The world of online shopping is plagued by the frequent practice of “visitor abandonment,” which occurs when visitors arrive at your site, browse for a bit, but ultimately navigate away without purchasing anything.

1. Can Exit Intent Technology Really
Increase Your Conversion Rates?
ConversionFanatics.com

2. For anyone who owns or operates an ecommerce site, the crux of your success lies in increasing
conversion rates. Finding and implementing strategies to convert more visitors into customers
helps you get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of your traffic-driving expenditures.
Basically, improving conversion rates yields higher ROIs.
Unfortunately, however, the world of online shopping is plagued by the frequent
practice of “visitor abandonment,” which occurs when visitors arrive at your site, browse
for a bit—perhaps even adding a few items to their shopping carts—but ultimately
navigate away without purchasing anything.

3. According to the Baymard Institute, an average of 68% of visitors leaves ecommerce
sites right before the checkout page, which is a pretty glum statistic.
But don’t feel too disheartened. By using Exit Intent, “one of the most powerful
technologies for today’s ecommerce,” you can improve your site’s conversion rates by
up to 10%. Plus, as the cherry, nuts, and whipped cream on top of this delicious
conversion sundae, Exit Intent technology is inexpensive, easy to set up, and the results
are almost immediate.

4. What Is Exit Intent Technology And
How Does It Work?
Exit Intent technology provides your visitors with a final message or incentive to convert
just as they are about to back away from your site, switch to another open tab, or close
the active window. Perhaps your fleeing visitors intend to return at a later date, but
maybe they’re gone for good—there’s no way to know.
But Exit Intent technology gives you another opportunity to work your conversion magic
and turn those visitors into customers right then and there.

5. According to Beeketing.com, “Exit Intent technology aims to:
• Detect when the customer is about to leave,
• Briefly interrupt his [or her] intention to exit with an attractive popup window and
guide him [or her] towards a strong call-to-action such as ‘Get Discount’ or
‘Subscribe.’
It works based on an advanced predictive algorithm, which detects visitors’ activity,
through mouse movements and velocity, and hook them back to your store in time.”

6. Wait, Doesn’t Everyone Hate Popups?
Sure, no one likes being bombarded with popups when they’re visiting a web page. You
might not even know what the site is about yet when you’re flooded with messages like
the one below:
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7. And while Exit Intent Technology operates in a strikingly similar fashion to exit popups,
which were popularized in the early 2000s, the term “popup” is no longer totally
accurate. “The strategy now relies on lightbox triggers or page overlays, so nothing is
technically popping up,” explains Emily Brown of MaxTraffic. “They’re also far less
annoying than in the past, and no longer considered to be below-the-waist marketing
tools.”
Plus, there’s the undeniably fact that they work. The folks at WP Beginner, a beginner’s
guide to WordPress, started using Exit Intent popups—or overlays, to be more precise—
on single posts and they achieved a 600% increase in signups!
And they’re not the only ones achieving high success rates. Tons of case studies exist
like the one above, touting the effectiveness of Exit Intent technology.

8. How Exit Intent Technology Can
Improve Your Conversion Rates
More and more ecommerce sites are turning to Exit Intent technology to convert visitors
into customers. Catalin Zorzini reports that “30% of the Top 1,000 US ecommerce sites
use popups—22% are using entry popups, 14% are using exit popups, [and] 6% are
using both!”
And if you haven’t yet begun using Exit Intent technology on your website, you may be
missing out on opportunities to convert a greater percentage of your site’s visitors.
Remember, 68% of your visitors leave without making a purchase. That’s a pretty
sizeable amount of potential conversions being left on the table.
That said, here are 5 ways that Exit Intent technology can improve your conversion rates,
sales numbers, and total revenue:

9. You Get A Conversion Do-Over
When your Exit Intent technology engages, it means someone is trying to leave your
site. In other words, your first attempt at a conversion has failed. But with Exit Intent
technology in place you get one more opportunity to get in there and convince that
visitor to stay.
Csaba Zajdo: “You can approach this second chance in a few
different ways:
• Reinforce your original sales message and call to action
• Change to a different message or offer
• Capture contact information

10. If you choose the first approach, you can restate your original message in different
terms. Hopefully, by explaining your offer in a different way, you can convince your
visitors to rethink their decision to leave.
Using the second approach, you change the message entirely. The thinking here is that
the original method failed to convert this visitor, so a different approach might work. For
example, if your original message focused on price, your ‘second-chance message’
might focus on the benefits of the product.
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The third approach is often the most effective. By capturing your visitors’ email address
or other contact information, you now have the opportunity to market to your visitor
over the long-term at little or no cost.”

