Exit intent survey: A way to increase conversions

More than 97% of visitors leave an online store without purchasing anything. Do you know why?

You might think your website is perfect. So what’s the problem? Why do you observe high bounce rates? Why are so many users leaving without taking the desired action?

If only there was a way to find out… in fact, there is!

Exit intent surveys help you stop your visitors just before they leave and ask them a couple of questions.

In this article, we will discuss how these surveys can increase your conversions and why you should consider implementing them on your web page.

What is an exit intent survey?

This is an exit intent popup in the form of a short survey targeted at users who are about to leave your website. Its purpose is to collect useful information about their reasons to exit without doing what you want them to do, for example signing up, reading or buying something.

When you gather enough feedback, you will be able to understand better what you need to improve to lower your bounce rates and boost conversion rates. You might not be aware there are problems regarding visibility, product information or something else. Thanks to the users’ responses you will find out where the issue is and quickly fix it.

The best thing is that you don’t have to worry you will annoy people. They are about to leave your site anyway, so showing them a survey won’t hurt their user experience any further.

How do exit intent surveys work?

They “know” when the user is about to leave by detecting an exit intent trigger such as a specific movement of the mouse when on desktop and whether they scroll or press the back button on mobile devices. This triggers the website exit survey to pop up before the user has left.

Benefits of exit intent surveys

This kind of surveys has many advantages, among which:

• High response rates, especially compared to other types of website surveys;
• Helps you gain insights so that you can reduce bounce and exit rates;
• Provides you with valuable information on how to improve conversion rates.

If done right, the survey will encourage visitors to share their thoughts, sparing you the often fruitless attempts to read their minds.

While Google Analytics gives you some quantitative data, the exit intent surveys offer you some qualitative data coming directly from your prospects.

Now, let’s see how best to take advantage of the popup surveys.

Common use-cases of exit intent surveys

Shopping cart abandonment survey

On average, 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts. What is the reason?

It could be simply lack of sufficient information about the product or the shipping. But you can’t be sure where the problem is. That’s why it’s a great idea to display a survey when a customer decides to leave before finalizing their order.

Good questions to ask in this case are the following:

• “What prompted you to quit shopping?”
• “Do you need any additional information to complete your purchase?”

Pricing abandonment survey

When it comes to a business providing services, people often have a look at the pricing page and then leave. Why? Display an exit intent survey on that specific page to find out.

Apart from the obvious answer that abandoning visitors might find your pricing expensive, there are some other issues you might be able to easily fix.

Here are some good questions to include:

• “What prevented you from signing up?”
• “Is our pricing clear to you?”
• “Compared to similar solutions, are our prices lower, higher, or about the same?”

Landing page bounce survey

Why is your landing page failing at retaining visitors? Is it the design? Or maybe they don’t see the information they need?

Find out what the issue is with the following exit survey questions:

• “What else would you like to see on this page?”
• “What prevented you from signing up?” (you can use text answers)
• “What should we do to improve your experience?”

Lead generation survey

Exit surveys are indeed an effective lead generation tool. Many visitors leave your website because they can’t find what they are looking for. They need an incentive to leave their contact details. Here is where the exit intent survey comes in.

You can ask if they want a free guide or consultation before they go. Here are some sample questions to include:

• “Do you need additional information about our offer?”
• “Would you like a consultant to contact you with a personalized offer?”

This can encourage users to share their email address or phone and you can follow up. That way you will retain prospects and take advantage of all opportunities.

How to create the best exit intent surveys?

Response rates to exit intent surveys vary between 5% and 60%. If you want to engage people as much as possible, follow these exit intent best practices:

1. Be short.

Ask only a couple of questions that are easy to answer. Visitors (who are already leaving your website) won’t be patient enough to answer more than that.

Multiple-choice or scale questions are the best option. You can follow up with a text answer, and a ‘Thank you’ message so that people know that’s the last question. That way they’ll be more likely to respond.

2. Target / segment visitors.

Create multiple surveys so that you can use the most appropriate one for each page and situation, as well as depending on the visitor’s behaviour.

Don’t simply ask all visitors “Why did you decide to leave?”. Be more specific and show them you truly care – this will lead to higher response rates and better customer experience. For example, ask those abandoning their carts “What made you quit shopping?”.

3. Make sure the survey is visible.

Always test it yourself and ensure the survey is visible. Set it to appear in the center of the screen. Make it a different colour. You can also set the website to fade out.

These simple rules will help you increase conversions with exit intent surveys.

To sum up

Now you know why using an exit intent survey on your website is a great idea. It will help you gather valuable feedback from visitors and customers, which you can use to optimize your performance and boost conversions.

But that’s not all. You can also implement other types of exit intent popups, email capture forms, welcome popups, and much more.

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