Notably absent from this comment: the slightest awareness that "your traffic" is composed of people who have preferences.
Yeah, no doubt, "exit intent works", if the only thing you care about is "the return of your traffic". This mindset is exactly how we got to the situation described in the OP.
You are making things worse for your users. You don't care, because you don't think of them as users, as people, as human beings, you think of them as "traffic" whose "return" you want to "maximize".
Content has a cost; I don’t apologize for maximizing the return of that investment.
I’m personally not offended by exit intent pop ups. They are an expected part of the browsing experience. I don’t think of them like the pop ups (or pop unders!) if the early 90s. An exit intent is limited to the window displayed.
That said, I do strongly believe in respecting user preference. If a person clicks the “no thanks” button I do cookie that preference and suppress additional exit intents. And I have problems with how some companies hijack the back button on mobile to show exit intent style content.
But I disagree with the sentiment that surfacing an offer to a user is hostile.
Yeah, no doubt, "exit intent works", if the only thing you care about is "the return of your traffic". This mindset is exactly how we got to the situation described in the OP.
You are making things worse for your users. You don't care, because you don't think of them as users, as people, as human beings, you think of them as "traffic" whose "return" you want to "maximize".
You are the problem.