# From a concept to a built popup

Canonical URL: https://support.optimonk.com/en/articles/from-a-concept-to-a-built-popup

Everything on the concept board is a plan. Here is what happens after you pick one: the short
setup that follows, the moment you press **Build it**, and what you see while the popup is made.

## 1. Pick the design you want to go with

Open a concept and, if you are happy with it, use the header button **Next: targeting** — or the
chip below the suggestion grid, **Looks good — next: targeting**, which does the same thing.

Nothing is built by this click. It chooses the design and opens the short plan leading up to the
build, whose steps run along the top. Which ones appear depends on the design:

- **Design** — where you just were
- **Targeting**
- **Coupon** — only if the design has a coupon element
- **Prizes** — only for a lucky wheel or a scratch card
- **Review**
- **Animate** — only when the design's background is one we can animate
- **Build it**

Through all of these, a line under the preview reads **Plan saved · nothing built yet**, so it
is always clear that no build has been spent.

## 2. Targeting

The Targeting panel is titled **Targeting**, with the note *suggested from your brief and the
concept* — the settings arrive pre-filled. It is a summary of four cards:

- **When will the popup show up**
- **Who should see the popup**
- **How often can it appear**
- **Integrations**

The first three have an **Edit** button that opens the setting in place, with **Discard** and
**Done**; mid-edit the card says **Edited · not saved yet**.

The Integrations card is not editable here. Its chip reads **After build**, and opening it
explains: *Every lead lands in your OptiMonk subscriber list. Forwarding to your email tool is
set up once the popup is built, in the campaign hub under Integrations.*

If a coupon step exists, it comes next: the code read from the concept is already filled in, and
the thank-you step is drafted with whatever code you settle on.

## 3. Review, and sometimes Animate

Review shows the whole popup, step by step, on one screen — **Desktop** and **Mobile** — before
anything is built. Steps still being drawn say so, for example *Drafting the {title} step with
{code}…*, with an estimate of *about {seconds} seconds*.

If the design's background can be animated, one more step follows: **Animate the background?
**with **Static background** and **Animated background**. You can **Skip** it and switch later on
the campaign page. Mobile stays static either way.

## 4. Build it

On the last step the button reads **Build it**, and the line beside it changes to
**Build takes about 3 minutes · you can leave this page**.

This is the one click that spends a build, and it does two things in a single request: it starts
the build, then creates the campaign from it. The build goes first on purpose, so a campaign only
appears once the build has really started. You land straight on that campaign's page.

What gets created is a **draft** campaign. It takes its name from the concept you picked and
carries the targeting and coupon settings you just agreed. If you selected more than one design,
each becomes a variant with traffic split evenly. Nothing is pushed to your site yet.

## 5. What you see while it builds

On the campaign page:

- The status chip reads **Under construction**, and the on/off switch is disabled with the reason
**You can switch the campaign on once the popup is built**.
- A panel below shows a progress ring with a percentage, the title **Building your campaign…**,
and the body *We turn your plan into a working popup, then connect it to {domain}. You can
leave — we email you when it is ready.*
- Beside it, a live estimate: **About {count} min left.** If the build runs long that becomes
**Taking a little longer than usual.** rather than a made-up number.
- A four-step checklist — **Plan your campaign**, **Build the popup**, **Insert the code**,
**Activate your campaign** — under **While it builds, connect your site**. Installing the
OptiMonk code is the one thing you can usefully do meanwhile, so that step is left open.

The email is real: once the build finishes successfully, a build-ready mail goes to the address
armed on your session, once. Both desktop and mobile come out of this build — the same responsive
popup is rendered at a desktop size and at a 390×844 phone size.

When it is done the panel switches to **Your campaign is ready**, with *Check it live on your
site, then switch it on in the header.*, plus **Live preview** and **Edit with AI**. The campaign
is not switched on for you.

## 6. If the build fails

The panel turns into **The build did not finish**: *Something went wrong on our side while
building the popup. Starting it again reuses everything you already planned.*

**Try again** restarts the build on the same run — same campaign, same variants, same settings.
While it restarts it reads **Starting again…**; if the restart cannot be started you get **We
could not start the build again. Please try once more.** A second attempt while a build is
already running is refused rather than doubled up.

A build that finished but came out below our quality bar goes to a repair queue for a human to
look at. There is no failure email — the campaign page is where you see it.

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