Stall library · Buy
A popup blocks the AI agent path to the cart
A blocking popup is an overlay that covers the product page and does not close in response to anything an AI agent would click, so the journey ends before a product can be chosen. The agent is not ignoring your offer. It cannot see past it, and the elements underneath are not reachable while the overlay is in front of them.
Why the agent stops
Agents dismiss overlays by finding a control with a recognisable name, such as Close or Dismiss, and activating it. An overlay whose close control is an unlabelled icon, whose dismiss action is a click on the backdrop, or which reappears immediately, presents no such control.
Newsletter and discount modals that fire on a timer are the common case, and they are usually set to appear a few seconds after load, which is exactly when an agent is reading the page.
How often we see this
Not stated here. A frequency means nothing without the cohort it was counted over, and this page is about one stall rather than one category. Where a category has enough stores measured at every stage, the share of them showing this stall is published on its benchmark page, with the methodology beside it.
See it for yourself
- Open a product page in a private window and wait for any timed overlay to appear.
- Try to close it using only the keyboard: press Escape, then Tab to find a close control.
- If neither works, an agent has the same problem.
- Check whether the overlay reappears on the next page view within the same session.
What to change
- Give every overlay a close button that is a real control with an accessible name.
- Make Escape close it.
- Do not show promotional overlays to identified agent traffic at all.
- Delay or suppress overlays on product and cart pages, which are the pages where the interruption costs the most.
What Ottom looks at
The journey agent first answers any cookie banner the way a careful person would: it rejects it, or closes it when there is nothing to reject, and never accepts. It then checks for a blocking overlay before attempting to choose an option, records the overlay it found, and stops. The finding names the overlay, so it is usually identifiable as a specific app or campaign.
Questions
Our popup converts well. Should we remove it for agents?
Keep it. The recommendation is about the close control and the timing, not about whether you may run a campaign. A popup with a labelled close button that responds to a keypress is dismissible by anything, and one that appears on a scroll or an exit rather than a timer is far less likely to land on top of a basket. If you can also exclude identified agent traffic from it, that removes the question entirely.
Can a cookie banner stop an AI agent from buying?
Yes, if the banner blocks the page and offers no way past it except accepting. Our agent rejects cookie banners, or closes them, and never accepts on anyone else's behalf, so a banner with a labelled reject or close control is fine and is not reported. A banner whose only answer is Accept, or whose controls cannot be reached from the keyboard, is where the journey stops, and it is reported as this stall.