Email newsletters play a crucial role in the sales funnels for many online businesses, but how do you get your visitors to subscribe in the first place? See how the winning combination of a lead magnet and OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent technology® worked for Bonjour Lisbonne.

Meet Bonjour Lisbonne

Thibaut Pakiry created the tourism site bonjourlisbonne.fr as a resource for French travelers to Lisbon, Portugal. Thibaut himself moved to Lisbon in 2012, and while he loved the city, there was little information available on the best places to go. In just a few months, his site became an authority on what to do and where to go in Lisbon and soon grew into included guided tours, and coordinated restaurant deals for his customers.

Thibaut told us all about how he used OptinMonster to grow his travel site into a bustling business with more than 20,000 visitors!

How Bonjour Lisbonne Uses OptinMonster

Originally, Thibaut was netting about 50 new subscribers per day on Bonjour Lisbonne using a sidebar optin from Leadpages. He didn’t have a specific daily goal for subscribers, but he knew that to grow his business, he would need to make growing his email list his top priority. This is because Thibaut’s list is his main sales funnel, where subscribers receive updates and offers and are reminded to book their tours!

Lucky for Thibaut, OptinMonster has native integration with AWeber, so making the switch to OptinMonster was simple. He was able to seamlessly send all new subscribers to the list he was already using.

Thibaut’s first move on Bonjour Lisbonne was adding an exit-intent popup. Just as the visitor would move to leave the site, he offered a lead magnet—his personally curated guide “Visiter Lisbonne” (Visit Lisbon)—in exchange for an email address to send it to.

The main campaign text translates to: “Don’t leave empty-handed!!! Tell me which email address you want to receive the best PDF guide on Lisbon”

Once signed up, subscribers receive a 13-page guide and a limited-time deal on booking their trip.

After using this campaign for a while, Thibaut recreated it with a few extra bells and whistles. In this case, literally! Thibaut used MonsterEffects to draw attention to his popup with a “wobble” animation and a sound effect.

Then, he created a Yes/No view that would be the initial view shown, asking if the abandoning visitor is planning to visit Lisbon soon. Only two options are available: “Yes” or “No, I don’t want to visit Lisbon.”

Thibaut’s question works for two reasons: first, it appeals to the visitor’s curiosity. Why is he asking? What happens if I click yes?

Second, when a visitor clicks “Yes,” they are shown the Optin view, which Thibaut already knew would convert because of his previous campaign. But, because of the Zeigarnik Effect, the visitor that clicked “Yes” is more likely to follow through with signing up, because they were the one to initiate the action.

Case Study See how Hubstaff used the Zeigarnik Effect in their campaigns.

Results

Just by adding his original OptinMonster popup to his site, Thibaut greatly increased his daily optin rate. Success!

But, when he added the Yes/No view and MonsterEffects, his conversion rate went from 2.65% to 10.6%!

By using OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent technology®, Thibaut:

• Doubled his daily subscriber rate from 50 to 100 subscribers
• Increased sales by 30%

That’s not all: Thibaut thought if this could work for one site, why not apply it to others?

“I tried this same strategy for my other site Bonjour Porto, and the results confirmed this strategy wasn’t about luck. The results were the same!”

Now Thibaut uses OptinMonster on both sites, as well as a third travel site, Bonjour Rome!

Summary

Don’t underestimate the value of a good lead magnet! It can take time to gather all the best information you have to offer but once completed, your one lead magnet can pull in an incredible amount of qualified lead.! When paired with OptinMonster’s powerful features and targeting rules, you can truly maximize your results like Thibaut did.

“OptinMonster and its Exit-Intent technology® changed my business. I have twice as many subscribers each day, and an increase of 30% of sales. Fabulous!”
Thibaut Pakiry, Owner, BonjourLisbonne.fr