Pop-ups & Exit Intent
Interruption done carefully: exit intent, timing, scroll triggers, frequency capping, mobile rules, and copy that survives being unwelcome.
Pop-ups convert well and are widely disliked, and both of those facts are true at the same time. The difference between a pop-up that adds subscribers and one that adds subscribers while costing you readers is almost entirely about when it fires and how often it comes back.
The mobile guide matters more than its position suggests. Google's intrusive interstitial guidance changed what is safe to show on a small screen, and a desktop pop-up ported straight to mobile is the most common way sites acquire a ranking problem they never connect to the cause.
Every guide in this topic
- 01 Pop-up Best Practices: Convert Without Annoying Visitors Ten rules that keep a pop-up profitable across the whole site rather than just on the signup metric.
- 02 Exit Intent Pop-ups: How They Work and Why They Convert The detection method, what it cannot detect, and the mobile equivalent that is not really the same thing.
- 03 Timed Pop-ups: When to Trigger for Maximum Conversion Why a fixed delay is the weakest trigger available, and what to use instead of a number of seconds.
- 04 Scroll-Triggered Pop-ups: Engagement-Based Targeting Scroll depth as a proxy for interest, the threshold that works, and the page types where it misfires.
- 05 Full-Screen Overlays vs Slide-ins: Which Performs Better? The conversion gap, the attention cost that comes with it, and the pages where the quieter format wins outright.
- 06 Pop-up Frequency Capping: How Often Is Too Often? Cookie rules for repeat visitors, what to do after a dismissal, and the cap that stops a pop-up eroding return traffic.
- 07 Mobile Pop-ups After Google’s Guidelines: What Still Works What the intrusive interstitial guidance actually covers, what it exempts, and the formats that stay safe.
- 08 Pop-up A/B Testing: Elements That Move the Needle The four elements worth testing in order of effect size, and how long a pop-up test needs to run.
- 09 Pop-up Design Psychology: Colors, Images, and Layout Why the close button matters more than the headline, and what a hidden dismissal does to complaint rates.
- 10 How to Write Pop-up Copy That Converts Skeptics Twelve words to earn an interruption, plus the decline link wording that raises conversion instead of lowering it.