11. You Can Disrupt a Pattern
Going through the motions of browsing for products and services online, your visitors’
brains are lulled into a familiar rhythm. But when something unexpected happens, such
as an Exit Intent overlay appearing, that pattern is broken through a persuasive
technique called “pattern interrupt.”

12. Jeremy Wallace: “Pattern interrupt is a neuro-linguistic
programming (NLP) technique that has been used by salespeople
for many years.
The concept is straightforward: do or say something unexpected
that disrupts a prospect from their normal pattern.
On a traditional cold call, pattern interrupt is used to divert prospects away from the
normal path of 1) answering the phone, 2) realizing they’re dealing with a salesperson,
and 3) throwing up a defense to get off the phone as soon as possible.
To interrupt the prospect’s expected pattern, the salesperson may say something
unexpected, such as ‘On a scale of 1-10, how much do you love being called by a
salesperson?’
Exit overlays are driving by a similar logic. Unexpectedly, they make an offer that
sweetens the pot, and convince the user to think twice about their predictable path
towards the ‘Back’ button.
In both examples, the salesperson and the marketers have bought themselves a few
extra valuable seconds in which they can engage the prospect.”

13. According to Ott Niggulis’ report on ConversionXL, Exit Intent popups are “particularly
effective when the ‘interruption’ proposes to solve the problem that the reader has been
tuned into, or programmed to expect given the nature of the service.”

14. You Counteract Analysis Paralysis And The
Paradox Of Choice
Closely related to one another, analysis paralysis and the paradox of choice are two of
the primary factors that impede on the performance of ecommerce websites.
Visitors experience analysis paralysis when they perceive decisions, even simple ones, to
be overwhelmingly complicated or difficult. “Analysis paralysis can also make consumers
feel pressured to make the perfect decision, and they often experience a deep fear of
making the wrong decision,” says Jeremy Wallace.

15. Similarly, consumers who face an overload of options when making a purchasing
decision can experience anxiety and stress owing to the paradox of choice, which
explains why more is sometimes less.
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Consequently, when consumers experience analysis paralysis or the paradox of choice,
they either freeze in their tracks or throw their hands up in the air and abandon the
shopping process altogether, neither of which is good for business.
Exit Intent strategies can counteract both of these things, however, as they can simplify
the decisions a consumer has to make and significantly decrease the amount of analysis
that’s needed.

16. Emily Brown: “Another psychological reason for why Exit Intent
works is that the ability to make informed decisions gradually
wears down, hitting rock bottom by the time the user has
decided to navigate away from the page.
If you sneak in a compelling offer right at this point, you’ll take
the visitor by surprise just when they’ve let their guard down.”

17. You Can Build A Stronger Email List
An email marketing campaign is one of the most effective strategies marketers have at
their disposal. Visitors giving you the thumbs up to email them presents you with
enormous potential in terms of heralding your unique value proposition and increasing
your conversion rates over the long-run.
Data indicates that an Exit Intent popup asking for a visitor’s email address can “achieve
signup rates of between three and five percent.” And that rate goes up even more if you
offer a freebie, such as a coupon, eBook, special report, or other type of incentive.

18. Zoe of Beeketing: “A strong list of customers who are interested enough to give you
their emails is the most important asset to your business, as from this list, you can
develop cost-effective and customized email automation strategies.

19. So, why not kill two birds with one stone, by running an Exit Intent popup on your store
which asks customers to leave their email so they can receive updates [on] your amazing
offers, like this:
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You will get them back [on] your site, and turn one more visitor into [a] potential paying
customer. Now, you can move on to sending emails that are tailored to their
preference and chances are they will buy your products.”

20. You Can Pitch Other Products Or Offer A
Freebie
Whenever visitors leave your site, there is the possibility that they’ll return later on.
Perhaps they had to take a phone call or run an errand or maybe they were binge-
watching House of Cards and they had to step away to focus on a pivotal scene. More
often than not, however, when visitors leave your site it’s because they haven’t found
what they were looking for or your initial offer failed to entice.
Therefore, instead of simply bidding adieu to your fleeing visitors, you can use Exit
Intent technology to redirect them to other products, services, or content they may be
interested in.

