Optinly
The other day, we were on our competitor’s website, seeing how they were working out things to thrive and compete.
And suddenly, we noticed something strange!
They had failed to make use of one thing that could actually skyrocket their conversions and grow their email lists – Exit Intent Popups! (now don’t ask why we haven’t kept it. The best is yet to come from us).
And so, we went on to check a few other websites – fortunately, they had exit intent popups.
But again, these weren’t powerful enough to drive conversions. Similar to email popups the true potential of exit intent popups are yet to be unleashed.
So, we thought why not write a post to help online businesses and stores get to know how an exit-intent popup should be (this blog post has both best practices and examples).
But before that, let’s get through the basics (like we always do).
What Are Exit Intent Popups?
Well, they don’t need much of an introduction and you sure might have seen them up close already.
But still, here’s a definition followed by an exit-intent popup example.
“Exit Intent Popups are the desperate don’t go kind of popups you get to see when you are about to leave a webpage”.
In other words, exit intent popups are one last effort to make your visitor stays on to your website before they switch tabs.
The idea behind is,
Your website visitor has already decided to leave your website. So, why not give him/her something enticing that has every chance to make them stay back? Maybe even make a conversion and the potential visitor becomes your next paid customer?
Which takes us to the next question,
Do Exit Intent Popups Work?
Most websites these days shell out huge money, design complex algorithms and retarget their audience.
But they have been failing to realize one simple thing. An exit-intent popup that’s all pepped up and optimized could do this job single-handed.
And to answer the question above, yes! Exit intent popups do work.
Here’s what stats say,
“Whilst normal popups have a low conversion rate of 3%, Exit Intent Popups have a huge conversion rate of 53%”
Your business could get the same or similar conversion rates too. But only when your exit-intent popups are powerful, perfectly timed, unobtrusive and appealing (all at the same time)!
Bonus Tip: Exit Intent popups can help decrease your website’s bounce rate.
And speaking of creating powerful exit intent popups, here are 10 exit intent popup hacks that could help you achieve the same!
10 Exit Popup Hacks to Grow Your Subscribers and Revenue
1. Minimalistic Design Always Wins
It’s true! The more minimal and clean your exit-intent popup is, the more are the chances of conversion. When your popup has a lot of stuff in it, chances are high that your visitor might get distracted (and sometimes even annoyed).
Think! Your visitor has already made an attempt to close your website due to some reason – could be inappropriate information, or they’ve not found what they want or could be any other thing.
So, it’s best that you try to keep it minimal and clean!Here, take a look at this exit intent popup that’s a fine example of minimalistic design,
No drum rolls nor caped superheroes!
The popup has a simple layout with minimal usage of colors, a clearly visible call-to-action button and as for the text in between, it’s just a template, so no texts (we’ll see about the text part later).
2. Be Precise & to the Point
This is no place for fiction stories!
As said before, exit intent popups are your last desperate attempt to make your visitors stay on to your website. And you’ve got with you only a fraction of seconds before your visitor decides “enough is enough” and leaves your website.
So, make sure that your exit-intent popup conveys only the message it needs to convey and nothing more than that.
Here, take a look at this example…
This exit intent popup says nothing but he/she is about to get a dining voucher worth $50 provided they subscribe. There are no other distractions factors here – the message is clear & concise, just the way it should be.
3. Ask Your Audience to Wait
Wait – A very powerful word you should be using in your popups once in a while. On a survey, it was found that exit intent popups that have the word “Wait” seemed to have more conversion rates than other popups that did not have them.
Here’s an exit-intent popup that shows how it should be done…
As said, this popup has used the magic word and has even gone the extra mile and asks its audience to “Wait a Second!”
This sure will have an effect on the visitor and will make them think “Okay, let’s wait for a second and see what they have to say”.
Then comes the 15% exclusive discount offer followed by a discount coupon for the same which makes sure that visitors reconsider their decision of leaving the website.
Smart!
4. Your Call-to-Actions Should Leave them With No Choice
All your worked out efforts mean nothing if you fail to do your best here!
Call-to-action buttons are simply the most important thing in your exit intent popup. Even if you’ve convinced your about to exit audience with your appealing designs and offers, a clumsy call-to-action button could disrupt the user experience within the blink of an eye.
That’s abandonment again!
So, as said before, your call-to-action button shouldn’t be giving your visitors much of a choice. And here’s a popup that has worked out this hack well
Take a look at the call-to-action buttons here.
