A lot of people on HN seem to be adverse to using these modal pop-ins. I'm curious to find out why people here hate them so much.
In practice, they can be very effective, almost shockingly effective, at increasing conversions. I know they can seem intrusive, but most commentary I see on them comes from a critical perspective, where the critic has zero intention of being a customer. I suspect the pop-ins may not be such a horrible experience for people who actually are prospective customers.
Imagine this scenario: I'm at a store, looking around, then realized I left my wallet in the car. So I start to exit the store, when suddenly an employee stops me. He may even have a special sales flyer -- but I can't get past him unless I tap him on the shoulder so that he steps aside.
At this point, instead of going to get my wallet, I will get in the car and find another store. It is the same type of irritation that I feel when, after making a purchase, a store employee stops me at the door to check my receipt and compare with the contents of the bag. I've already stood in line for 20 minutes, forked over money, and now they are holding me up for another minute? No thanks.
I think leaving a store because you forgot your wallet is an edge case that only an extremely small percentage of bounces would relate to. I agree pop-ups are annoying, but I think its important to remember that HN users aren't necessarily the customers every business out there is targeting.
The idea behind conversion optimization is to convert more of the Maybe's in to Yes's. Alienating the No's shouldn't be too much of a concern as long as you aren't turning your Yes's in to No's.
It's still a balancing act between improving conversions and not annoying people, but I've never seen an appropriate, well-implemented pop-in like this NOT increase conversions.
Good point. The service doesn't seem like it would do well with established eCommerce sites where the probability of potential customers returning at a later date is high. This is definitely more of a last ditch effort for smaller sites.
Of all the dark patterns on the web, this is possibly the most bullshit and annoying one of all. The one time I've been hit by something like this, it was a false positive (I was switching browsers to use lastpass for paypal), and it annoyed me enough to change my mind about buying.
I'm not even sure if I'd call exit intent pop-ins a "dark pattern", let alone call it the most bullshit and annoying one, considering the examples listed on the darkpatterns.org site.
I think I'd argue the "sneak into shopping cart" one as being the worst.
I don't wish to degrade any new start-up, it's hard to make it out there but this one wasn't thought out or researched. People hate pop-ups. Really really hate pop-ups. Making an entire service based on the principle of serving pop-ups, for lack of a better word in my vocabulary, is idiotic. If you go around any given room and ask people, "When you are browsing a website do you like getting pop-ups? Say it's for a special offer for a whole 10% off! How about then?" I'm pretty sure the answer is going to be no and no.
Just for me personally if I get a pop-up on a website I'm more likely to go somewhere else, like to Amazon, where they don't give me pop-ups and already have my account information.
Does this block the user from leaving all the time or is there some pattern recognition going on?
Why aren't picreel using the service on their website? I can't click on any of the clients in the case studies to see what the product is actually like.
I don't know how picreel operates, but other services like BounceExchange can do behavioral targeting so you're not giving every visitor exit intent pop-ins.
They are using it on the site, and it doesn't block users from leaving, it just throws up on of those overlay screens if the mouse tracking script thinks you're about to leave. For me, it showed up when my mouse moved up to the top of the screen and hovered over the URL bar (correct behaviour). But if it also shows up when people are trying to click on an internal link, which apparently happened to another HN user, that's unlikely to be good for conversions. At this sort of price there probably should be a good degree of flexibility in customising what ads get shown when people appear to be leaving based on the entry route, pages visited and time on site. But probably no way of filtering out the people likely to be really irritated, or the people who would have returned to the site and bought at full price...
If there's one thing more annoying than a popup when you enter a site, it's a popup when you try to leave. It's one of the things likely to make me never return to a site.
This a thousand times. I'll blacklist a domain for that. I'll kill by browser if I can't close it. I'll never, ever be coerced into even reading a fucking popup on leaving a site, as a matter of moral principle. Its like a salesman sticking their foot in the door - I have a gun for that situation.
I notice a lot of negative sentiment here re: exit popups. Firstly, let me say that I (as a user) am not a fan. I think it's necessary, however, to consider the context.
If you have a blog, and you'd like to start converting your readers into email subscribers, exit popups are not usually a great way to do that. They tend to turn off a more sophisticated audience, even so far as to discredit the offer based on their use of such "dark patterns". This is (usually) not where you want to use an exit popup.
If you have a landing page, however, an exit popup can do good things for you. In my experience, most landing page conversions happen on the first visit - either you convert the visitor, or you don't. In this case, you're not very concerned with credibility by the time a visitor expresses exit intent (they're already leaving). It's (usually) a good idea to go ahead and go for a lesser conversion (e.g. an email signup instead of a purchase). The worst that can happen is the user leaves and never returns (which was probably already the case).
Hopefully this puts things in perspective. Like I said, I really, really don't like exit popups. I kinda feel like taking a shower after putting one on a page - however, I've run several experiments on landing pages in various verticals and (in my findings) they increase sales. It's fine to be critical of the technique and express your dislike, but if you have any fiscal responsibility to yourself or a client, it's your job to consider whether they might be beneficial, regardless of your personal feelings.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 69.9 ms ] threadIn practice, they can be very effective, almost shockingly effective, at increasing conversions. I know they can seem intrusive, but most commentary I see on them comes from a critical perspective, where the critic has zero intention of being a customer. I suspect the pop-ins may not be such a horrible experience for people who actually are prospective customers.
At this point, instead of going to get my wallet, I will get in the car and find another store. It is the same type of irritation that I feel when, after making a purchase, a store employee stops me at the door to check my receipt and compare with the contents of the bag. I've already stood in line for 20 minutes, forked over money, and now they are holding me up for another minute? No thanks.
It's still a balancing act between improving conversions and not annoying people, but I've never seen an appropriate, well-implemented pop-in like this NOT increase conversions.
"AVALIABLE ONLY 30 MIN"
"Capture abandoners' before they leave"
Barely a minute on the page and I've already spotted these mistakes. Doesn't really inspire confidence.
I'm not even sure if I'd call exit intent pop-ins a "dark pattern", let alone call it the most bullshit and annoying one, considering the examples listed on the darkpatterns.org site.
I think I'd argue the "sneak into shopping cart" one as being the worst.
Just for me personally if I get a pop-up on a website I'm more likely to go somewhere else, like to Amazon, where they don't give me pop-ups and already have my account information.
No thank you.
Does this block the user from leaving all the time or is there some pattern recognition going on?
Why aren't picreel using the service on their website? I can't click on any of the clients in the case studies to see what the product is actually like.
If you have a blog, and you'd like to start converting your readers into email subscribers, exit popups are not usually a great way to do that. They tend to turn off a more sophisticated audience, even so far as to discredit the offer based on their use of such "dark patterns". This is (usually) not where you want to use an exit popup.
If you have a landing page, however, an exit popup can do good things for you. In my experience, most landing page conversions happen on the first visit - either you convert the visitor, or you don't. In this case, you're not very concerned with credibility by the time a visitor expresses exit intent (they're already leaving). It's (usually) a good idea to go ahead and go for a lesser conversion (e.g. an email signup instead of a purchase). The worst that can happen is the user leaves and never returns (which was probably already the case).
Hopefully this puts things in perspective. Like I said, I really, really don't like exit popups. I kinda feel like taking a shower after putting one on a page - however, I've run several experiments on landing pages in various verticals and (in my findings) they increase sales. It's fine to be critical of the technique and express your dislike, but if you have any fiscal responsibility to yourself or a client, it's your job to consider whether they might be beneficial, regardless of your personal feelings.