21. Csaba Zajdo: “’Oh, I see you are leaving,’ your popup can say. ‘If
this topic doesn’t stir your Kool Aid, perhaps you’d like to learn
more about THIS…’
Then you can suggest one or more alternative subjects or
products. This is a fantastic way to keep visitors on your site and
increase your chances of converting them later.”
Using an Exit Intent overlay to offer your visitors a free trial or report to learn more can
be an especially useful tactic if your offer is quirky or a bit avant-garde. In these cases,
those visitors who are curious but skeptical will be able to ease into what you have to
offer and then hopefully realize the full value and turn into loyal, paying customers.

22. How XeroShoes Converts Hesitant Visitors Into
Paying Customers
So far, we’ve covered what Exit Intent technology is and how it can help increase your
conversion rates by reducing the amount of visitor abandonment on your site. Now, let’s
take a look at an unconventional shoe company that’s using Exit Intent technology to
convince visitors to take a walk on the wild side.
Marie Dean of ConversionLifters: “XeroShoes was founded in 2009 by Steven Sashen
and Lena Phoenix. Steven had experienced a series of injuries after revisiting his
longtime passion for running. Subsequently, a friend suggested that he become familiar
with the benefits of barefoot running.

23. And the XeroShoes line of barefootware was born.
Steven knew this wasn’t a concept that would be easy to sell to everyone and took this
into account in his overall website design and strategy. When it was detected that
visitors were just about to abandon his site, they were presented with a free research
report that detailed the benefits of being barefoot.
Image Source
In Steven’s final attempt to re-engage and convince any skeptical visitors, this last-
second offer prompted 2.5% of abandoning visitors to accept the barefoot
benefits report. And, out of those who opted to receive it, 28.4% went on to make a
purchase.”

24. The Top Exit Intent Tools For Ecommerce
According to Angus Lynch of Unbounce, there are two components you need to
consider when selecting an Exit Intent tool:
Angus Lynch: “1. Targeting – Does the tool allow you to target
specific users and specific pages. For example, does it allow you
to target only people who have previously abandoned a cart on
your checkout pages?
2. App Functionality – Does the tool offer an app that gives
you a dashboard for monitoring your results, and for
updating/altering your exit overlay whenever you like?”
With those two factors in mind, let’s weigh in with a few industry experts to see which
Exit Intent platforms they recommend:

25. OptinMonster
Catalin Zorzini: “OptinMonster is a premium lead generation app
that allows you to quickly and easily [build] opt-in forms, perform
A/B testing, and track your opt-in analytics.
The plugin is focused heavily on pop-up opt-in forms, with lots of
available customization options for you to create professional-
looking and high-converting lightbox forms.
Because the app tracks mouse movements to determine ‘exit-intent,’ popups will only
appear when your visitor is about to leave your site, so you don’t have to worry about
interrupting visitors when they’re still browsing the page.
Using the app, you can [build] not only pop-up forms, but opt-in forms in sidebars, after
posts, footers, etc.
It makes it easy to create a professional-looking opt-in form in just a few minutes, plus it
allows you to optimize your conversion rates with built-in analytics and easy A/B split
testing.
OptinMonster key features:
• Create a professional opt-in form within 60 seconds
• Target specific users, categories, or pages
• Increase your subscriber growth by up to 600%
• A/B test options.”

26. You can use OptinMonster with any type of website, including WordPress and Shopify,
and it comes with three pricing options: Basic, which costs just $9/month; Plus, which
costs $19/month; and you can get Pro for $29/month (get 40% off all three plan options
when you choose the annual payment method).

27. OptiMonk
Krisztina Heréb: “OptiMonk is an extremely customizable Exit Intent software that lets
you interact with visitors during the very instant they try to navigate away from your site.
Why should you try it?
1. It won’t bust your budget. OptiMonk is very reasonably priced…and it lets you
create world-class quality campaigns like this quite recent one [from] Digital
Marketer:

28. 2. It is extremely easy to use. You need not field an entire IT team to get it
working; anyone with any online experience can have it up and running within a
matter of minutes. Here is a screenshot of the administration panel:
3. It is customizable. [OptiMonk offers] a set of templates to let you change the
look and content quickly, and modification is as easy as editing a text document
or slideshow file. Not only that, but you can adjust the timing, so you have
complete control over when your message appears.
4. You can use A/B tests…You can A/B test your message on the fly, without
creating a whole series of landing pages. You can also access real time analytics
to see which messages work best.
5. It’s not just a simple exit popup. You can also monitor your visitors’
engagement and act on it. For example, you can show your message after
someone has stayed on the same page for 30 seconds. This may indicate they
have a question.

