How to Use OptinMonster to Recover Checkout Abandoners

The short answer: on a WooCommerce store, a checkout exit offer needs OptinMonster's Pro plan, $37 a month for the first year, because Exit-Intent and Revenue Attribution both start there (pricing page, checked on 26 October 2026); install the WordPress plugin, build a popup with the offer, add an Exit-Intent rule and a checkout URL rule joined by ALL, connect your email platform, let AI Popups draft headline options and pick one yourself for a split test, switch on Revenue Attribution, publish, and judge the result by completed orders rather than by attributed revenue alone.

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The shopper who reaches checkout and leaves is the most expensive visitor on the site: you paid to bring them, they chose a product, and something at the last step stopped them. A popup at that moment can answer the objection with an offer. This guide builds one on WooCommerce, where OptinMonster's plugin handles revenue tracking without extra code. For the plans, see the OptinMonster glossary entry.

Check before you build:

• The plan, priced over two years. Pro or higher, for Exit-Intent and Revenue Attribution: $444 for the first year, then $870 a year, so $444 + $870 = $1,314 over two years (pricing page). Set that against the margin on the orders you expect to save.
• The platform. On Shopify's newer checkout, Revenue Attribution does not work because third-party scripts are blocked on the thank-you page (attribution guide); the rest of this guide still applies there.
• The offer. A coupon created in WooCommerce, or free shipping, written down before anyone opens the builder.
• A baseline. Your checkout completion rate from WooCommerce for the last four full weeks: orders divided by sessions that reached checkout.

1. Install the plugin and start a campaign

Install the OptinMonster WordPress plugin and connect it to your account; on WordPress the embed code is added for you. Then, at app.optinmonster.com, click Create New Campaign, choose Popup, pick a template, give it a title, assign it to your site and click Start Building (first campaign guide).

2. Write the offer into two views

Edit the Optin view with the offer and one email field, and the Success view with the code itself, so the shopper sees it the moment they submit. Add a privacy statement and checkbox from the Optin Fields block, and confirm that Conversion Tracking is on for the submit button, which is what counts a conversion (first campaign guide).

3. Join two rules with ALL

In the Display Rules view, add Exit-Intent as the first rule, then a URL Path rule for your checkout page, and set the group to ALL so both must be true (cart abandonment guide). On desktop, sensitivity is the distance from the window edge that triggers it: Low at 1 pixel, Medium at 50, High at 150. On mobile it fires when the shopper scrolls quickly back up, by 50%, 30% or 10% of the screen height (Exit-Intent guide). Never add the InactivitySensor to the same ALL group: nobody is idle and leaving at once, so the campaign would never show (display rules guide).

4. Connect the email platform

Open the Integrations view and connect your provider. Every campaign also stores leads in Monster Leads as a backup, and Pro adds webhooks and Zapier for anything without a native connection (first campaign guide).

5. Let AI Popups draft the headline, then choose

Click the improve button on the headline's text field and start a Smart Optimization: AI Popups returns five rewrites, and you can refresh for more or click one into the field (AI Popups announcement). The AI drafts. A person chooses, reading each option against the offer and your brand voice, and rejecting any that promise more than the coupon gives.

Put the chosen line in a split test. On the Campaigns screen, click Create Split Test above the preview, add a title and a note on what changed, and edit only the headline in the copy that opens; testing one change at a time is the guide's advice, and the primary campaign must be published before any variant can show (split test guide).

6. Switch on Revenue Attribution

Go to My Account, scroll to Advanced Settings, enable Revenue Attribution, choose your currency and save. With the WordPress plugin it works with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads without extra code; resave your permalinks and clear caching afterwards (attribution guide).

7. Publish

A new campaign is paused by default and appears nowhere until you publish it from the Publish view, after a last review of the details (first campaign guide).

8. Read it two ways

In Analytics, compare the campaigns by conversion rate, not by raw totals: OptinMonster picks a campaign at random on each pageview, so the totals drift apart and only the rate is a fair comparison (split test guide). The guide's rule is to choose the highest conversion rate; give the test enough checkout sessions before you trust a gap of a point or two. Then read the revenue each campaign is credited with.

Where OptinMonster's docs say it goes wrong

• An inline campaign. Exit-Intent cannot run on one.
• A new primary campaign. Changing it means updating the embed code on the site.
• Uneven split totals. Normal, given random assignment and different display rules per variant.
• The new Shopify checkout. No Revenue Attribution.

How to know the offer paid for itself

Revenue Attribution reports the revenue an individual campaign has contributed, and nothing in the guide describes a control group, so it cannot show which of those orders would have happened without a discount. That figure sitting next to every campaign is also the number that renews an OptinMonster subscription. The free check is enough: compare your checkout completion rate for four full weeks with the campaign against the four-week baseline, and subtract the discount you gave away from the extra orders. If completion barely moved while attributed revenue looks large, the popup mostly discounted orders you already had.

Later, if you want that check run continuously across every channel, a causal attribution tool like Causality Engine does it (disclosure: I founded it).

FAQ

Will this work on the Plus plan?

No. Plus includes split testing, but Exit-Intent, which the checkout rule depends on, starts on Pro (display rules guide).

Does the exit offer show on phones?

Yes, if the rule targets mobile: it fires on a quick scroll back up, and OptinMonster says it does not interfere with the back button, which keeps it clear of Google's back-button policy (Exit-Intent guide).

Can I run this on Shopify?

The popup, the rules and the split test, yes. Revenue Attribution only on stores still using Shopify's older checkout templates (attribution guide).