6 Exit-Intent Popup Examples to Help Recover Abandoning Visitors (with Templates)

“Oh no! Our Google Analytics data shows 5,000 people visited our site today, but just 15 purchased.” 

There are thousands of reasons why people leave your website without buying:

• The product was too expensive
• They didn’t find the products they wanted
• They were simply window shopping

The list goes on. 

The good news is you can do something about it using an exit-intent popup. With one, you can capture visitors’ contact info or direct them to a different page before they leave—giving you access to their inbox for future retargeting. 

Unsure of what one looks like or how to create your own? This guide shares precisely that, with bonus exit-intent popup examples, ready-to-use templates, and tips to help you along the way.

SEE MORE: Why This Exit Intent Popup Generated 7,973 Leads and $50k in Revenue

What is an exit-intent popup?

An exit-intent popup is an overlay that appears as soon as a website visitor shows an intention to leave a page. When their cursor moves out of the browser’s main viewport, it triggers the exit-intent popup.

It works on mobile devices, too—usually triggering when someone taps the browser’s back button.

Most ecommerce sites use exit popups as a last-ditch attempt to capture leads with a discount offer. In contrast, B2B companies tend to offer some kind of lead magnet download.

Exit-intent popup best practices

There are tons of different use-cases for an exit-intent popup. (More on this later.)

But regardless of the format you’re using for your exit-intent box, adhere to general popup best practices.

This includes: 

• Make it eye-catching. The popup should immediately draw attention to the incredible offer you’re giving to the visitor. 
• Have a compelling offer. What problems, goals, or challenges do your target customers face? Build your offer around that to stop people from leaving. 
• Experiment with different offer formats. Divert people to other pages of your website—like a quiz, product recommendation, or discount code—using the exit-intent popup.
• Be clear with your value prop right away. Remember: you're trying to save people from leaving, so you need to be super clear and quick to pull them back.‍
• Make it relevant. The more relevant the offer is to the page's content, the more likely the conversion. A general PDF across all posts might convert, but a PDF pertinent to each post will convert better.

Now we know what an exit-intent popup is and the best practices for creating one, let’s take a look at six examples to inspire your own.

1. SEO For the Rest of Us' humorous exit popup example

Visitors to SEO For the Rest of Us’ blog post have one thing in common: they all want to know how to increase website traffic from organic search.

So, what did they do? They created an exit-intent popup that pulled on this pain point just as visitors were about to leave:

What’s great about this example, though, is that it’s unique. Its audience (professional marketers) knows what they’re seeing is an exit-intent popup, so SEO For the Rest of Us calls it out with a funny GIF.

It’s a great example of being unique and authentic to appeal to its audience in a way that stands out.

2. CRAFTD London's spin-to-win exit popup

We briefly touched on the fact that the offer you’re giving through your exit-intent popup doesn’t have to be limited to a PDF lead magnet. Here’s a great example from CRAFTD London, which shows a prize wheel to anyone showing an intention to leave its ecommerce website:

This works well because it’s fun and entertaining. Visitors think, “I might as well spin to win—I have nothing to lose.”

In return, CRAFTD London collects the email addresses of potential customers who were about to exit the site. That way, they can retarget leads via email marketing—and give a discount code to incentivize a purchase in the meantime.    

3. Snow's exit-intent popup example

Here’s another excellent example of an exit-intent popup. In this case, toothpaste brand Snow uses its box to entice people into giving their email address in return for “free stuff.”

The conversion copywriting used on this popup is what makes it so great. Not only will visitors get free stuff, but they’ll get one of the brand’s bestsellers—a whitening wand worth $29—in return for something small: their email address.

4. Proozy's Halloween exit-intent popup example

It’s a smart idea to switch up the content of your exit-intent popup every few months. Chances are, you have people returning to the site—people who weren’t enticed by the exit-intent popup you showed last time.

Mixing things up helps you capture them next time.

This example from Proozy shows how you can tie those changes in with seasonal trends or events. When I visited the website in October, a Halloween-themed exit-intent popup appeared when I hovered toward the exit button of its product page:

Tying your offers to key marketing dates in the retail calendar like this is a great way to drive urgency that feels genuine and believable.

5. Peak Freelance's cheatsheet exit-intent popup

Remember how the offer you’re giving through your exit-intent popup should directly relate to the pain point your target audience is dealing with? This example from Peak Freelance shows how to do it:

People reading its guide to freelance writing likely have one shared challenge: finding their first client.

So, the Peak Freelance team packages their best tips into a free cheatsheet. Visitors can solve that problem by entering their email address in the exit-intent popup box.

6. ConvertFlow's roundup email exit popup

What good would an example roundup of popups be if we didn’t include our own? 😉

Visit the ConvertFlow blog, show an intention to leave, and you’ll see a popup like this one:

The only offer it gives is to join the email list. No ground-breaking PDF, discount code, or quiz in sight—but it still works.

Why? Because the exit-intent popup induces the fear of missing out with its “join 20,000+ other marketers” heading and “join the club” call-to-action copy. People naturally want to be part of the crowd.

We also made sure to include social proof with one of the many pieces of genuine feedback we get on our roundup email.

PRO TIP:

The targeting we use for this exit-intent popup is also crucial. Firstly, see how it only shows to people who aren't yet an identified contact:

We then use ConvertFlow's Broadcast Campaigns feature to prioritize showing more individually tailored popups (and other CTAs) on certain higher traffic posts. Meaning this roundup email popup acts as a "backup call-to-action" when something more personal isn't available.

The beauty of an exit-intent popup is that they’re straightforward to build—when you’re using the templates available in the ConvertFlow library, that is.

In there, you’ll find tons of high-quality popup templates that can be customized for your website branding, color scheme, and offer with our popup creator or Shopify popup builder.

Simply choose one and select the “Exit-intent” trigger in the popup settings:

(You can also choose other popup trigger options, if exit-intent isn't what you need—like time delay, on-click, scroll-point, or even a hovering button 🙌)

Ready to get started? Here are a few template ideas to help you on your way: