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The Top 5 Best Exit-Intent Popup Practices for Ecommerce

Posted: October 28th, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Design | Tags: , , | No Comments »
ecommerce website popups shopping cart

Popups.

Everyone hates them, right?

They’re annoying, intrusive, and one of the best forms of marketing your ecommerce site can employ.

Don’t believe me? These 30 ecommerce popups have helped their store owners retain customers, increase sales, and generate leads.

The fact is, popups (loathed as they are) bring business, period.

But not all popups are created equal. While regular popups are quickly dismissed and closed by the vast majority of visitors (close to 99%), exit-intent popups are opened nearly ten times as often.

Why?

Because they don’t get in the way. A regular popup jumps in your face like a gypsy with an outstretched hand, demanding money.

Instead, exit-intent popups wait by the door as you’re leaving like a dog holding its leash in its mouth, just hoping you’d like to take it for a walk. Or at least a pat on the head. How can you say No to that face?

(I wasn’t planning on those metaphors when I sat down to write this article, but here we are.)

Honestly though, exit-intent popups are clicked nearly 10x as often just because of that: Because they’re not rude to the visitor.

But that’s not the only reason they’re clicked.

Here are the 5 best practices when it comes to crafting a great exit-intent popup add.

1. Get Their Attention

You might think a popup that suddenly appears on-screen as soon as your visitor is about to leave the page has already gotten their attention.

And it has. As a big square with an exit button they must press.

To get them to actually read your popup, you have to call out to them. Words and phrases like “Wait” and “Don’t Miss Out” are great ways to cause your visitor to hesitate and see what’s so important you just had to get their attention.

But words aren’t the only way to intrigue them. You can also do so visually. You can use pictures (like models, animals, babies, motorcycles, you name it) that interest your target audience to get them hooked.

And that’s not the only way to aesthetically garner your audience’s attention. In fact, you pictures aren’t always necessary.

What matters is making the design attract the eye. Match the template, palette and “look” of your popup to the energy of your brand and of your offer.

If you have a fashion site, make it sleek. Selling vibrant accessories? Make it bold. Want them to sign up for your funny newsletter? Make it whacky and ugly! (Appealing to the eye doesn’t always mean attractive. Ugly has its place in marketing, as long as there’s a reason!)

Important Tip: Make your popup match the tone of your brand, but have it visually contrast what’s already on the page. You don’t want it blending in!

2. Give Your Audience Something Valuable

Don’t just ask them for their email address. That’s just another form of begging.

And don’t just TELL them what they’re getting, SHOW them! (And I don’t mean just with pictures, either. Paint a picture in their mind!)

Tell me, which sounds better to you?

Enter your email address and receive our fantasy football newsletter every month.

Vs.

You league won’t know what hit’em. Get insider news, trade discussions, injury reports, and in-depth analysis so you can have bragging rights until next year… when you do it all over again.

Don’t lie to me and say the first one, either.

Talking about the features of an offer is one thing (a discount, an informative newsletter, etc.). But talking about the benefits (the kind of life your visitor will have if they take advantage of your offer) is what sells.

3. Get In Your Visitor’s Head

Think about your visitor and how they got to the page they’re currently on. Did they click an ad to get here? Are they on the shopping cart page, getting cold feet about checking out? Are they reading an article about exit-intent popups?

The visitor’s state of mind and virtual environment are important things to consider when deciding what you’re going to offer.

For example, on a checkout page, when a potential customer might be re-thinking their purchase, having an exit-intent popup offering them a 15% discount might be the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart.

Think of it this way:

To get to where they are now, your visitor had to take some kind of virtual journey. Your ad should be like the wise man on the top of the mountain waiting for them and offering exactly what they need.

4. Give Them a Way Out

Backing your visitor into a corner and refusing to let them leave is bad for business.

While the X in the corner of the window can always be clicked, it bolsters good faith in your brand if you give them a “No Thanks” button so they can gracefully exit the popup while maintaining their dignity.

Make this option smaller or less colorful so that it’s less desirable, and you can increase click-throughs on your “Yes” button. Whatever you do, just make sure to include it.

Morpheus gave Neo the option to take the blue pill and wake up at home like nothing ever happened. Be like Morpheus.

5. A/B Test

Run two versions of your exit-intent popup and see which one performs better. Then make a new one and have those two compete against each other.

Repeat.

