This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey friends, what's up? Welcome to the podcast. Chris Guillebeau here, your host. Let's talk about a really simple tool you can use on a website to get more people to sign up for your newsletter. Now, everybody's familiar with pop-ups.
Like you go to a website and they're like, "Hey, join my newsletter or get this discount." But I want your email or your phone number or something. Everybody knows pop-ups. We're gonna talk specifically about a kind of pop-up that you might not be as familiar with. It's called an exit intent, an exit intent pop-up. It's the box that jumps on your screen the moment that you start to leave the website.
So a lot of traditional pop-ups are like when you first go to the site. This is like the digital equivalent of the store clerk. Like that's like, "Hey, before you go, before you leave, here's 10% off." So it's basically a well-timed nudge that can rescue sales, bring people back as long as you design it appropriately and it's not super annoying. So let's hear today from a caller. He's got a detailed question about this, like how to set up this exit intent.
And is it actually a smart thing or is it just gonna be frustrating for buyers? Because of course, we all know that newsletter pop-ups can be okay, like we've kind of accepted them now, but we also don't wanna be annoyed by them. Like if they're too much or if you can't click to make it disappear, whatever the problem is, there has to be an intelligent way to do it. So there is fortunately an intelligent way to do it. Let's talk about it in my answer, that detailed question from Omar and my response coming right up.
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Hey Chris, it's Omar in Ottawa. So my Shopify shop sells board game accessories at a pretty good profit margin. I'm considering an exit intent pop-up, something like 10% off if a shopper starts to leave. I'm hearing people say it boosts conversions, but I fear it's gonna train customers just to abandon carts, just to get a coupon and drive my average order value down into the basement. So I'm wondering, is there a smart way to use exit offers without creating bargain hunters or should I just skip this tactic altogether?
I know you'll have good advice for me. [Music]
Hey Omar, I think your heart is in the right place. And I do think exit intent pop-ups can be very helpful. I don't have them on most of my sites, but on the website neurodiversion.org for my annual event, we do have an exit intent pop-up there. So if anybody wants to see it, you can go and see an example.
And yeah, it's not meant to be annoying. It's just meant to kind of boost conversions, as you say. And if you click it, it should go away. So a couple of things you can do, lead with value, like offer a tiny little bonus first, maybe like free PDF. And then after they drop their email to get the freebie, then you reveal the 10% code.
So that way it's like the discount is icing on the cake rather than the main goal. That's something that'll help. Maybe number two, make the coupon one time and time bound. So it's a unique code that expires after a single use or within 30 minutes. That stops people from kind of gaming the system.
You could also show this coupon or this discount only to newcomers. You can configure the pop-up to appear just once per visitor in like a 14 day window or a 30 day window. So your loyal customers actually never see it. It's like you're serving new customers in one way, your existing customers in another. And all of that is completely normal and accepted these days with e-commerce.
Like nobody's gonna get too upset about that. I think it's worth experimenting with. I think this is one of those things. It's a simple, easy experiment that probably will pay off. And if it doesn't, then the cost is pretty low.
So in short, an exit offer can be a good nudge, more than a race to the lowest price. And it doesn't need to be annoying. All right, let me know what you think. Let me know how it goes. Listeners, if you've got notes, feedbacksidhustleschool.com.
You can also access detailed notes for every single episode, more than 3,200 at this point. You can download or stream every episode at the website and new episodes drop every day wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
