Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Exit Intent Popups

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Exit Intent Popups … but Too Afraid To Ask.

In this post, we’re going to share everything we know about Exit Intent popups. Think of it as your complete knowledge transfer guide to Exit Intent popups from the experts!

We’ll cover why Exit Intent popups are a big deal, what you can do with them, what Google thinks about them, and best practices to follow.

What’s the big deal with Exit Intent popups?

Check this scenario: someone’s about to leave your site. They’ve browsed, maybe even added something to their cart, but poof, they’re gone. Frustrating, right? You’ve put in the work to get them there, and now they’re slipping away.

What if you could catch them before they go? That’s where exit-intent popups come in. Think of them as a friendly “Wait, don’t go!” nudge. You’re not being pushy, just offering one last chance to connect.

Here’s the high-level flow.

---
config:
  layout: fixed
---
flowchart TD
    Visitor["Browsing Website"] --> ExitCheck{"Attempting to Exit?"}
    ExitCheck -- Yes --> PopupShown["Show Exit-Intent Popup with Offer"]
    ExitCheck -- No --> Continue["Continue Browsing"]

This guide walks you through what Exit Intent popups do and how they work. We’ll cover our favorite scenarios for when to show Exit Intent popups, along with some best practices.

Ready to learn everything we know about Exit Intent popups? Let’s dive in!

What can Exit Intent Popups do anyway?

A smart Exit Intent popup should display just before it “senses” someone is about to leave your post or page.

And how would a popup “sense” someone is about to leave? Here are 5 signals your Exit Intent popup should watch to figure out when to display.

1. Mouse Leave Detection on Desktop

On desktop computers, clear exit-intent signals are when someone moves their mouse toward the browser’s close button or address bar. If your popup sees those about to happen, it can display just before they do.

Sensitivity and False Positive Controls

With advanced popup tools, you can fine-tune how sensitive your mouse-leave detection should be (e.g., from 1-50 pixels from the top).

Not to mention, having support for a smart delay helps avoid false alarms. Remember, we want to provide a service such as a gentle nudge and not be a nag.

Above: Popup Maker’s Mouse Leave Options

2. Lost Browser Focus on Desktop and Mobile

• Works on both desktop and mobile
• Triggers when someone switches tabs or clicks outside your page
• Great for catching distracted visitors

3. Back Button Detection on Desktop and Mobile

Use this to get people’s attention when they click the back button on all devices.

Above: Popup Maker’s Back Button detection and Continue on close feature in action on a phone

Continue on Close

It’s icing on the cake if you have a setting that lets them continue back after closing the popup!

Popup Maker Exit Intent popups have got you covered right out of the box.

Above: Popup Maker’s Exit Intent Back Button Continue on close setting

4. Link Click Detection on Desktop and Mobile

Link click detection works on the principles used in optimization tools like Google Quicklink or instant.page technology. Before you can click on a link, you hover over it. Popup Maker detects that someone is about to click a link, so you can launch a popup just before they do.

Companies and universities tell their staff and students to hover long enough to see where the URL goes as a security practice. We can also extrapolate (fancy term for extend) the findings from NN/g that say, “after the mouse cursor paused movement and remained in the target area for around 0.3–0.5 seconds, at which time the hidden content can safely be animated onto the page”. This means when someone hovers between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds, they are interested enough to click.

Use these 2 tips facts to help you decide how long to wait before showing your popup when someone hovers over a link.

Choose Which Kind of Links to Target

You’ll need to decide which links to target.

• External: Links that go to a different site.
• Internal: Links that open another post or page on your site. This includes “anchor” style or “hash” (#) links that jump to a specific section of content.
• All: External and Internal links.

Custom Link Targeting

You might feel that targeting all external links, all internal links, or both is over the top (greedy method). If so, your popup tool should have a way to let you “cherry-pick” (be selective) which links trigger your Exit Intent popup.

For example, Popup Maker lets you use the power of CSS selectors to be more “mindful” of what links (when hovered) will show a popup. In our humble opinion (IMHO), that gives you the ultimate control on when to give your visitors that “nudge” (as opposed to the spray with a firehose approach).

Above: Popup Maker’s Link Click Custom Option

5. Scroll Detection on Mobile

Here’s an experiment for you. Try counting the number of times you do the following the next time you’re on your smartphone.

• You pull up a website in your browser.
• You slowly scroll down a bit, and you realize it’s not your cup of tea.
• You scroll back to the top as fast as you can to close the tab or enter a search.

We bet you do this a lot. You’re not alone. In fact, that’s the behavior Scroll Detection on Mobile watches for. When it sees that happening, it’ll display your Exit Intent popup in the nick of time.

Of course, you should be able to fine-tune how much of the page your website visitors do a quick scroll up to find the sweet spot for your popup to show.

Above: Popup Maker’s Mobile scroll up percentage option

Our Top Picks for When To Use Exit Intent Popups

The mantra here is, “Om, be intelligent with your popups, om …” For example, here’s something I wrote for LifterLMS.

Before rushing to crank out popups on your site, you need to understand that the way marketers use popups has evolved. Old-school (in your face) popups that ask you to “join the list” before you have a chance to read anything have lost their luster.
For example, OptiMonk’s highest-performing popups were cart abandonment popups, with an average conversion rate of 17.12%. We’ll see later how specialized and helpful these types of popups are.

Popup Maker’s guest post on LifterLMS

With that in mind, here are our top picks for when to use Exit Intent popups.

