???? Lessons learned from acquiring 90,000+ email subscribers with a high-converting exit intent popup ????
So, I’ve been doing digital marketing/growth hacking for quite a while now (going on 7 years), and here’s what I’ve learned so far to get those exit-intent popups to convert A LOT better:
1. Pair it with a 10-second timer (exit-intent logic is a bit fuzzy on mobile, so pairing it with a guaranteed timer works wonders).
2. Add a countdown timer (having a visible countdown timer increases conversions by a ton).
3. Experiment with adding humor (a little goes a long way… especially if it’s an in-joke amongst your target audience).
4. Add reassurance that their email is safe and won’t get spammed or sold (no one likes getting spammed after leaving their email).
5. Break the fourth wall (similar to the humor point above… a little goes a long way).
6. Experiment with Sans Serif fonts (removing the serif leads to better digital readability and higher conversions if it matches the aesthetic of the brand).
7. Change text on submit buttons to be in all lowercase (I was surprised at this one, but it might be because it’s a pattern interrupt).
8. Framing the value of the header as a question (leading with a question-based header seems to convert a lot better).
9. Adding a no option that makes them feel a bit guilty if they click it (this may fall under a “dark pattern” so I’d tread lightly with this one… but it does work!)
10. Lead with pure value, and nothing less (if you take a look at my website, you can see that my exit-intent popup tries to offer as much pure value as possible upfront).
11. Make the submit button be literal and written from a first-person perspective (always have the button speak clearly to the value that it’s providing… NEVER have a generic “submit” button)
12. Add a bit of blue trim (for some reason, blue seems to work really well in terms of boosting conversions… it might be that blue is a “trust” color).
13. Have a human-element in the popups (I have my face on my pop-ups, but if you can creatively and legally use a notable celebrity of some kind, this works wonders for conversions).
14. Green is amazing for conversions. Similar to blue, experiment with splashes of green in a creative way to add excitement (green is great for the CTA button, or the trim immediately around it).
15. Have a sticky bar in the footer located in the bottom right, so it’s always accessible regardless of where the user’s at on the page (a sticky footer outperforms a sticky header by a large margin).
16. Add a small “lock” icon near the email field. It works pretty well to subconsciously increase trust, making the user feel more secure about making the decision to drop in their email.
…and that’s my full list.
Using a combination of these techniques, I’ve managed to get conversion rates to an average of around 20-25% in B2C, and around 3-5% in B2B.
I highly recommend Privy for all of your pop-up needs.
I’m not affiliated with them or anything, but they’ve been my go-to for a while due to their ease of use and fantastic analytics dashboards (sorry, Sumo!)
Fun Fact: As of a while back, I’ve actually broken their global record for the most total A/B tests on their platform (running over 260 A/B tests in a single year).
But yeah, hope this helps you guys out! ????