29. 6. Last but not least: it’s constantly developing. Just to mention some of the
greatest features released in the last couple of months:
• The nanobar lets you [add] a sticky notification bar to your site that stays on the
top or even bottom of your site, and is a constant reminder for your visitors to
take action,
• Geo targeting allows you to promote a special, ‘country-specific’ offer to your
abandoning visitors, or to display an entry popup to your customers to inform
them that you are actually shipping to their country,
• Dynamic text replacement lets you alter the text in your popup based on any
variable you wish. This way, you can display highly targeted messages to
individual visitors using only one popup.”
Pay either monthly or annually with OptiMonk and choose from four pricing options:
The Basic plan costs $29/month or $290/year; the Business plan costs $79/month or
$790/year; the Professional plan costs $159/month or $1,590/year; and you can ask for a
quote for the Enterprise plan.

30. MaxTraffic
Emily Brown: “This platform tracks mouse movement and velocity and determines
visitors’ intention to leave. Within a millisecond, it can display a targeted offer to a
visitor. The platform provides more than 20 on-site targeting options, such as targeting
by countries, an amount of page views, time on a website, and much more.
Moreover, this platform provides not only Exit Intent based popups, but it’s appreciated
for BounceBack scenario—[an] algorithm that makes [it] possible to interact with
customers that came from a search engine and leave by clicking the ‘Back’ button.
Therefore, with BounceBack scenario MaxTraffic can also target abandon[ment] with
mobile devices.
The average results of MaxTraffic popup campaigns are impressive too. The
platform helps to increase sales by up to 15%; it can double newsletter
[subscription] rates, and increase follower counts on social media.

31. Speaking of platform installation:
• 2-minute installation – insert JavaScript codes for visitor and conversion tracking
into a website and you are ready to create the first campaign
• It works with all e-commerce platforms and even has a special integration with
Shopify
• Several pricing plans allow [you] to choose the most appropriate solution for
your website.”
Try MaxTraffic for free during a 14-day unlimited trial. Then, choose from the following
subscription options: Basic for $139/month; Standard for $349/month; Pro for
$699/month; or Enterprise (ask for a quote).

32. What About Conversion Fanatics, What Platforms
Does It Use?
Andres Lucero: “There are a few paid solutions we’ve used, including Upsellit.com and
TeamSalesAgent.com. Depending on the offer, you can recover 10%-20% of abandoned
desktop users with these popups and those companies will split-test the design/copy for
you to see what works best for your traffic.
We also like to use Ouibounce, which is a free Javascript library that allows you to
display your own Exit Intent popup. You have more control over the design and
implementation, but it takes a little more development time, and you have to split-test
the design/copy yourself.”

33. There is one pitfall to all of these platforms, however, and that’s their limitation when it
comes to mobile usage. Andres Lucero weighs in again:
“The biggest catch for all of these [platforms] is that they can only be implemented for
desktop browsers, because the technology relies on detecting mouse movement; there’s
no equivalent action on mobile.
An alternative for mobile browsers is to display the popup after a certain amount of
time has elapsed on the page. Google Analytics will tell you the average time [spent on
a] page for mobile visitors, and you can use that number to gauge how long you should
wait before displaying the popup.”

34. Conclusion
Conversion rate optimization encompasses a wide array of factors and there are tons of
techniques for you to try, and while Exit Intent technology won’t get you perfect results
—nothing will—it has been proven time and again to positively impact your conversion
rates.
Exit intent technology has its limitations, of course, but it also can afford a number of
advantages, such as boiling down the decision-making process, appealing to your
visitors’ most basic psychological instincts, and getting one last-ditch chance to score
the conversions you’re aiming for.
With a variety of effective platforms to choose from, Exit Intent technology is an
excellent strategy to incorporate and split-test in order to give your website the
conversion boost it needs.