrive leads here I

actually need to activate this so the in

content I want to show up on desktop and

on mobile and now let's go back to our

post and preview it again so now like my

formatting said after the third

paragraph I want to see this offer and

then you can see how the the states work

is I can click on one and submit it

let's just put an email and the success

message complete with with typos is

there and you can also see the different

states now that's pretty cool so

automatically it knew that I subscribed

and it showed that additional state we

created in thrive leads that said only

show this to subscribers so

unfortunately I can't show you the other

state where it would have like the

social share icons but you see how that

works which is pretty cool so let's wrap

up the feature set comparison with just

kind of talking through some of these

things so when it comes to split testing

and making sure you're using the right

often form to the right sales copy

thrive leads wins in that category you

can do split test in bloom but they're

very limited you can just split test two

different often forms together trying to

find the best copy or the best color to

use for your opt-in form with thrive

leads however you can split test in a

ribbon versus a pop-up or you can test a

slide-in versus a in content you can

actually test the different types

together within the same lead group you

can also split test like in do in bloom

what in content form works better what

you know you can change everything

around and you have a ton of different

flexibility when it comes to split

testing it does a great job of kind of

showing you those results showing you

the data behind the split test and

helping you decide which one is right

you also have the ability in thrive

leads to select automatic winners where

you don't even have to look at it again

you can just set it this Plitt test let

it run and check in a month later and

one will be remaining one will have been

kind of killed off by the system that

will know which one is performing better

so it's better in that regard as well

when it comes to integrations they're

both very good they have a long list of

tools they integrate with I'll show you

here in just a second so here I am on

the thrive leads API connection do you

see all the different email services it

connects to it's a long long list it

also it connects to webinars and

WordPress accounts now this is a big

piece when you have to somebody sign up

for your opt-in you can also create them

as a user on your website that's really

big if you want to offer a membership

site or offer online courses like thrive

apprentice having this feature is really

nice

whereas with bluem it's just going to

connect them to your email service

provider it's never gonna talk to

wordpress itself by adding users there

you can even connect it to Facebook and

Twitter and things like that so a ton of

I give a slight edge over to thrive

leads but I think that Blum does just as

good of a job we'll take a look at right

now so looking at bloom here you've got

the big headers as well definitely

there's more on thrive leads but these

cover most of the you know most that I

would think you'd be using so I don't

really knock bloom too much on that I

think they added more they'd be getting

like that the small little minority of

the email service providers so now let's

talk about simplicity because having all

the customization in the world is only

good if that customization actually gets

you better results so I haven't done

extensive split testing between thrive

leads versus bloom opt-ins to see which

one actually gets more conversions

that'd be a good test to do but there's

so many variables in doing that you know

obviously the design of it would be one

piece of it the sales copy would be one

piece of it ultimately though I imagine

that thrive leads would be able to get

better conversions but at what cost

you're gonna spend more time creating

those opt-in forms and making all the

different states and the different logic

paths and the things you do to make it

work

whereas with bloom you have one up and

running in minutes and let it go and

then create more valuable content to get

people to sign up for it so it's hit or

miss bloom definitely wins from the

simplicity perspective is that

simplicity gonna hurt your convert

right time will only tell and yet can I

just make a decision and go with it I

think the bigger decision is gonna be

are you going to use Divi or thrive

architect and that's probably going to

drive your decision on which often form

you choose to use and that kind of

segues nicely into the cost discussion

and from a cost perspective it's kind of

hard to compare because you can buy

thrive leads alone you cannot buy bloom

alone so if you're just looking for an

email opt-in plug-in thrive leads has to

win because you can actually buy it a

bloom is an add-on to the elegant themes

membership which gives you Divi and all

their themes and bloom and monarch

plugins as well what's also great is

that the elegant themes membership is a

one-time fee of I think it's 247 dollars

last time I checked and they're probably

gonna run a Black Friday sale as well so

keep an eye out for that there's a

one-time Fiat very nice the best way to

buy into the thrive family is to get

their membership which is $19 a month

which is very reasonably priced for all

the value you get from thrive but some

people myself included I don't like

monthly fees but I pay the one for the

Thrive because I get so much value from

it alright guys so that was a comparison

of bloom and thrive leads let me know

what you guys think about which tool do

you think is better from an overall

perspective obviously simplicity versus

cost time invested versus results

there's a ton of things that goes into

buying the best tool for the job let me

know in the comments below which one you

prefer and go ahead and like and

subscribe this video and share with your

friends I'll see you guys on the next

one

take care