How to create exit intent popups in WordPress

Displaying a pop-up when a visitor is about to exit, is usually referred to as an ‘exit intent’ popup. Exit intent popups may seem annoying, but they can be a very powerful tool for your website when done right.

The best part of an exit popup is, that you are not interfering with your visitor’s interaction with your website, since you only display it when the visitor is just about to leave.

Around 70% of users who abandon their cart will not return

Baymard Research

Why do you need exit intent popups?

You should use an exit popup to grab the visitor’s attention just when they are about to abandon your website. And get them to take action.

An exit intent popup can help you

• Reduce cart abandonment
• Generate leads and grow your email list
• Collect feedback and take corrective action
• Improve bounce rate

For example, you could get your visitors to –

• Subscribe to your newsletter
• Download a freebie (and give you permission to email them too)
• Buy your products at a special discount (preferably one that is not available elsewhere on your website)
• Share the reason for leaving, to help you improve

How to create exit intent popups in WordPress using OptinMonster

There are a lot of brilliantly designed plugins for WordPress pop ups, but OptinMonster is the one that’s most flexible with a whole lot of options. You can pretty much do everything you can think of with OptinMonster. If you find it too complex to handle, you can take advantage of their ‘Done For You’ bonus, wherein their team will set up your first campaign for you.

Preparation before you start building exit intent popups

Before you start creating exit popups, you need to decide what action you want your visitor to take just before she leaves your website.

For example,

• Do you want to offer a discount?
• Do you want them to sign up to your mailing list?
• Do you want to achieve both of the above by offering to send a coupon code via email if they sign up to your newsletter?
• Do you want to politely re-direct them to some other post (or special landing page) that you believe they might be interested in?
• Do you want to know why they added items to a cart and are choosing to abandon it?

Step 1. Create a popup or campaign as it is referred to by OptinMonster.

Step 2. You can choose a ready to use template or design one of your own from a blank canvas. OptinMonster has loads of templates to choose from, that you could customize. Colors, fonts, spacing, visual elements – all of it can be changed as you please.

Step 3. Decide what happens after they click your popup – there are a bunch of options to choose from – e.g. display a ‘success’ message or take them to a landing page.

Step 4. After you are done with designing the exit pop up, you will need to set up ‘Display Rules’

Step 5. If you want to gather mail ids, you will need to integrate it with your email marketing service like MailChimp, CampaignMonitor etc., so that they get added directly to your mailing list.

Step 6. Add the popup to your website

Again, here you can control the behaviour of the exit popup. You could even create copies of the popup and do A/B testing to see which version performs best.