1. Gimme the Free eBOOK
2. I Reject the Free eBOOk
The first button (the one that should be clicked) is bright green in color and the text is quite captivating. Not to mention that the word “Free eBook” has been highlighted,
Whereas the other button has a grayscale color and says “I Reject the Free ebook”.
Now, who would really want to reject a free eBook that teaches them to get 5000 subscribers? No one would (maybe a very few)!
The popup is convincing and gets into the minds of the audience. So, people eventually end up hitting the first button because they aren’t left with much of a choice here (you should be making use of this in the next exit intent popup you create).
5. Offer Your Audience With an Incentive
This works most of the time. And works even better when offered along with an exit intent popup. This gives your audience a solid reason to stay back on to your website and makes them feel special.
Let’s look at an example here,
The popup appeared in a blog that covers the basics of conversions. Just when an audience is about to leave their website, a popup like this appears offering an incentive in the form of a content upgrade.
The incentive is actually a sequel of what the user has been reading. So, the audience who have read the blog post will most likely enter their email id to get this particular ebook.
Makes sense doesn’t it?
6. Don’t Expose the Close Button
Wierd! But it works!
Most of your website visitors, when they get to see a popup immediately hover for the top right corner searching for the close button. They are least worried about what you want to convey.
What if you could change this by not keeping the close button there and instead, you keep something more? Something better?
Take a look at this popup!
When a visitor tends to close this popup, he/she doesn’t find a button to do so!
Instead, they see the phrase “Wait – Don’t Leave Empty Handed!” (remember the 3rd hack?).
Now he/she has no other way but to skim the entire popup. And if the audience is serious about entrepreneurship or has an idea to start it at some point in their life, there’s definitely going to be conversions (so much for hiding the close button)!
7. Make it Color-Full
You might have read blog posts saying too much of colors is not good for you popup. But there’s something you’ve got to understand – it totally depends on your business.
Suppose you run an online fashion store or you are the leader of a popular rock band, black and white won’t do the job. You should have colors like this popup here,
This exit intent popup has pink, yellow, orange and other beautiful colors which gives it the pepped up look and is definitely attention-grabbing.
So, make use of colors whenever necessary because there’s a lot of things that a few combinations of colors could do!
8. Hear From Your Audience
Most of the website audience love when they are being heard and asked from. And they immediately share what’s on their mind.
The same applies here too. The moment when a visitor is about to leave your webpage, you can be super diplomatic, ask them to wait for a moment and know what made them leave. Like this exit intent popup here!
You are actually getting two things done here.
- You are getting to know why your visitor has left your website which gives a chance for you to make sure that the same doesn’t happen next time.
- And in doing so, you get your visitor’s email-id. (you could knock their inbox later and let them know that the issue has been fixed – but don’t spam).
That’s a win-win situation. You get what you need the most (email address) and you also get build the trust factor with your audience.
9. Tick Tock a Timer
A countdown timer on your exit intent popup would boost your conversion rates to a great extent especially when combined with a special discount. FOMO is what does the job here.
Creating scarcity or putting out special discounts for a particular product works out always because people are always too reluctant to let go off special offers and discounts.
Here’s an example of one such exit intent popup
This popup here is clear with its purpose – a flat 10% off provided he/she completes the order in the next fifteen minutes.
On a survey, 78 out of 100 people stated that count down timers are one reason why they’ve checked out most of the time!
Should be working out for you as well!
10. Free Shipping
And at last, the one exit intent popup hack that has never failed to drive conversions. Shipping charges are one important reason why most people abandon their shopping cart and never look back again.
In fact, by offering free shipping, online stores on an average was able to recover 74% of the abandoned carts!
Here take a look at this example,
This site has nailed it!
When there’s a cart abandonment about to happen, there comes an exit intent popup offering free shipping to the user and a call to action button that intimates the visitor to continue shopping!
Doesn’t need much more explanation. Does it?
The Bottomline
Though you would find a lot more exit intent popup hacks, mentioned above are the top 10 popup hacks that would help improve your conversion rates.
Making use of Exit Intent Popup is a powerful proven way of increasing your conversion rates and growing your email list. And as mentioned before, most of the businesses either fail to use them or kind of overuse them.
It’s you who should find the balance between every single factor and create a popup that’s compelling, appealing and totally not spammy at all!
If you haven’t chosen your WordPress popup plugin yet, here’s a list of the best WordPress Popup Plugins that could help you!
Cheers!
