Introduction
My name is Ivan Tsekov, and I am passionate about using growth marketing tools to enhance the performance of the projects I work on. Over the past eight years, I have honed my skills in this field, and now I am eager to share my knowledge to help other marketers and business owners unlock the full potential of the available tools.
In this article, I will outline a strategy to increase the conversion rate of key pages by leveraging HelloBar’s exit intent targeting.
We will explore how to use exit intent popups to capture leads who are not yet ready to convert. By offering them valuable resources, we can demonstrate how they can improve their business using your product.
What is an Exit Intent Popup?
An exit intent popup is a modal window that appears when a user attempts to leave the page. Its purpose is to incentivize the user to stay on the website or take a specific action.
Here’s an example of a popup I used for Spycrow.io:
For this purpose, we will use a tool called HelloBar.
How Do Exit Intent Popups Work?
Exit intent popups work by tracking the movements of the user’s mouse. When the cursor moves toward the top of the browser window, it indicates that the user is about to leave the page. At this point, the exit intent technology triggers a popup to appear, capturing the user’s attention before they navigate away.
This technology helps in engaging users who might be interested but are not ready to make an immediate decision. By offering an incentive, such as a free resource or discount, you can encourage them to stay on the site longer or take an action like signing up for a newsletter or downloading an ebook.
The effectiveness of exit intent popups lies in their ability to provide a last-minute offer that addresses the user’s needs or hesitations, thereby increasing the chances of conversion.
Strategy Process
To put this strategy into action, I’m going to follow these steps:
1. Create a Resource that’s Useful to Your Users
In this step, we want to create a resource that potential clients can use to better understand how our product will help them.
For example, you can create a mini ebook titled “X Tactics to Achieve Y with [Product]”.
You might need help from a designer or use tools like Canva to achieve a professional result.
2. Create an Email Sequence
Creating an email sequence will require an email marketing automation platform such as Mailchimp or SendGrid. Your business is likely already using one, so stick with it.
Create a new list in HelloBar by navigating to:
- Contacts (left menu)
- New Contact List
- Select the name of your list
- Click on “Show all tools” to select the email marketing automation software you’re using
- Follow the integration instructions
Once completed, the leads will be fed to your Email Marketing Automation tool.
From there, create a sequence that sends the ebook to your users when they enter the list after submitting their data on your exit-intent popup.
Alternatively, you can redirect users to a specific page after submission. Upload the PDF ebook to your website and use it as a “redirect page”. Note that having users open your first email signals to email servers increases the chance of future emails being delivered to the main inbox.
Add follow-up emails to your sequence that prompt users to purchase your service, including discounts, user reviews, etc.
3. Decide Which Pages to Target
First, we need to decide which pages we want to display our exit intent popup. The best pages for this strategy are the ones where most of your users are leaving. How to find that?
If you are using GA4, you can follow this guide. It will show you step-by-step how to set up a report that shows the exit views by page. I usually exclude the pages that don’t make sense, such as the “Thank you page.” Then, I’ll create a list of the top 5 pages you want to use for this campaign.
4. Implement the Code Snippet
This step is pretty straightforward. You can sign up at HelloBar’s website and follow the instructions to implement the tool through GTM or an integration they provide.
5. Campaign Setup
Once the tool is implemented on the website, it’s time to create the campaign.
Our goal with this campaign will be to acquire leads by providing resources that will teach our users why our business is valuable to them.
Steps:
- Click on “Create a popup” on the left side of the screen
- Select “Grow email list” as your goal
- Select “Pop-up Modal” as layout type
- Update the design of your popup to match the colors of your business
- Update the content of the modal
Check what I did for Spycrow:
6. Update the Targeting Settings
In the option “When does it display?” select “Exit intent.”
7. Update the Success Tab
On the bottom of the design window, there’s a “Success” tab that controls what the user will see after successful submission. There, you’ll need to update the design to fit the look and feel of the initial form.
In case you want to redirect the user directly to your ebook, you can select the option “Redirect the visit to a URL” in the field “After a visitor submits an email address, what do you want to do on your site?”.
After all of that is completed, you can click on “Publish.”
6. Result Analysis
The dashboard of HelloBar allows you to track the performance of your popups by providing information about:
- Views (impressions)
- Clicks
- Leads acquired
- Conversions (needs additional implementation)
Conclusion
Using this strategy, you can take advantage of your existing traffic and generate leads without putting additional budget and effort into attracting more traffic.
At the same time, you’ll provide more value to your users and ensure that they understand your business much better than they did before.
