How to Set Up Exit Intent Popups in 5 Minutes

This guide walks you through real examples, best practices, and setup tips to help you reduce bounce rate, recapture potential customers, and grow your email list.

The call to action is the most critical part of your popup — the more relevant it is to your target audience, the more effective it will be.

But before setting up your campaign, let’s understand why website visitors leave in the first place:

1. They’ve finished reading your content and are ready to go
2. The content didn’t match their intent
3. They couldn’t find the product or answer they needed
4. They’re price-sensitive and waiting for a discount code or coupon code
5. They got distracted and forgot what they were doing
6. They’re still in the research phase and not ready to convert
7. Your product feels unaffordable or too complex
8. Your offering didn’t match their needs

This is where exit intent popups come in. These smart overlays are triggered just before a user leaves — giving you a last chance to recapture potential customers.

We’ll now explore several exit intent popups examples, each designed for a different goal — from offering a discount to announcing a giveaway.

Few things are more valuable than a visitor who adds items to their cart. But if they leave without checking out — and you don’t act — you’re losing both revenue and momentum.

Using an exit intent trigger, you can detect when a user is about to leave and display a well-timed offer — like a coupon code or limited-time deal — that keeps them in the flow.

This approach not only reduces cart abandonment, it also helps stop customers from leaving to search for a better deal elsewhere.

💡 Try offering a discount directly in the popup to win back price-sensitive users.

Recover Abandoned Shopping Carts With Capture

Learn how to build popups which will re-engage users and drive sales from customers who are abandoning their shopping carts.

E-commerce sites are full of activity, and many website visitors overlook promotions — especially during high-traffic moments. Use a full-screen exit intent popup to capture attention before they leave.

These overlays are perfect for offering a discount with a sense of urgency, reminding shoppers of limited-time deals or exclusive offers. When executed well, this type of lead magnet can lift conversions by up to 20%.

Looking for proof that exit popups work? A clear, time-boxed message paired with a code often outperforms any passive promo banner.

Want your exit intent pop to feel personal and effective? Try targeting first-time users with a new visitor welcome popup that includes a special discount code.

By using behavioural rules, you can display this only to first-time website visitors, creating exclusivity and increasing conversion rates. These popups also help you grow your email list while reinforcing your brand’s voice and value from the very first click.

This is one of the exit intent popup best practices for driving immediate engagement and building loyalty from the start.

When users come from high-intent sources — like Reddit or niche forums — don’t miss the chance to convert them with a tailored message.

By using exit intent technology, you can show exclusive messages to website visitors based on their referrer. It’s one of the best ways to increase opt-ins and engage users while they’re still interested.

💡 These campaigns can convert up to 70% of users — especially when paired with a targeted coupon code or referral offer.

Running a contest? Add an exit intent popup to let users know before they leave. This approach is especially effective if users didn’t see your contest banner or if they landed on another part of your site.

This popup converted 80% of users into competition entrants — proof that the right message, at the right time, can turn potential customers into fans.

Everyone wants to feel like a VIP. Member-only popups let you offer exclusive content or discounts only to logged-in users, subscribers, or repeat visitors.

Pairing this with a personalised message and a discount code is a proven tactic that reduces cart abandonment and keeps users returning.

Personalisation + timing = high-converting exit intent popups.

Your newsletter opt-in form shouldn’t live in your footer. Use an exit intent popup to capture attention when users are about to bounce.

Ask for just their email address, offer something of value (like an exclusive guide or promo), and watch your conversion rate climb. This strategy helped Manybooks increase signups by over 100%.

It’s one of the simplest ways to grow your email list and convert website visitors into subscribers.

Planning a conference or local event? Don’t rely on buried forms to do the heavy lifting. A simple exit intent popup near the close of a session can dramatically increase website traffic and signups.

One campaign for Pausefest used this approach to promote event tickets — converting 20% of users into subscribers and boosting visibility by 1900%. That’s the power of exit intent technology combined with a bold offer.

Want more leads? Give your popup work the placement it deserves.

Launching on Kickstarter, Indiegogo or Product Hunt? Capture early momentum by showing a timed exit intent pop when users scroll, pause, or navigate away.

You can tailor the popup based on mouse movements, referring source, or even the landing page itself. This creates a custom experience for press traffic, feature roundups, or pre-launch warmups.

The goal: capture email addresses from potential customers before they disappear.

Use Gleam’s Referring Domain rule to easily set this up — no dev time needed.

Ready to implement what you’ve learned? Creating your own high-converting popup takes minutes.

Start by setting up a Capture account and installing our lightweight tracking script. From there, choose the Popup With Image template to design a visually rich prompt that encourages users to stay or subscribe.

Upload your graphic, tweak the colours and layout, and set rules such as:

• Trigger on exit
• Hide from existing subscribers
• Match a specific blog URL

Use integrations to connect with your email service and deliver a lead magnet, such as a discount code or downloadable resource, right after users enter their email address.

Once you're ready, flip the toggle and activate the campaign.

Ready to Build Your Own Exit Intent Popup?

Check out our helpful documentation for step by step instructions on setting up your own Popup or get started right away!