# Triggering options - "When to show?" Canonical URL: https://support.optimonk.com/en/articles/triggering-options-when-to-show Triggers are the rules that decide **when** your popup appears. You can use them on their own, or narrow the audience further with targeting rules (*who should see the popup*). OptiMonk has six triggers: 1. **On exit-intent** 2. **After a delay** (X seconds on the page) 3. **After scrolling** (X% of the page) 4. **On click** (a specific element) 5. **After inactivity** (X seconds without activity) 6. **On a JavaScript event** --- ## Where triggers are set Every campaign carries one settings package: triggers, targeting rules, and frequency together. There are two ways to change it. ### In the campaign's Settings tab 1. Open **Campaigns** in the left menu and click the campaign you want to edit. 2. Open the **Settings** tab. 3. The first section is **When will the popup show up** — your current triggers, one card each. Each trigger card names the trigger and describes it in one line, ending with the devices it runs on — for example *When a visitor is about to leave your site · Desktop & mobile*. Between two trigger cards the rail shows an **OR** badge: the campaign fires when **any** of them triggers. If the campaign has none yet, the section says: *No triggers yet - add one so the popup can appear.* ### In chat You don't have to open the editor at all. The campaign's chat rail takes plain requests: *Change trigger to exit intent * The panel updates as you talk. When the agent changes something you already touched, you get a choice: **Keep my edits** or **Load assistant's version** (which discards yours). The agent also suggests a trigger/targeting/frequency package by itself when a campaign is created, based on your brief and the concept — you can accept it, edit it, or replace it. --- ## Add, edit and remove a trigger - **Add** — click **Add trigger**. The picker says *Pick when the campaign should show. Triggers are combined with OR.* and lists the six triggers with a one-line subtitle each. A trigger already on the campaign is marked **Added**. - **Edit** — click the trigger's card. The same dialog opens on it. - **Remove** — use the card's delete action. In the dialog, you set the trigger's value (seconds, percent, selector or event name), pick the devices, and click **Save** (**Cancel** drops it). Each dialog carries an info box and a **How it works** section with the details of that trigger. A campaign can hold up to **8** triggers. ### Devices Under **On devices,** you switch **Desktop** and **Mobile** on or off. Leaving both on means the popup can fire on either; switching one off makes the trigger desktop-only or mobile-only. So you can set one trigger to work only on mobile and a different one only on desktop, in the same campaign. **On click** and **On a JavaScript event** are the exception: they have no single device switch, because each selector or event name carries its **own** device chooser (see below). Their cards show *per element* instead of a device name. --- ## Save While you have unsaved edits, the section shows **You have unsaved changes** with **Discard** and **Save changes**. Nothing reaches your visitors until you save. If a save fails, you are told explicitly — *Couldn't save your changes - they are not stored yet. Please try again.* — so don't reload the page on a failed save. **A campaign with no trigger cannot go live.** If you try to switch one on, OptiMonk refuses it: *This campaign has no trigger, so it would never appear. Add a trigger (for example, a 5-second delay) in the campaign settings, then activate it again. * --- ## 1. On exit-intent *When about to leave.* The popup appears when the visitor is about to leave your site without converting — a last chance to keep them. On desktop, OptiMonk watches the top 10 pixels of the browser's inner area: if the cursor is dragged up into that strip, it counts as exit intent. On mobile, the signals are different — see Exit-intent trigger on mobile devices. The dialog's info box: *Shows when a visitor is about to leave your site without converting — on both desktop and mobile. Multiple triggers are combined with OR — the campaign fires when any of them triggers. * The card reads: *When a visitor is about to leave your site · {devices}*. --- ## 2. After a delay *X seconds on the page.* Set **Show after** *N* **seconds** — anything from **0 to 60**. The counter starts once the page has loaded and OptiMonk has loaded with it, and it restarts on every page load. **0 seconds** makes it an entry popup: it appears the moment a visitor lands. The card then reads **Immediately** — *Show on page load*. It works, but it interrupts people before they have seen anything, so it is rarely the best choice; follow your visitors' behaviour and pick a moment that fits. *Use 0 seconds to show immediately on page load. Multiple triggers are combined with OR — the campaign fires when any of them triggers. * --- ## 3. After scrolling *X% of the page.