I used to do a lot of pop-up surveys between 2000 to 2003 (for an old employer before I started up Surveylab). By 2003 their effectiveness was waning - and this before IE6 with its pop-up blocking enabled by default was the browser "of choice" (accounted for about 50% of browsers in early 2003).

In recent weeks I've seen pop-up surveys on comet.co.uk and royalmail.com - both were using CSS to control the pop-up. The Guardian web site uses CSS pop-ups (not just surveys) all the time.

I say CSS - JavaScript is still used but the code is working with the Document Object Model rather than the really easy 1 line of code to open a new window in IE/Firefox/etc.

What response rate the above are getting I don't know. Back in 2002/03 response rates (for pop-up surveys) were sub 10% - sometimes 2-3%, a couple of surveys were getting 20-25%. But there are other factors that affect response rate.

I'm not sure if you can setup a "definitive" exit survey - in that it pops up when the visitor leaves the site. All those who close the browser will never get a popup. In fact if they switch to email and click on a link or simply type a new URL in the address box - no exit code is going to execute (the page has no way of knowing to pop the survey).

I would recommend spending a little time analysing the visitor logs on the site - which pages are they exiting from and what's the path to these pages. Put the survey along this route - and promote it on the actual page if possible. Your survey has to be quick and to the point. Depending on the type of site, incentivising the survey with a competition or reward should encourage participation, could also generate some sales...

Good luck.

Dan
www.surveylab.co.uk