Intent-Based Offers

Think about a good salesperson in a real store. They don't hand a coupon to everyone who walks in. They watch. The customer who walks straight to the till gets left alone. The one who keeps picking up the same jacket and putting it back gets a quiet word, while the jacket is still in their hands.

Intent-based offers bring that salesperson to your Shopify store. Growth Suite reads how each visitor behaves, tells the people who came to buy apart from the ones who are likely to walk away, and makes the second group one real offer at the moment they're most interested.

Not every visitor needs an offer

Every store gets two kinds of shoppers. They can look the same in your analytics, but they need very different things from you.

	Dedicated Buyer	Walk-Away Customer
Why they're here	They came to buy. They know what they want.	They like what they see, but they're not sure yet.
What they usually do	Add to cart and check out.	Look around, compare, add to cart, then leave.
What Growth Suite does	Nothing. They pay full price.	Makes one time-limited offer at the right moment.

A store-wide code can't tell these two apart, so both get the same 10%. The walk-away customer might need it. The dedicated buyer just takes margin you never had to give. We go deeper on this in Dedicated Buyers vs. Walk-Away Customers.

The offer comes while they're still interested

A good salesperson doesn't wait for the customer to reach the door. They speak up while the customer is still holding the product. Growth Suite works the same way. Depending on how the visit goes, the offer can come at one of three points:

1. While they're looking at a product. A visitor spends real time on a product page but doesn't add it to the cart. Their interest is at its highest right there, so that's where the offer shows up.
2. After they add to cart. Some visitors put something in the cart and then stall. The offer meets them in the cart, with what they'd save and how long the offer lasts.
3. When they come back after leaving checkout. Someone started checkout, left without paying, and later comes back to your store. They clearly still want it. The offer is waiting when they return.

Dedicated buyers skip all three. They never see an offer.

How it's different from an exit-intent popup

An exit-intent popup fires when the mouse heads for the close button. By then the visitor has mostly made up their mind. It shows the same code to everyone who leaves, including people who would have come back and bought anyway. And on a phone there's no mouse to watch, so it has to guess.

	Exit-intent popup	Intent-based offer
When it shows	On the way out	While the visitor is still interested
Who sees it	Everyone who tries to leave	Only visitors who look likely to walk away
The code	One code for everyone	A single-use code made for one visitor
The timer	Often none, or one that resets	A real countdown. When it ends, the code is gone

What the visitor sees

On the product page, the visitor sees their own discount, the time left and their new price. In the cart, an animated element shows how much they're saving. A small timer stays on screen while they browse, and tapping it opens the offer again in a popup.

When they head to checkout, the code is already there. Nobody has to copy or type anything.

Everything is added through Shopify theme app blocks, so there's no theme code to edit. The elements pick up your theme's fonts, and you can change colors, text and position.

Every offer is a real one

Each offer is made for one person, so it behaves like an offer from a real salesperson, not a code floating around the internet.

• Their own code. Every offer gets a single-use code, and Growth Suite applies it to the cart automatically.
• A countdown that means it. The timer stays the same across refreshes and tabs. When it hits zero, the discount comes out of the cart and the code is deleted from Shopify.
• Sized for the person. A visitor who's clearly interested gets a smaller discount and a shorter window. One who's barely engaged gets more of both, always inside the range you set.
• Then it backs off. A visitor who got an offer won't get another one for 7 days by default. You can set it anywhere from 1 to 89 days, so offers never turn into something shoppers wait for.

What you control

Setting	What it does
Discount range	The minimum and maximum discount percentage for each trigger campaign. Growth Suite picks a value inside it for each visitor.
Offer length	Smart mode picks a length inside a range, 20 to 40 minutes by default. Fixed mode uses one length, 30 minutes by default.
Cooldown	How long before the same visitor can get another offer. 7 days by default, adjustable from 1 to 89.
Custom audiences	Run offers for a segment you define, using new or returning visitors, device, operating system, landing page, source/medium, return behavior, product views and last-session events.
Discount rules	Store-wide limits every Growth Suite discount follows. Exclude products by vendor, title, collection or sale status, and cap the discount at a fixed amount, like $100, even on a very large cart.
A/B testing	Test discount ranges, offer lengths and the traffic split in trigger campaigns, and judge the result on conversion rate, AOV or revenue.
Look and placement	Colors, text, position and custom CSS. Fonts follow your theme.

For example, you could run an audience for returning visitors on mobile who added something to the cart in their last session. There's more in our A/B testing guide and in how to exclude products from discounts.

Getting started

Install Growth Suite from the Shopify App Store. When you finish onboarding, a ready-made campaign is already running, so you can watch offers go out before you change anything. From there, set your discount range, offer length and cooldown, and make the offer look like your store.

Frequently asked questions

What is an intent-based offer?

It's a time-limited discount that only goes to visitors whose behavior says they probably won't buy on their own. Growth Suite reads each visit and makes the offer while the visitor is still interested: on the product page, in the cart, or when they come back after leaving checkout. Visitors who came to buy never see it.

Is it the same as an exit-intent popup?

No. An exit-intent popup shows one code to everyone who tries to leave, right as they leave. An intent-based offer goes only to likely walk-away visitors, comes while they're still interested, and uses a single-use code with a real countdown.

Will customers who were going to buy anyway get a discount?

No. Visitors who look ready to buy don't see an offer, so they check out at full price.

What happens when the timer runs out?

The discount comes out of the cart and the code is deleted from Shopify. It can't be used later or switched back on.

Can shoppers share their code?

They can pass it on, but it only works for one checkout and it runs out with the timer. By the time it reaches anyone else, it's usually gone. Our guide to unique, single-use codes explains why that matters.

Do I need to edit my theme?

No. The offer elements are added with Shopify theme app blocks and pick up your theme's fonts. You can adjust colors, text and position without touching code.

Keep reading

• How blanket discounts eat your margin
• Real countdown timers for Shopify
• Time-limited discount offers for Shopify stores
• Scarcity marketing: real vs. fake urgency
• The best Shopify discount apps, compared