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While most pop-up banners have largely disappeared in the modern web experience, exit intent banners persist – and are smarter than ever. In this post, we’re digging into the technology, how it can help (and hurt) your strategy, and how to implement it on your website.
Remember pop-ups? Of course, you do, you probably encounter them every day online in the form of cookie consent managers.
However, a decade ago, they were far more prevalent and used without strategy and restraint. They were all over the internet, and even on the most credible sites, you’d find yourself bombarded with them. Many were obnoxious, using animation, flashing graphics, sound, and countless other methods to assault the senses.
As browsers and users alike began to agree on the problems and annoyance they caused, they started to go away. With one significant exception, the exit intent banner.
This type of pop-up still exists and when used in the right way, it still has significant marketing potential. Used wrongly though, it can cause lost conversions and credibility.
In other words, it’s a tight rope to walk. That’s why today, we’re diving deep into the concept of exit pop-ups. What they are, what they’re best used for, and how you can add them to your website in a way that actually helps you achieve your marketing goals.
As their name suggests, exit intent banners are pop-ups that appear when a visit is about to leave a page. They’re usually triggered by mouse movement, when the cursor moves away from the “active” website area.
Think of it as the website equivalent of a check-out aisle in a brick-and-mortar store. It’s a last-ditch attempt to convince users who would otherwise leave the page that they should leave their contact information, check out their cart, or take another action that benefits the business.
Exit intent banners or overlays have existed for a while. Over the past few years though, they’ve become significantly more beneficial, due to refinement and increased customisation possibilities.
It’s no longer just a banner that pops up when someone gets close to that X in the browser corner. Today’s exit overlays are smart, with far-reaching personalisation opportunities. For instance, businesses can:
Of course, many of these advantages depend on the tools used to build exit intent banners into your website strategy. Look for an overview of some of the most popular and beneficial tools below.
We’ve already hinted at it. So let’s get specific. Exit intent banners can work in a wide range of scenarios. From minimising bounce rates to improving conversions and even reducing shopping cart abandonment.
Your visitors may want to leave your website for a wide range of reasons. Doing so after viewing just a single page, of course, tends to be a significant red flag.
Fortunately, intent to leave is not the same thing as actually leaving. Exit intent banners on pages with high bounce rates can prompt your visitors to reconsider. For instance, you can offer and highlight targeted content based on the pages your visitors leave, and even the keywords they used to arrive at your page.
This strategy consistently works. In one case study, bounce rates decreased by more than 50% with the simple implementation of a high-information exit banner.
It’s not just about providing additional information. Ideally, you want your audience to provide their information to you for more targeted lead nurturing and follow-up.
Again, exit intent banners can help. According to Campaign Monitor, simply asking for an email address can encourage 4% to 7% of your audience to sign up. And while the typical website conversion rate hovers right around 3%, a well-designed intent banner can drive that number upwards of 10%.
Well-designed is the key term here. To be successful, forms in exit banners have to be simple, straightforward, and most importantly, relevant to the page and content your users were viewing. All the other CTA best practices apply as well. But when you get it right, exit intent pop-ups can turn into a powerful conversion tool.
Finally, for e-commerce merchants, exit banners may just hold the key to a ubiquitous problem. On average, online shopping cart abandonment rates can hover at and over 75%. That’s three quarters of almost-ready to buy visitors, just dropping off. Even reducing that number a little can have a major revenue impact.
Shopping cart exit banners typically take the form of a discount offer, designed to prompt abandoners to reconsider their decision. With this strategy, one company reduced their abandonment rate by more than 50%.
Of course, it’s not all positive. As with any pop-up, it’s easy to overuse the technology. Before you know it, credibility is lost, shoppers don’t come back, and your competition benefits.
It’s important to keep in mind that, after all, this is still a potentially intrusive marketing tactic. Your visitors didn’t ask for the pop-up. That makes one piece of implementing exit intent banners more important than everything else:
Add real, relevant value for your exiting visitors.
Without that value, there is a serious risk of alienating your visitors. It’s also worth mentioning that more optimised pages tend to make exit banners less necessary; after all, fewer users will leave to begin with. That doesn’t make the technology completely obsolete but does increase the impetus for mindful and strategic implementation.
It starts with a strategy. A close analysis of your pages can uncover those with a high bounce rate, low conversion rates, etc. Based on that analysis along with its content, each page might call for a different action and CTA.
The actual build of an exit intent banner comes only after that analysis and consideration. That’s when it becomes crucial to find a tool for the build. Some of the most popular options include:
Of course, you might also benefit from a partner that helps you implement this potentially beneficial, but touchy tactic in your own strategy. That’s where we come in. Get in touch with us to learn more about exit intent banners, along with the guidance and expertise needed for successful implementation.
Exit intent banners have the potential to be a significant conversion driver. Their ability to reduce bounce rates, improve conversions, and reduce shopping cart abandonment rates make them especially powerful.
At the same time, there’s also a significant potential downfall when not implemented correctly. The right approach, tool, and partner can go a long way towards leveraging its benefits without falling prey to its pitfalls. That’s how exit intent banners become the one type of pop-up that can take your website to the next level.
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