* Set **Show after scrolling** *N* **% of the page**, between **1 and 100**. OptiMonk watches the scroll position and calculates how far down the page the visitor currently is. This catches active visitors: on a blog, for instance, someone who has scrolled past half the article is clearly reading it, and is a far better newsletter prospect than someone who just arrived. *Shows once the visitor has scrolled down the set percentage of the page — this catches the attention of active visitors. Multiple triggers are combined with OR — the campaign fires when any of them triggers. * --- ## 4. On click *Click on a specific element.* The popup appears when the visitor clicks a part of your page you name — a button, a link, a banner. At that point the popup behaves like a mini landing page: put an e-book link in a blog post, and the popup that collects the email opens on the click. Add one or more **CSS selector** rows (*e.g. #cta-button, .promo-banner a*) with **Add another selector**. The rows are OR-ed: a click on any of them fires the campaign. Each row has its own **Desktop / Mobile** toggle, so one selector can be desktop-only while the next is mobile-only. The **How it works** section: *Use this trigger to show the campaign when a visitor clicks a specific part of your page — a button, link, banner, and so on. At that point the popup behaves like a mini landing page. You can enter any CSS selector: an element name, a class, an ID, or a combination of them. Examples: a · div.container > a · table > a.delete · #container · #container > * A click on a child element also triggers the campaign when the child sits inside a matching element. * **Two things to keep in mind:** - Clicking the element triggers the campaign **instead of** its normal behaviour, so don't use a selector whose own function you need. - **Frequency caps do not apply to this trigger.** As the dialog says: *a click always shows the campaign as long as the targeting rules match.* The popup opens on every click — including after a page reload, and even for a visitor who has already filled it in. ### Finding the selector 1. Open your site in Chrome. 2. Right-click the element you want to use and choose **Inspect**. 3. In the panel that opens, hover over the code to see which element it highlights. 4. Take the element's id or class. An `id="e-1570005882489"` becomes `#e-1570005882489` in the CSS selector field; a `class="promo"` becomes `.promo`. --- ## 5. After inactivity *X seconds without activity.* Set **Show after** *N* **seconds**. Inactivity means no mouse movement, no clicking, and no scrolling. Use it to catch visitors who have stalled: a special offer appearing unexpectedly is often enough to bring them back. If your analytics show a lot of idle time on a page, this is the trigger for it. *Shows after the visitor has been inactive (no clicks or scrolling) for the set number of seconds — this catches the attention of inactive visitors. Multiple triggers are combined with OR — the campaign fires when any of them triggers. * The dialog accepts 0–60 seconds, but the smallest value the campaign actually runs with is **1 second** — a 0 is saved as 1. For an entry popup, use **After a delay** with 0 seconds instead. --- ## 6. On a JavaScript event *Your own custom DOM event.* Use this when the moment you care about is not covered by any of the other five — a login, a filter change, a step in your own checkout. Add one or more **Event name** rows (*e.g. user_login*) with **Add another event**. Like the click selectors, the rows are OR-ed, and each row carries its own device chooser. Fire the event from your own code with the exact name you entered, on the document or on the `` element: ``` document.dispatchEvent(new Event('user_login', { bubbles: true })) ``` *Shows when a DOM event with the given name fires on your page. Multiple triggers are combined with OR — the campaign fires when any of them triggers. * You can read more about JavaScript events at [w3schools](https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_events.asp). --- ## Triggers that were set up in the classic admin If a campaign was created in the classic OptiMonk admin and uses a trigger this app does not model (for example *average time on page*), it is **not** lost. It appears as a **Custom trigger** card: *Managed in the OptiMonk admin — kept as-is, not editable here. * Opening it shows the raw trigger for reference, read-only. Saving this page keeps it exactly as it is; to change it, open the classic admin. The same applies to a delay longer than 60 seconds: the classic admin puts no upper limit on it, so such a trigger is preserved untouched rather than clamped to 60.