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It's about all user intent. Will you bring value? For you I'd advice experimenting with a pop-up when the user is about to leave. "A popup designed with exit-in

It's about all user intent. Will you bring value? For you I'd advice experimenting with a pop-up when the user is about to leave. "A popup designed with exit-intent – in laymans terms it means that the popup only displays when you are about to leave the site." Results? "an increase of sign-ups by 600%. They went from typically 70-80 daily new subscribers to 445 – 470 new subs per day."

bradleyankrom 10y ago
How would you go about detecting when a user is about to leave your site? Other than responding to a click on an external link? The two ways I typically leave a site are a) typing a URL into the address bar and b) closing a tab.
- digitalengineer 10y ago
  Most people move to the left and up ;-) (Basically to the back button). See: http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ (WARNING: POP-UP! Ha ha
- Lxr 10y ago
  Scrolling up seems pretty popular. Why wouldn't you want a half-page menu telling you what to read next when you scroll up to check something?
  - GrinningFool 10y ago
    Why would you? You're not scrolling up to get recommendations, you're scrolling up to re-read content. Or at least, that's me. If I want to go back to navigation, I hit the Home key (the vast majority of systems do have one or two of them...). If I'm scrolling up, it's to read.
- eric_h 10y ago
  onbeforeunload might get you there, but any site that uses that for any reason other than making sure I don't lose any unsaved changes is the devil.
- Nadya 10y ago
  Watch for the mouse along the upper 10px of the window [0] or use of the [Ctrl] key (for Ctrl+L or Ctrl+W). Or as other said, for a threshold of upper/upper-left mouse movement. You'll get a few false flags from people trying to Ctrl+C but so many people use the right-click context menu to copy/paste...you can probably ignore Ctrl+_ entirely and just focus on that window near the top. Most users will pass by that area when going to: 1) Change to another tab 2) Close the tab 3) Type a new search/website in the Omnibar [0] http://i.imgur.com/ihiAcHe.png http://i.imgur.com/ihiAcHe.png
  - JimDabell 10y ago
    That's really irritating because you get false positives (not "false flag", that's something else entirely) whenever you go to change tabs with the mouse. If somebody is interested in subscribing, then a subscribe box at the bottom or side of the content is fine.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      Ah, too late to fix my mistake now. Just a little slip. :) Thanks for the correction. I know the difference of course, just had the wrong thing in my mind while typing! >whenever you go to change tabs with the mouse. Only fire the event once, as most people will be leaving. Not flipping between tabs. >If somebody is interested in subscribing, then a subscribe box at the bottom or side of the content is fine. Research and A/B tests say otherwise. I was sharing a popular method - I don't use it myself. I don't agree with it and I don't browse sites that make use of the annoying pop-up modals. But the trade off of driving away some users to capture many more is one many people and companies would make.
- csallen 10y ago
  It's typically done when the user's mouse leaves the page.
- bradleyankrom 10y ago
  Thanks for the answers, everyone. I was mostly curious to see if the technique was to pause the page unload or something when the user tried to go to a different site (a dark pattern, IMO). I don't personally object to the cursor location and page scrolling techniques mentioned here.
- gjm11 10y ago
  Well, if the user is like me then having just put up a big content-obscuring popup is an excellent sign that the user is about to leave.
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
If it comes up on exit-intent and doesn't steal focus, they don't seem that bad. An issue is that the triggering is worse on mobile and can be flaky if you're an advanced user (aka like you are on HN and you Ctrl+Click a bunch of links to open in new tabs and then read them in a batch) - those sort of behaviors can trip the exit intent prematurely.

bradleyankrom 10y ago

How would you go about detecting when a user is about to leave your site? Other than responding to a click on an external link? The two ways I typically leave a site are a) typing a URL into the address bar and b) closing a tab.

digitalengineer 10y ago
Most people move to the left and up ;-) (Basically to the back button). See: http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ (WARNING: POP-UP! Ha ha
Lxr 10y ago
Scrolling up seems pretty popular. Why wouldn't you want a half-page menu telling you what to read next when you scroll up to check something?
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  Why would you? You're not scrolling up to get recommendations, you're scrolling up to re-read content. Or at least, that's me. If I want to go back to navigation, I hit the Home key (the vast majority of systems do have one or two of them...). If I'm scrolling up, it's to read.
eric_h 10y ago
onbeforeunload might get you there, but any site that uses that for any reason other than making sure I don't lose any unsaved changes is the devil.
Nadya 10y ago
Watch for the mouse along the upper 10px of the window [0] or use of the [Ctrl] key (for Ctrl+L or Ctrl+W). Or as other said, for a threshold of upper/upper-left mouse movement. You'll get a few false flags from people trying to Ctrl+C but so many people use the right-click context menu to copy/paste...you can probably ignore Ctrl+_ entirely and just focus on that window near the top. Most users will pass by that area when going to: 1) Change to another tab 2) Close the tab 3) Type a new search/website in the Omnibar [0] http://i.imgur.com/ihiAcHe.png http://i.imgur.com/ihiAcHe.png
- JimDabell 10y ago
  That's really irritating because you get false positives (not "false flag", that's something else entirely) whenever you go to change tabs with the mouse. If somebody is interested in subscribing, then a subscribe box at the bottom or side of the content is fine.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    Ah, too late to fix my mistake now. Just a little slip. :) Thanks for the correction. I know the difference of course, just had the wrong thing in my mind while typing! >whenever you go to change tabs with the mouse. Only fire the event once, as most people will be leaving. Not flipping between tabs. >If somebody is interested in subscribing, then a subscribe box at the bottom or side of the content is fine. Research and A/B tests say otherwise. I was sharing a popular method - I don't use it myself. I don't agree with it and I don't browse sites that make use of the annoying pop-up modals. But the trade off of driving away some users to capture many more is one many people and companies would make.
csallen 10y ago
It's typically done when the user's mouse leaves the page.
bradleyankrom 10y ago
Thanks for the answers, everyone. I was mostly curious to see if the technique was to pause the page unload or something when the user tried to go to a different site (a dark pattern, IMO). I don't personally object to the cursor location and page scrolling techniques mentioned here.
gjm11 10y ago
Well, if the user is like me then having just put up a big content-obscuring popup is an excellent sign that the user is about to leave.

michaelbuckbee 10y ago

If it comes up on exit-intent and doesn't steal focus, they don't seem that bad. An issue is that the triggering is worse on mobile and can be flaky if you're an advanced user (aka like you are on HN and you Ctrl+Click a bunch of links to open in new tabs and then read them in a batch) - those sort of behaviors can trip the exit intent prematurely.