How to trigger a popup on exit intent
Detect when a shopper is about to leave — on desktop and mobile — and fire your popup at the moment of highest intent to bounce.
Exit intent is the highest-leverage trigger in your toolbox. When a shopper signals they're about to leave, you have one shot to change their mind — and Nudgesmart detects that moment on both desktop and mobile.
TL;DR
Exit intent fires when a shopper shows leave-signals — on desktop, the cursor heading toward the browser tab or address bar; on mobile, signals like the back button, a tab switch, or a hard scroll-up. Turn on the Exit Intent condition in any campaign, optionally add one of the five mobile leave-signals as additional rules, and pair it with a Once per session frequency cap. With cart-abandonment averaging around 70% per Baymard Institute, exit intent is your last clean shot to recover those carts.
How exit intent works
Exit intent is a single boolean trigger in Nudgesmart's targeting panel. Add it as a condition set to Is True, and the storefront watches for leave-signals and fires the campaign the moment one is detected — a yes-or-no signal that flips when the shopper's behavior says "I'm about to bounce."
Because it fires at the latest possible moment, exit intent has the lowest interruption cost of any trigger. The shopper was already leaving — your popup either earns the conversion back, or they leave anyway. Any campaign type can use it. For an end-to-end campaign walkthrough, see How to create an exit-intent popup.
Desktop detection
On desktop, Nudgesmart watches the cursor. The classic exit-intent signal is the mouse leaving the document — typically heading toward the browser's back button, address bar, or tab close button. The storefront checks for this signal frequently, so detection is effectively instant once the cursor crosses the threshold.
It only fires on real cursor movement (keyboard tab-switches are handled by the mobile signals below) and only once per page load, so the same shopper isn't bombarded if they wiggle their mouse near the top of the screen. Trackpad users trigger it the same way as mouse users.
Open the campaign you want to trigger on exit intent. Go to the Targeting panel, click Add condition, choose Exit Intent from the picker, and set the Condition to Is True.
Targeting panel with Exit Intent condition added and the Condition operator set to Is True
Screenshot coming soon
That single rule is enough on desktop — no additional configuration required.
Mobile signals
On mobile, browsers don't fire the same mouseLeave event desktop browsers do — there's no cursor to leave the document. Tapping a tab away or hitting the back button looks completely different than a cursor heading toward the address bar.
Nudgesmart provides five separate mobile leave-signals you can add as additional rules in the same campaign. They are not sub-options under Exit Intent — they are standalone rules you add alongside (or instead of) it for mobile traffic. The verbatim labels:
- Back button pressed — fires when a shopper hits the device's back button or the browser's back gesture
- Tab switched away — fires when the shopper switches to another tab or app and the page goes into the background
- Scroll up exit signal — fires on a hard scroll up after the shopper had been scrolling down (a strong leave-intent pattern on mobile)
- Screen rotations — fires when the shopper rotates their device, which often correlates with disengagement or app-switching
- App download attempted — fires when the shopper taps a link that would open an external app, signaling they're about to leave the storefront
Mobile leave-signal picker showing the five separate trigger options listed above
Screenshot coming soon
For most stores, Back button pressed plus Tab switched away captures the majority of mobile exits. Add Scroll up exit signal for long product pages. The other two are situational — Screen rotations if your audience reads on the go, App download attempted if your store has a lot of outbound app links.
A common pattern is to add the desktop Exit Intent rule plus one or two mobile signals to the same campaign — it fires on whichever hits first, depending on the device.
Combine with frequency rules
A trigger this powerful needs a frequency cap. Without one, a shopper who dismissed your popup and tried to leave again would see it a second time — the fastest way to train someone to bounce on sight.
Set the campaign's frequency cap to Once per session. This is the right default for exit intent — a shopper who said no once shouldn't be re-asked the same session.
Frequency cap field set to Once per session in the campaign settings
Screenshot coming soon
If your store has a lot of repeat traffic, consider Once per day or Once per week instead. The right cap is the longest one that still gives you enough fire-rate to drive conversions. For more on cooldown windows, see Frequency caps and cooldowns.
Avoiding false positives
A false positive is when the trigger fires but the shopper wasn't actually leaving — for example, the cursor drifted toward the top while reaching for a menu. False positives waste your one-shot interruption and reduce trust.
Nudgesmart handles most of this automatically:
- Single-fire flag. Once the trigger fires for a given page load, it won't fire again, even if the cursor leaves and re-enters the document.
- Built-in debounce. A momentary cursor flicker near the edge doesn't count; the signal has to be sustained.
- Eventual timeout. If the trigger has been listening too long without firing, it quietly stops watching to keep the page fast.
You can reduce false positives further by adding Time on page is greater than 5 seconds — this prevents firing the instant a shopper lands and immediately moves their cursor.
Live preview of an exit-intent popup appearing on a product page in the storefront
Screenshot coming soon
Combined-rule preview showing Exit Intent plus Back button pressed plus Time on page greater than 5 seconds in a single campaign
Screenshot coming soon
Common pitfalls
- The popup never fires on mobile. Pure desktop exit intent doesn't trigger on mobile. Add at least one mobile signal — Back button pressed is the safest first choice.
- The popup fires on shoppers who weren't leaving. Add a Time on page condition (5 seconds is plenty) so cursor movement during the first second doesn't count.
- Repeat shoppers see the popup every visit. Loosen the frequency cap to Once per day or Once per week for stores with daily returning shoppers.
- Two campaigns are racing to fire on exit. Pick one popup per page — competing exit-intent campaigns produce unpredictable behavior.
Frequently asked questions
Does exit intent work the same way in every browser?
The desktop signal works in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge. The mobile signals work across iOS Safari, Chrome on Android, and the major in-app browsers. Older or locked-down environments may behave differently but are a tiny share of real shopping traffic.
Will exit intent fire when a shopper proceeds to checkout?
No. Nudgesmart doesn't run on Shopify checkout pages, and the trigger is page-scoped — moving from a product page to the cart is a navigation, not an exit. It only fires when the shopper looks like they're leaving the storefront entirely.
Can I run exit intent only on desktop, or only on mobile?
Yes. For desktop-only, use the Exit Intent condition alone — mobile shoppers won't trigger it. For mobile-only, skip Exit Intent and add one or more of the five mobile signals. You can also run separate desktop and mobile campaigns with different offers tailored to each device.
What to read next
How to show a popup only on specific pages
Target popups to product pages, collections, the cart, the homepage, or any URL pattern — and combine multiple page rules in one campaign.
How to trigger a popup based on time on page or scroll depth
Wait until a shopper is genuinely engaged — by time on page, scroll milestone, or visit history — before firing your popup.