Triggers: on-site behavioral rules

The Pixel Triggers page is where you define on-site behavioral rules — which pages a visitor is on, how long they've been there, whether they're about to leave, and how often they've already been targeted — and what those rules fire when they match. Today, triggers fire popups. The rules run inside the Zalify pixel on your site, which is why they live here rather than in the popup editor.

This article covers the Triggers page itself. If you arrived here trying to control a specific popup, the popup-focused walkthrough is Controlling when your popup appears — same page, same rules, written from the popup's point of view.

Triggers only work where the pixel runs. If the pixel isn't installed, nothing fires — see Installing the Zalify pixel.

How triggers work

On every page view, the pixel evaluates your triggers against the visitor's current context: the URL, time on page, cursor behavior, and what this visitor has already seen. When a trigger's rules all match, it fires its target. A trigger is the pairing of rules (when) with a target (what) — you design the popup in Z1 Canvas, and the trigger decides when visitors see it.

Create or edit a trigger

1. Open the Pixel Triggers page.
2. Find the trigger for your target, or create one and select the popup it should display.
3. Set the rules described below.
4. Save. The pixel on your site picks up the new rules.

The rules

Page targeting

Restrict the trigger to certain pages — only product pages, only the blog, everywhere except checkout. Page targeting is how you match the message to the moment: a cart-abandonment offer belongs on cart pages, not your returns policy.

Delay

Wait until the visitor has been on the page a set number of seconds before firing. A short delay filters out immediate bounces and reads as less aggressive than firing instantly on load.

Exit intent

Fire when the visitor shows signs of leaving the page. Exit intent suits last-chance messages — a discount, a newsletter signup — because it stays out of the way while the visitor is still engaged.

Frequency

Cap how often the same visitor is targeted — whether the trigger fires again after being dismissed, and how long it waits before re-firing. Frequency rules are what keep behavioral targeting from becoming nagging; without them, a returning visitor sees the same popup on every visit.

Combining rules

Rules on a trigger combine with AND logic: a trigger with page targeting, a delay, and a frequency cap fires only on matching pages, only after the delay, and only as often as frequency allows. Start with one or two rules and tighten based on results — over-constrained triggers that never fire are a more common problem than noisy ones.

If you run multiple triggers, keep their page targeting from stacking on the same pages, or a visitor can qualify for several targets at once.

Testing a trigger

1. Publish the target (an unpublished popup can't be shown — see Creating a form or popup).
2. Open your live site in a private browsing window so your own frequency history doesn't suppress the trigger.
3. Visit a page that matches the page-targeting rules, wait out any delay, or move to leave the page for exit intent.
4. If nothing fires, confirm the pixel is running on that page first — see Installing the Zalify pixel — then re-check each rule against the exact URL you're testing.

For the full popup-specific troubleshooting list, see Controlling when your popup appears.

What triggers don't control

Triggers decide when; they don't decide what it looks like or where data goes. Popup content and design are edited in Z1 Canvas (Creating a form or popup), and the list a form submits to is a form setting (Connecting a form to a list).