The need for businesses to be seen and sell drives marketers to seek and apply the most effective advertising methods. Pop-ups unexpectedly stand out as a tool with significant potential for conversion growth. What is this tool, and what benefits can it bring to your business?
Types of Pop-ups and How They Work
Standard pop-ups usually appear as soon as a user enters a page or after spending a set amount of time on it (e.g., 10 seconds). These can offer special deals, discounts, or prompt users to subscribe to a newsletter. Gamified pop-ups are commonly used during sales events (like Black Friday) or for special occasions—Christmas, Easter, national holidays, or even brand anniversaries. Site visitors are invited to spin a wheel for a chance to win a discount or prize. To access the discount code or claim their prize, users are asked to enter their email and agree to receive promotional emails. While these types of pop-ups are common, exit-intent pop-ups are less frequently seen but highly effective, as highlighted by digital marketing expert Neil Patel. How do they work?
An exit-intent pop-up with a valuable offer or promotion appears when the user is about to leave your website, aiming to retain them and encourage a conversion. The value or offer could be a discount code, free shipping, an e-book, podcast, article, or relevant research (depending on the page they’re leaving). Sometimes a simple reminder of why the user visited in the first place can be enough—like a pop-up that shows a quick, enticing message about achieving tidy spaces by filling out just one quick form.
According to the Baymard Institute, around 69.23% of e-commerce visitors abandon their carts before completing a purchase. Exit-intent pop-ups can help reduce this rate by reminding users of the item and occasionally offering them a better deal to complete the purchase.
Benefits of Pop-ups
Depending on the content and value offered, pop-ups can convert between 1% and 8% of site visitors. According to the newsletter platform Omnisend, about 3% of people on average provide their email address and agree to receive newsletters via pop-up forms. For example, if 30,000 people visit your site monthly, a well-designed pop-up could add approximately 900 contacts to your mailing list. Multiply this by 12 months, and you could gain about 10,800 new contacts in a year. To convert these contacts into sales, quality newsletter content is essential. However, a solid start is half the work, as your database will contain contacts genuinely interested in your products or services. A well-built database is far more valuable than a scattered list of contacts likely to consider your communication as spam. Well-planned and visually appealing pop-ups can help:
1. Expand your potential client database;
2. Increase your newsletter contact list;
3. Keep visitors in the conversion funnel;
4. Boost conversion rates.
Our experience shows that exit-intent pop-ups are also highly effective in Lithuania. We use them in several projects, seeing a conversion rate of 1-2%. In numbers, for a website with 30,000 monthly visitors, an €18/month tool generates around 300-600 conversions, meaning each conversion costs just €0.03-0.06! Such results are hard to match with Google Ads or Meta Ads. Exit-intent pop-ups remain relatively uncommon, which alone makes them stand out. This is another chance to retain users and guide them through the sales funnel from the top, providing and reinforcing value until the final conversion. As with other digital marketing tools, we recommend conducting A/B testing to determine what works best for your business. Testing also helps better understand your audience and continuously improve results.
We hope you’re experimenting with pop-ups on your website. If this article has sparked questions or you’re looking for a team to handle your marketing solutions, let’s talk!