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There are situations when we would like to show our message only during a given time interval (like Valentine’s Day and Black Friday) or only on some days of the week (like during office hours on weekdays on Saturdays). These are the situations where OptiMonk’s scheduling function comes in handy.
To enable campaign scheduling, you will need to be logged in to your OptiMonk account. When you are done with your campaign's design and settings, you can schedule it by changing its status.
Campaign status: Active, Inactive, Scheduled
In the ‘Campaigns’ menu, all of your campaigns are listed. By default, your campaigns are ‘Inactive’, so they are not displayed on your website at all. They become ‘Active’, so they are shown to your visitors according to your display conditions when you activate them as the last step of setting up an OptiMonk campaign.
However, you can schedule a campaign anytime when you need to have its appearance to adapt to a specific time interval. This is when you set up the third campaign status: ‘Scheduled’.
In order to activate, deactivate or schedule your campaign, you have to update its status. When you select your campaign by clicking on its name, the toggle button in the top left corner indicates the status of your campaign.
The scheduling options will only work if the campaign is set scheduled. Do not worry, the system will automatically detect that your campaign has scheduling options activated, so it will not show your popups before or after the scheduled time.
Remove schedule, reschedule
When you would like to update a scheduled campaign status to active or inactive, click on the campaign name in the ‘Campaigns’ menu, then remove the schedule by clicking on the three dots menu next to the start - end dates, and select ‘Delete schedule’.
The other option here is ‘Edit schedule,’ which will allow you to reschedule your campaign.
Scheduling options
To add scheduling rules to your campaign, follow these steps:
Select your campaign from the ‘Campaigns’ menu you would like to schedule.
Under ‘Status and Schedule’, click on ‘Schedule’.
A settings panel will open where you can set up your campaign’s schedule.
Start date: Select the specific date and time from where you want to display the popup to your audience.
End date: When you select an end date and time by clicking ‘On’, your campaign will stop at the predetermined time. In case you do not select an end date and leave the option on ‘Never’, your campaign will run until you delete the scheduling rule and set its status to ‘Inactive’.
Daily schedule: The ‘Daily schedule’ settings will define the days of the week, on which your campaign will be visible to your visitors.
Every day: This is the default option. If you would like to display your campaign on every single day, select ‘Every day’.
Specific day: If you want to show your message only on specific days, for example, on weekends, then make sure that only Saturday and Sunday are selected.
Under the ‘From’ and ‘To’ options, you can even set up the exact time when your popups will be shown to the visitors on the days selected before.
This is especially useful when you would like to show your message, for example, only during working hours. Let’s say your customer service hotline receives calls between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. during workdays, and your popup encourages your customers to call your hotline for assistance. In this case, you could set up your campaign like this:
You should select all workdays, then define the exact time from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. With this solution, your message will only show while your customer service hotline is still available.
When you have added your scheduling rules, please do not forget to save your settings.
Times zones
What about the different time zones? Can you set them up manually? Well, there is no need. OptiMonk recognizes the visitors’ time zone based on their browsers’ time and adjusts the settings to them. So, your popup will show according to the visitor’s own time zone. For example: if your campaign is visible between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. A European visitor will see it according to its own time zone, and an American visitor according to its own, a couple of hours later.
If you have any further questions or need any help, please contact us at support@optimonk.com, and we would be happy to assist you :)
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