With all of the effort that your business puts into attracting new traffic to your website, you need to do everything you can to prevent customers from leaving without engaging with your brand. An exit intent popup for your online store offers you a last chance opportunity to engage with visitors before they exit your site.
This pop-up with targeted messaging allows you to entice your visitors with a special offer or collect their contact information for later.
Here are 6 tips for creating an exit intent popup for your online store that’s sure to convert more customers:
Exit Intent PopUp Tip 1 – Create an Eye-catching Design.
The first thing that every effective exit pop up needs is an eye-catching design. A bold and clean pop-up design will catch the visitor’s while successfully showcasing your marketing message. Keep the design simple and use images that won’t detract the visitor’s attention from your messaging and offer.
In this example from Flywheel, a managed WordPress hosting platform, you can see how a clean and simple design can go a long way in grabbing the visitor’s attention:
Notice that the colors are eye-catching, but the design itself isn’t too busy. A simple question draws the reader in to learn more about the offer. Also, the site content in the background is faded so that all the visitor focuses on is the exit intent popup offer in front of them.
Exit Intent PopUp Tip 2 – Use Actionable Headlines.
In addition to a bold design, you’ll also need to create a headline that’s actionable and eye-catching. One way to do this is to acknowledge that the visitor is about to leave and present them with a simple way to stay engaged. Keep your headlines clear, short, and to the point.
Here’s a great example from McEvoy Ranch:
The headline is actionable and short. It acknowledges that the visitor is leaving and ties this messaging into the site’s branding. The offer is simple and sweet – an instant 10% off coupon. And taking advantage of the offer only involves an email address and one click of the mouse.
Exit Intent PopUp Tip 3 – Provide an Enticing Offer.
If you want visitors to continuing engaging with your brand in some way when they are about to leave, you really need to offer them something that makes them want to stay. This can include a discount, coupon, or special offer like free shipping or a free trial. You can also provide a valuable content offer that adds value for your specific audience.
When it comes to presenting your offer, try to make it as simple as possible for visitors to redeem. Here’s a great example of a free shipping offer from Gold by Glow:
All the visitor has to do is enter their email to redeem the offer. As a bonus, Gold by Glow now has the visitor’s email address for later communications.
Another great way to capture your audience’s attention is to entice them with a content offer. Here’s an example of what that might look like for a content offer:
Exit Intent PopUp Tip 4 – Include a Clear Call to Action.
Your call to action (CTA) is a vital part of the exit intent popup for your online store. If you want visitors to engage before they leave, you need to tell them what you want them to do next. Including a clear call to action in your exit intent popup content as well as a CTA button helps inspire visitors to take action before leaving.
In the example below from Tory Burch, the headline offers a clear CTA – Take 10% off first order. Then, the CTA button make it even clearer what the visitor needs to do next to take advantage of this offer. It leaves nothing to the imagination.
Exit Intent PopUp Tip 5 – Establish a Sense of Urgency.
Since your exit intent popup is a last chance effort to get visitors to engage, you’ll need to provide them with a sense of urgency so that they don’t delay. There are a few ways that you can establish a sense of urgency. One way is to use language like “don’t wait” or “act now” to inspire action.
You can also use scarcity to get visitors to act when they are about to abandon their cart. You might let them know how many of a certain item are left to encourage them to act quickly. Here’s an example from Kayak.com, a reservation site, that uses this scarcity tactic:
Another way to implement a sense of urgency is to set a deadline on the exit intent popup as shown in this example from SealSkin Covers where the discount code is valid only for 24 hours:
If you don’t want to include a timer, you can also just provide a deadline to encourage visitors to act now on your offer. Here’s a great example of this tactic from OptinMonster:
Consumers are afraid to miss out on great deals so providing some sense of urgency makes them think twice about abandoning your offer.
Exit Intent PopUp Tip 6 – Gently Guide Their Decision.
One creative way to improve conversions for the exit intent popup for your online store is to gently guide the visitor’s decision by using two different options. When you are offering two different options for the visitor, it’s important to make it very clear what the “right” choice is. One way you can do this is by making the option stand out through color choices like this example from Snack Nation:
The color of the “Get Sample Box” button stands out, while the “No thanks” button is grey and fades into the background.
Another tactic you can use when offering the visitor two options is to make sure that one of those options is clearly negative. You can do this by carefully choosing your words to imply that there is a negative involved with choosing the “wrong” option. Here’s a great example of Clarity using this tactic effectively:
The big green button lets visitors know what the right option is – downloading the free guide. While the phrase, “No thanks, I’d rather learn the hard way,” will make visitors think twice about turning down this free guide for startups.