Rethinking ecommerce email capture with intent
We need to talk about how ecommerce brands collect emails.
Pop-ups demanding your email the second you land on a site? We've all seen them. We've all clicked the 'X'.
Yet this is still ecommerce’s default behaviour. A visitor hasn’t scrolled, clicked or even looked around, and already the brand is asking for their data. Sometimes dangling a discount. Sometimes just promising to keep them "in the loop." But always interrupting. Always assuming.
It’s digital directness at its most extreme. And the numbers show it is doing more harm than good.
As we found in The èƵ Gap report, 55% of shoppers dislike pop-ups that appear early in a session. 45% say those pop-ups make them less likely to buy. And one in five say they would leave a site altogether if interrupted too soon.
Yet 79% of the leading retail sites we analysed fire pop-ups within the first 30 seconds.
Brands might think they are winning because the database grows. But what they are really doing is playing a game of short-term gain, long-term pain.
The people and teams at these brands are aware of this. We know because we asked them for an article on ecommerce’s email capture issue. But despite knowing it, most don’t have an easy way of changing their behaviour.
This is one of the biggest blindspots in ecommerce. It’s time to rethink the entire logic of email capture.
Email capture works...But at what cost?
For CRM teams, email capture is a KPI. The more addresses in the database, the better.
But the real question is not whether these pop-ups collect emails. They do. Some of the time. Around 2% of the time, in fact.
The question is whether they should.
Because when you look closer, that growth comes with a hidden cost. And it is more than just a momentary annoyance.
Shoppers are irritated. Journeys are disrupted. Trust is eroded.
And perhaps worst of all, most email capture pop-ups offer a discount as the incentive. Usually 10%. It feels easy. It feels like a win. But the truth is, you’re not just interrupting a visitor. You’re also handing out margin you never needed to give away.
Yet inside ecommerce teams, nobody measures the downstream impact. Very few ask how those emails perform once collected. Whether they open the emails. Whether they engage. Whether they unsubscribe immediately or, worse, mark it as spam.
Because the metric is the email captured. Not the value of that email.
It is the lazy default. A blunt trade-off between quantity and quality. And it only survives because brands never step back to challenge the assumption that capturing an email is always better than not.
But is it?
Imagine this offline. A shopper walks into a store, takes two steps past the entrance, and a salesperson jumps in front of them demanding their contact details in exchange for 10% off. It would be absurd. Yet online, it is the norm.
We measure the upside. We ignore the downside.
Why do brands still do this?
Because it is easy.
Because the tools make it easy.
Because the KPI is set. Grow the database at all costs.
The truth is, the tools most ecommerce teams rely on aren’t built to do anything else. They only support rigid, rule-based triggers. You can fire a pop-up after a set time, after a certain number of pages, or when a mouse scrolls to the top of the screen. Blunt instruments that don't adapt to what the visitor is actually doing.
Because the tools are so limited, teams don’t have to think strategically. They pick one of the arbitrary options, turn it on, and move on to the next task. When platforms lead with convenience over context, strategy suffers. The tech shapes the behaviour.
But it is not just the tools. Organisational silos compound the problem. Email capture, discounting and experience are often owned by three different teams. Each has valid goals, but they are pulling in different directions.
CRM teams want emails. UX teams want less friction. Trading teams want conversions.
And no one asks the simple question: at what point would you be comfortable giving your email address to a retailer?
The anonymity of ecommerce only deepens the problem. I call this the veil of anonymity. Because shoppers can’t push back or protest, teams feel detached. When you remove human connection from the buying experience, it becomes easier to justify inappropriate interruptions. It becomes easy to forget that shoppers are real people.
How intent changes the game
This is not an argument against email capture. It is an argument for more appropriate email capture.
Not based on arbitrary page views or timers. Based on real behaviour. Real signals. Real moments of relevance.
You need to wait for the right time when the visitor has committed something towards that relationship before you ask that question.
And those moments will vary. There is no single 'right' page or second. Instead, teams should look at the journey through the lens of the visitor. Not the website.
For example:
- Browsing content? Offer to send more, like recipes or inspiration.
- Comparing products? Offer to save favourites to their inbox.
- At the basket, but hesitating? Offer to email them the basket or send price alerts.
- Showing signs of exit? Use that as the trigger to invite them to continue the conversation.
This is exactly what brands like Le Chameau and On The Beach have done by adding real-time intent to their email capture tactics.
Le Chameau used intent signals to show email capture only to disengaging visitors, not those in a focused, progressing journey. You can read the full play here.
The result:
- 3% more sign-ups.
- 24% incremental revenue from that segment.
On The Beach used exit signals to trigger email capture earlier in the session, before visitors had fully disengaged. Explore their play here.
The result:
- 28% more email captures.
Not more pop-ups. Not more impressions. Just better timing. Better targeting. And better outcomes.
A more considered playbook for email capture
Want to do the same? Here’s how to rethink your approach:
When should you ask?
- Not on entry
- When visitors show signs of struggle, hesitation or exit
- When they have built some product affinity or journey progression
Who should you ask?
- Not everyone.
- Exclude visitors in a Focus state, who are progressing naturally
- Target those most at risk of leaving or showing hesitation
What should the offer be?
- Not always a discount
- Offer content, save-for-later prompts, alerts, or softer relationship-building asks
And above all: stop thinking of email capture as a one-shot pop-up. Think of it as a sequence of opportunities to connect, at the right moment for the right customers.
You get a pop-up demanding your email before you’ve even looked around. How does that make you feel?
That is the question we should be asking of every tactic, every journey, every decision.
Because this is not just about collecting more emails. Or it shouldn’t be. It is about thinking in terms of value as much as volume. From interruptions to relationships. From blunt force to appropriate timing.
It is always better to start a relationship with respect than to do a fast grab for 10%.
Want to see how others are using intent to grow email lists without hurting experience? Read up on Email Capture with èƵ.
