Four Easy Exit Pop-Up Ideas Designed to Boost Holiday Sales (Without Annoying the Heck Out of Customers)

Don't let 'em leave...

It's a mindset merchants must have this holiday after investing in advertising and often slashing prices to bolster store traffic.

Busy is good but only if you can capitalize on it...

Research indicates November and December drive 30% more ecommerce revenue than non-holiday months. In fact, the data suggests that in 2015 alone, the days between Black Friday and Christmas yielded 50%-100% more revenue compared to other shopping days throughout the year.

Image via: RJMetrics

The competition for these dollars is fierce...

The offers, sales, and gift ideas offered up by your competitors are alluring and the reality is your store is likely just one of many shoppers intend to visit. The reasons a shopper may be tempted to leave your site are plenty:

Image via: Statista

Your job, if you want a bigger piece of the holiday sales pie, is to prevent them from leaving...

One weapon of choice you need in your arsenal; exit pop-ups.

Kill the Pop-Up: The World Hates Them

First things first...

Exactly what is an exit pop-up:

Image via: Shopify

You read that right...

The exit pop-up is your “last ditch effort” to keep shoppers from leaving your site.

There's a big problem with this so called hail mary though.

People hate them!

Yes, there is a dark side to pop-ups and it can significantly impact how your brand is perceived long after the holiday shopping season.

Want proof?

Beware, the data suggests exit pop-ups can be bad for business:

• More than two-thirds of those surveyed get annoyed by irrelevant pop-up ads
• More than 2000 threads in the eBay community are dedicated to annoying pop-ups
• Annoying pop-ups are the number one reason people may block your site

But numbers don't always tell the whole story, do they?

The dirty little secret is pop-ups often work!

The Power of the Pop-Up

Exit pop-ups, when thoughtfully constructed, can be valuable for bother customers and merchants. Especially when they're:

• Relevant
• Valuable
• Targeted

Regardless of the outcry shunning pop-ups, keep in mind many of your competitors are using them to increase conversions. In fact, an examination of exit pop-ups reveals the majority are used to discount, offer, or sell people something:

Image via: Nudgr

The results?

Exit pop-ups can increase conversion rates and generate holiday sales you'd otherwise not earn. In one case, Entrepreneur.com says pop-ups increased subscriptions 86% and sales 162-percent.

Interested in achieving similar results?

Here then are four really simple exit pop-up ideas you can implement to boost your holiday sales.

Idea #1: Help Shoppers Unlock Value

We realize you don't want to further slash holiday margins...

But including exit pop-up discount or promo code offerings in your Profit-Loss holiday projections can position you to dangle a carrot in front of shoppers your competitors may not be able afford to match.

For instance, Brick Warriors recently dealt with holiday shoppers abandoning the shopping cart and and bouncing with exit pop-ups that allow shopper to immediately unlock value. The company decided to have some fun mixing pop culture with the holidays to creatively lure customers back and keep them on site.

The exit pop-up included a festive lego man bearing gifts.

The gift being offered to shoppers about to leave was a 10% discount via an unlocked promo code:

Image via: Justuno

Why use an unlocked promo code as an exit-pop up rather than first requiring the shopper to take a specific action to earn the discount?

Remember, shoppers are being bombarded with discounts, offers and sales. Reduce the friction that often comes with locked promos and make it easy for a visitor to say yes to the exit pop-up and increase the odds they stay on your site and continue shopping.

Idea #2: Use Humor & Be Clever

Be careful here...

Trying to be funny (and failing) can harm conversions...

But effectively incorporating humor into your marketing, according to research, can defy a shopper's expectations, pleasantly surprise, and prompt an emotional rather than rational response to your holiday marketing offer.

This is exactly what Bacon Freak intended to achieve with one of its recent exit pop-ups. To keep bacon lovers from leaving the site and earn permission to market to shoppers again in the future, the company offered a tongue-in-cheek take on the fate of the animals from which bacon comes from.

The pop-up also oozed personality, a factor that enhanced the visitor experience, consequently driving shoppers to take action:

Image via: Justuno

Regardless of whether this pop-up is funny to you, it's an important lesson in understanding your target market and knowing what it thinks is funny.

What's the value in humor?

Using humor effectively distracts the brain and can help you coax shoppers into forgetting they're being sold to.

Idea #3: Include Some Human Touch

Only about one-quarter of the exit pop-ups examined here contained an image of a human...

Excluding images of people from your pop-ups may cost you.

Fact is, images increase conversion rates and images of people can bear an even greater harvest.

For example, Applecrumby and Fish understands the importance of compelling images and decided to use a high quality holiday-themed image in its exit-pop combined with a tried and true tactic that's almost unfair; it played the baby card:

Image via: Justuno

Using a pop-up like this to keep shoppers on site and boost sales is backed by research:

• A report by Xerox showed that colored visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.
• Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without visual images

It is no wonder that 46% of marketers cite photography as critical in their current marketing strategies:

Image via: Hubspot

Note the relevance of the Applecrumby and Fish pop-up; a happy, festive baby earns the attention of holiday shoppers in pursuit fine baby gifts.

Idea #4: Use Urgency to Convert Quickly

We're wired to abhor losses...

When something is in short supply or offered only for a limited time- we tend to want it more than we would otherwise.

Urgency can sell.

In fact, creating a sense of urgency helped this entrepreneur increase sales 332-percent. (NOTE: the urgency must be relevant to your target market).

Here's what's at play psychologically; during the holiday season when consumers are narrowly focused on scoring big deals, losing out on one of those deals and being forced to pay full price can cause shoppers to feel a great deal of mental discomfort.

Thus, consider using an exit pop-up powered by urgency when it appears customers are abandoning cart. The idea is that urgency can cause a degree of panic and prompt shoppers to finish the checkout process so as not to miss out on your great deal:

For example, let's see how Click & Grow did it:

Image via: MaxTraffic

The merchant responsible for the above pop-up, Click & Grow, understands that consumers have been conditioned to expect free shipping and would thus hate to pay for something that they could have for free. In fact, 49-percent of shoppers have abandoned cart due to being required to pay for shipping.

Urgency can cause people to think twice before leaving your site for a competitor's.

Your Pop-Up Future

The first version of your holiday exit pop-up may not be your best...

Don't leave money on the table; be sure to split test different versions of your exit pop-ups. In the instance below, simply changing the tagline increased conversions 47-percent:

Image via: Conversion Sciences

Remember, customers may say they hate exit pop-ups but when pop-ups are relevant they can dramatically increase conversions. Be sure your holiday exit pop-ups are:

• Valuable
• Humorous
• Contain images
• Create a sense of urgency

Keeping shoppers on your site is vital in driving holiday sales. You've likely spent a lot of time and treasure attracting holiday visitors to your site.

Don't let 'em leave!