• Abandoned carts: It should be no surprise why we’re listing this first. Abandoned cart popups are a win-win. Your customer gets a wonderful nudge (maybe with an added discount) that they’re about to lose the items they spent effort on to put them into their cart. You help your customers and increase your conversions.
• New subscribers: Suggesting your blog readers opt into your email list to get blog updates on topics they’re interested in is an excellent opportunity to “know” your customers. Meaning you can segment your readers according to what type of post they’re reading when they opt in. That’s because you’ll know the exact post they are on when they sign up (you’ll know the category and tags for that post too).
• Super discount offers: Just like you know when someone is about to leave a specific blog post, you can offer a last-minute super deal before they leave your specific product page. When we say “super”, it’s gotta be a deal they can’t refuse. These are special people who spent time on your site. Give them a special deal. And this is another golden opportunity to refine your customer and subscriber segmentation.
• Cross-selling products: This is one of our personal favorites for e-commerce sites. Use this tactic in combination with our WooCommerce Pro extension so you only show your exit popup when there’s nothing in the cart or highlight products that go hand in hand with what’s already in the cart.
• Freebies: Here’s where your imagination can run wild. There are way too many examples out there. Where do you start? Well, here are a couple. If your reader is just about to leave your new recipe post for banana bread, pop up a free PDF of the entire recipe for them to download for easy reference. If your visitor is leaving a listicle comparing product features, offer a free download that summarizes pluses and minuses in a table for quick look-ups.

Interested in engaging your customers with related products? Watch our How To Make a Popup Maker Cross-Sell Popup Using WooCommerce Related Products tutorial.

What Does Google Think About Exit Intent Popups?

It’s easier if we know what Google will penalize you for. You’ll get dinged, i.e., negatively ranked, by Google Search if a full-page popup (what Google calls an interstitial) that blocks content is the first thing visitors see on your site.

According to John Mueller, as long as the interstitial is not the first thing a person sees, then that should be fine.

Roger Montti from the Search Engine Journal

Translation: don’t block your content with a popup when a visitor lands on your website. Google’s philosophy fits perfectly with what we said earlier about how using popups has evolved.

Well, that’s perfect. This whole article is about Exit Intent popups, which are the opposite of what Google hates. That means our Exit Intent popups are in the clear with Google and probably other search engines!

Best Practices and Tips for Exit Intent Popups

• Do A/B testing: Before you go full-on with Exit Intent popups, do what the pros do. Do A/B testing, also known as split testing. First, keep track of your conversions for a set amount of time for a specific scenario (e.g., when someone adds a product to their cart). Then, “inject” into that same scenario an Exit Intent popup. Track your conversions for the same length of time and compare your results. If your conversions improve, experiment with 2-3 versions of your Exit Intent popup (split testing) to find out which one works the best.
• Practice KISS: Remember when you learned the KISS principle in school? Yep, KISS applies to popups in general, but especially so for Exit Intent popups. Remember, your target audience is visitors who are just about to leave your site. Make it easy for them to read your offer. If you’ve got a popup with so much text that your popup needs a scrollbar, or if your image is so huge it obscures your message and makes your page load slowly, then it’s time to trim the excess (cut out what doesn’t serve). Use concise sentences with simple words. Don’t be wordy, and avoid jargon. Make sure you state the most important point clearly and right up front. Don’t bury the most important takeaway at the end. Use buttons for your call-to-actions (CTAs) instead of plain links.
• Use link detection wisely: Link detection is super powerful, but use it responsibly. We think using custom link targeting (CSS selectors) is the best way to go rather than targeting all external, internal, or both. This is especially true if your site has a ton of external links.
• Always set a cookie: Don’t annoy your visitors by showing them the same popup over and over. Make sure you always set a cookie once your exit popup displays. Cookies are how popups remember if they’ve already been displayed to someone. Your popup will show only if it doesn’t see that cookie. You definitely don’t want to disrespect your potential customers by “spamming” them with the same exit popup over and over. Worse yet, you totally never want to show the same exit popup to a person who actually engaged with that popup the first time.

Want to know the best part about Popup Maker’s Exit Intent Popups extension?
There’s absolutely no coding involved. The Popup Maker team built all of these features to get you up and running on day 1. Not only does the team build the features, they continuously maintain, test, support, and improve the Exit Intent Popups extension.

How Will Artificial Intelligence Change Exit Intent Popups?

We’re obviously a little biased, but we think it’s pretty clear artificial intelligence (AI) will give us more tailored and even more seamless exit popups. Why? Because AI is becoming more and more context-aware. Heck, AI’s capability to look at your behavior and predict what you’ll like or do next is mind-blowing. We already use more context-aware AI to write our code and documentation.

So what does all that mean? If you remember, we said that the less “in your face” your exit popup is, the better. Well, that’s the beauty of AI. AI is already learning about our products and customers. AI will make exit popups more relevant to what your visitors are seeing and doing on your site. The next generation of exit popups will feel like a natural (and helpful) part of your visitor’s experience with your website rather than some annoying ad.

That means AI will increase the probability your customers (and future customers) will appreciate seeing an exit popup when it solves their problem or gives them a deal they can’t refuse.

Are you ready for more?

If you learned something new from this post, sign up for our newsletter to get alerted when we publish our upcoming Exit Intent Popups: 5 Strategies to Convert Leaving Visitors article.

This article’s featured image comes from Amina Filkins on Pexels.