Reporting & research on Shopify and ecommerce
A merchant who wants a store email list usually installs a popup app first and only checks the theme second, and that order is backward because Dawn already ships an email-signup-banner section with 11 settings while Horizon builds the same job out of a 27-setting block, neither of which needs a subscription.
Most merchants searching for a way around a popup app assume the theme has nothing built in, so they go straight to installing something that costs 240 dollars a year and promises a modal that appears after five seconds. What they get wrong is the assumption. Dawn already ships a dedicated email signup section, and Horizon builds the same feature out of a reusable block plus generous section-level layout controls, and neither one needs a subscription or an app install.
Dawn’s file is sections/email-signup-banner.liquid, registered under the name t:sections.email-signup-banner.name, and as measured at commit 258f00f on August 10, 2026 it carries 11 settings and 3 block types. This is a banner, meaning it renders in the page flow rather than floating over it, so it behaves more like a hero section with a form embedded than a lightbox. The settings worth knowing before deciding this covers the job:
| Setting id | Type | Range or options |
|---|---|---|
show_background_image | checkbox | on/off |
image | image_picker | any uploaded image |
image_overlay_opacity | range | 0–100, step 10% |
image_height | select | 4 options |
desktop_content_position | select | 9 options |
The desktop_content_position select with 9 options is the most flexible piece here, letting the block sit in different corners or centers of the banner without touching code. But there is no setting in this file for delay timing, scroll depth, or exit intent, the three things popup apps usually sell as their reason to exist. If a merchant’s actual requirement is a form that appears after a visitor scrolls 50 percent down the page, this section as measured does not do that, and no combination of its 11 settings produces it.
Horizon does not have a single email-signup-banner section. Instead it has blocks/email-signup.liquid, named t:names.email_signup, which is a block meant to be placed inside a generic section. That block alone has 27 settings as of commit 8b42ace on August 31, 2026, including a width select with 2 options, a custom_width range running from 20 to 100 percent in 1 percent steps, a heading text field, a heading_text_color color picker, and a heading_preset select with 8 options for typography presets.
Because it is a block and not a standalone section, it depends on sections/section.liquid for placement, and that file is large: 28 settings and 3 block types. Relevant ones include content_direction with 2 options, vertical_on_mobile as a checkbox, horizontal_alignment with 4 options, vertical_alignment with 3 options, align_baseline as a checkbox, and a second alignment select, horizontal_alignment_flex_direction_column, with 3 options for column layouts specifically. This gives Horizon more granular control over how the signup block sits relative to other content on the same section, at the cost of needing to understand two files instead of one to get the same result Dawn gives in a single section.
There is also sections/footer.liquid, named t:names.footer, which has only 5 settings of its own but 14 block types available to it, more block types than either the section file or the email-signup block. Its settings include section_width with 2 options, gap on a 0 to 100 pixel range, background_color, and two separate padding controls, padding-block-start and padding-block-end, each on a 0 to 100 pixel range. For a merchant who wants the signup form to live in the footer rather than a hero banner, Horizon’s footer is where that decision gets made, and its 14 block types suggest an email signup block can be one of many things dropped there.
Searched across the measured settings above, the word popup does not appear as a setting id, section name, or block type in either Dawn’s email-signup-banner.liquid at commit 258f00f or Horizon’s email-signup.liquid, section.liquid, and footer.liquid at commit 8b42ace. That is not a soft gap that might be filled by some undocumented option. As measured, it is not there. Both themes’ signup mechanisms are in-page, not overlay, and any merchant who wants a genuine timed or scroll-triggered modal is looking for functionality outside these files entirely, whether that means custom code or, yes, an app.
Across the 329 themes in the aggregate ranking the median price sits at 300 dollars with a range from 100 to 500, and the average rating across 308 rated themes is 4.53 out of 5 with a median of 23 reviews. On Core Web Vitals, measured from real visitor traffic in July 2026 rather than a lab run, the median mobile pass rate across 247 themes with sufficient data is 85.5%, with the best theme at 98.6% and the worst at 46.1%. Desktop numbers, across 199 themes, put the median at 86.2%, the best at 99.2%, and the worst at 30.3%. UTD’s themes appear inside this same aggregate ranking alongside everyone else, and merchants curious where its listings sit can look directly at UTD’s Theme Store catalog rather than take a summary of it here.
Anyone deciding between an app and the theme’s own files should open the theme’s section and block liquid files first and check whether a popup, timed or scroll-based, actually exists among the settings, because in Dawn and Horizon at these measured commits it does not. If the goal is only a banner or footer capture form, both themes already have the settings to build it without a subscription.
Dawn's relevant file is sections/email-signup-banner.liquid, registered as t:sections.email-signup-banner.name, and it is a banner section, not a modal popup. It has 11 settings and 3 block types as of commit 258f00f on August 10, 2026. Settings include a checkbox to show_background_image, an image_picker for the image, an image_overlay_opacity range from 0 to 100 in steps of 10 percent, an image_height select with 4 options, and a desktop_content_position select with 9 options. There is no setting in that file for a timed or scroll-triggered overlay, so anyone who wants a true popup is looking at a different mechanism entirely, not a missing checkbox in this section.
Horizon does not put the whole job in one section file. The block itself, blocks/email-signup.liquid, has 27 settings including a width select with 2 options, a custom_width range from 20 to 100 percent in 1 percent steps, a heading text field, a heading_text_color color setting, and a heading_preset select with 8 options. That block then sits inside sections/section.liquid, which has 28 settings of its own covering layout, such as content_direction with 2 options and vertical_alignment with 3 options. Both themes are Shopify/horizon at commit 8b42ace from August 31, 2026.
In Horizon, yes, because sections/footer.liquid (t:names.footer) has 14 block types available to it, more block types than either the section or the email-signup block itself, even though the footer section has only 5 settings of its own such as section_width, gap on a 0 to 100 pixel range, background_color, and separate padding-block-start and padding-block-end ranges. Dawn's footer was not part of this measurement, so nothing here can be said about how Dawn's footer compares.
The data does not support blaming or crediting popup apps specifically, because Core Web Vitals here were measured on real visits, not on any single feature. Across 247 themes with sufficient mobile data the median share of stores passing all Core Web Vitals is 85.5%, with the best theme in the market at 98.6% and the worst at 46.1%. On desktop, across 199 themes with sufficient data, the median is 86.2%, the best is 99.2%, and the worst is 30.3%. Whatever is dragging the worst themes down, an email signup section with 11 or 27 settings is a tiny fraction of the page compared to everything else loading.
No. The aggregate ranking covers 329 themes across categories including Art, Auto, Bags, Beauty, Clothing, Electronics, Food and drink, Home, Jewelry & Access., Kids, Pets, Sports, and Toys, but there is no category built around email popups specifically, and this article's title itself is not a measured category. The number 329 and the category list come from the same themescout.co aggregate checked September 4, 2026.