Make sure you do this with the forms on your ad, too. Often, ads with an extra section to fill out will perform better than an ad asking for less information.

It seems counterintuitive that it would be the case, but it’s true. Sometimes, people like filling out a little more.

Plus, it’s a great way to get extra information about your visitors’ demographic, which will help your sales in the long run, too.

A/B Testing is invaluable. You never know when a small tweak can bring in big results.

Always A/B Test your ads. Always, always, always.

At the end of the day, popups get a bad reputation from those who use them poorly. However, a well-timed, non-invasive popup can actually be great for converting last-minute sign ups.

By following these five practices, you can create popups that earn you more sign ups without feeling like a UX inconvenience to your customers.


How to boost your online store to the top: 5 methods

Posted: June 4th, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Articles, Business, Design | Tags: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Venturing into the world of e-commerce? If you’re looking to become a driving force within your chosen market, it’s important you know how to do it. With so many people fighting to claim the top spot, these five tried and tested tips will ensure you’re ahead of the pack and growing exponentially and continuously, ensuring success for the future.

Have a good level of customer service

One of the best ways to attract new customers whilst keeping existing ones around is by ensuring you upkeep a great level of customer service. It’s the most important part of any business – if you’re offering constant communication and customer service, you’ll be ensuring you build those valuable consumer relationships which will keep your business thriving.

Ensure you have an easy, straightforward way for customers to get in touch in regard to products and services they may have queries about. A phone call is regularly said to be the most effective form of communication, building trust and relationships between businesses and customers – but an email is a good choice if a phone line isn’t feasible. So long as you’re able to communicate clearly with customers and establish yourselves as a reliable company, you’ll keep people coming back.

Ensure you’ve got the right hosting

First things first – you need to make sure you’re choosing the right level of hosting to suit your future goals. Are you looking to remain relatively niche, with a limited outreach that remains consistent? Or, do you want to keep getting bigger and bigger, with no limit in sight? If you’re reading this post, it’s likely the latter.

And so, with that being said, you need to consider which hosting provider to opt for. There are plenty out there to choose from, and it all comes down to your personal desires – should you want to grow exponentially, a dedicated server may be your best bet. Although it’s more expensive than a shared server, having your very own dedicated platform reduces the risk of overloading due to increased traffic, which could end up with significant downtime upon your site and effectively making customers look elsewhere.

Design your site to look appealing

Another way to grow your site and establish yourself as a worthwhile company is by ensuring your design is forward-thinking and easy to navigate, whilst also being visually appealing. Consider the appearance of your competitors and the frontrunners in your market – although it’s good to stand alone and excel from the crowd, you need to understand just what makes your neighbours so successful.

Flat, clean designs are all the rage on the internet currently, so consider stripping it back and letting your products do the talking – you’ll be sure to reap the benefits. Minimalism is in, and combined with responsive design you’ll undoubtedly get the best results.

Also be sure to remove any elements of your design that could harm your ranking—everything from the wrong header tags to intrusive pop-ups could lead to penalisation.

Employ “niche marketing”

There’s a difference between a niche market and niche marketing, and you need to be aiming for the latter. Where a niche market will limit you in terms of potential customers, as there’s less of a demand for the products you’ll be selling, niche marketing will have a completely opposite effect.

Niche marketing basically means you’ll be finding your own space in a market that is perhaps oversaturated with the same own. Stand out from the crowd and offer something new, and you’ll attract customers who are looking for the next big thing.

Make sure your site is secure

Another way to ensure your store doesn’t suffer any setbacks is by having a sufficient level of security to protect it. Attacks such as SQL injections are common upon online stores, and with the risk of things such as sensitive information being leaked, it’s important you’re doing all you can to prevent it.

If you do suffer any security breaches or attacks, it’s likely your customers will begin to look elsewhere as a result. Be sure to prevent anything that could prove to be detrimental to your success.


How to Protect Your Digital Goods From Piracy

Posted: June 8th, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Quick Blurbs | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

When you’re selling digital products, you benefit from the absence of inventory and shipping, but you get piracy as a constant threat instead. It is remarkably easy for someone to steal your intellectual property — music, designs, eBooks, software — and distribute it under their own name.

The numbers associated with piracy are staggering. Microsoft estimates that piracy costs the software industry $491B each year. Another estimate pegs the loss between $200 to $250B within the US alone.

Regardless of the numbers, one thing is clear: theft can be a serious problem when you’re selling digital products.

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