How to add an exit-intent popup to Shopify in 5 minutes (no app)

An exit-intent popup fires the moment a visitor's mouse moves toward the top edge of the viewport — the universal signal someone is about to close the tab or switch sites. It's one of the highest-converting recovery patterns in ecommerce, with most stores seeing 2–6% of would-be bounces convert when shown a thoughtful offer.

This guide walks through adding a desktop exit-intent popup to any Shopify store in five minutes — no theme rewrite, no app install, no Liquid edits beyond pasting one tag.

Step 1 — Sign up for RecartIQ

Create a free account at recartiq.com/signup. It's a 7-day Pro trial with no credit card required. After signing up, click Create site and enter your storefront domain (e.g. your-store.myshopify.com or your custom domain). Pick the currency your store sells in.

Step 2 — Paste the tracking snippet into your theme

From the site's detail page, copy the <script async src=…> tag at the top. In Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Themes → … → Edit code, open theme.liquid, and paste the tag immediately before the closing </head>. Save.

That's the only theme edit you need to make for this entire flow.

Step 3 — Create the exit-intent rule

Click Rules → New rule. Configure:

• Trigger: Exit intent (desktop)
• Threshold: 0 seconds (or a few seconds if you want the popup armed only after the visitor has spent a moment on the page)
• Action: Show popup with copy along the lines of:
  Title: Wait — before you go!
  Message:Here's 10% off if you check out today.
  CTA: Use my discount
• Coupon code: STAY10 (or any code your Shopify discount engine recognizes)
• Cooldown:24 hours — don't show the same visitor the popup twice in one day

Save the rule. The popup is now armed on every page of your storefront — no extra deploys, no theme rebuild.

Step 4 — Test it

Open your storefront in an incognito window. Wait a few seconds for the tracker to load and the rule to install (you can check the Network tab for a request to /api/public/actions/…). Then move your cursor toward the top of the browser window. The popup should fire instantly.

On mobile, exit-intent doesn't fire (touch devices don't emit a meaningful mouseleave event). RecartIQ skips the handler entirely on touch — your mobile UX is untouched.

Step 5 — Watch conversion uplift

After a few days, open the site detail page. The Conversion upliftsection compares the conversion rate of visitors shown your popup versus visitors who weren't. That's the incremental revenue this single rule generated. Most stores see a 1.05–1.4× lift on the exposed cohort within the first week.

What to try next

• Add an AI chat action alongside the popup so the visitor can ask a question instead of dismissing
• Add a send_email action with a 2-hour delay so visitors who do leave still get a follow-up
• Stack a second rule for cart abandoned for 5 minutes with a slightly higher discount

Every rule's impact is reported separately in the dashboard, so you can prove what works before scaling it.