How-to
Exit-intent and timed popups
When and how to use popups, and the trigger settings to think about.
2 min readLast updated 17 June 2026
Exit-intent and timed popups
A popup is a form rendered in a layer over your page. Same builder as an inline form, different surface.
Build the popup
- Audience → Forms → New form — build the form just like an inline one.
- Attach a popup surface — in the form settings, switch the surface to Popup.
- Pick a trigger:
- Exit intent — fires when the cursor leaves through the top of the page (the visitor is heading for the back button or the address bar).
- Timed — fires after N seconds on the page. 15-30 seconds is a typical range.
- Pick frequency:
- Once per visitor — recommended. We set a cookie so the popup never fires twice for the same person.
- Once per session — fires once per visit. Annoying on repeat visits.
- Every visit — never use this.
- Publish.
Embed the snippet
Paste the popup snippet into your site's <head> or just before the closing </body>. The snippet is small and asynchronous — it won't slow your page down.
Frequency hygiene — please
A few rules of thumb to keep popups from hurting your brand:
- One popup per page max. Never overlap two.
- Once per visitor for evergreen popups (newsletter, demo).
- Once per session is only acceptable for short-lived promotions (sale ends Friday).
- Don't fire on every page. A site-wide popup is acceptable on the homepage, blog index, and pricing page. Suppress it on the customer dashboard, the docs, and any logged-in surface.
- Make the close button obvious. Big, visible X, no fake close buttons. People remember sites that trick them.
What you can measure
On the popup's detail page you'll see:
- Views — how many times the popup was rendered to a visitor.
- Submits — how many filled it in.
- Conversion rate — submits / views.
A healthy newsletter popup is around 2–4% conversion. Demo / lead-gen popups vary widely (0.5–10%) depending on the offer. Optimise by testing the copy in the form's heading and the offer — the trigger and frequency settings have less impact than people expect.