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Targeting decides who is eligible to see a website survey, and triggers decide when it opens for an eligible visitor. A survey appears only when its targeting matches and a trigger fires. Targeting is set in the Display rules tab of the survey’s Targeting step. Every rule is optional, and the rules combine with AND. Pages, devices, visitor country, visitor type, availability and how often work on every plan. Sign-in state, User traits, Earlier surveys, Referrer, Campaign parameters and Traffic share are advanced targeting rules, available on the Starter plan and above. On a plan without them, their controls are locked. A rule set earlier stays and shows “Your plan doesn’t include this rule. To publish, remove it or upgrade to Starter.”, and the survey can’t be published until the rule is removed or the plan is upgraded. After a downgrade, a published survey keeps its advanced rules until it is published again.

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Pages

Where to show sets the pages the survey runs on with Included pages and Excluded pages. Add rule adds a rule made of an operator and a value:
  • contains pricing
  • is exactly /checkout
  • starts with /app/ (matches /app/, /app/home and /app/settings/profile)
  • ends with /thanks
  • matches regex ^/product/[0-9]+$ for precise cases
Match against tests the Path (the address after your domain, without the query string and hash) by default. Path and query also tests the query string and hash, for example contains utm_campaign=spring. The domain is never part of either. Every rule ignores upper and lower case, and paths in any alphabet, such as /ürünler, match as typed. One trailing slash doesn’t matter, so is exactly /pricing also matches /pricing/. An is exactly, starts with or contains rule that ends in /*, such as starts with /blog/*, matches /blog and every page under it. A full address pasted as a value, such as https://example.com/pricing, counts from its path. With no included rule, the survey runs on every page, and an excluded match always wins, so “everywhere except /admin/” is one excluded rule that starts with /admin/. Page rules are checked again on route changes, so they work in single-page apps. A regular expression that could freeze the visitor’s browser is skipped until it is simplified.

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Devices

Show on devices selects desktop, tablet, mobile or any combination. A trigger condition can also be limited to some of these devices; see Triggers.

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Visitor country

Visitor country limits the survey to the selected countries, or to every country except the selected ones. Twenty-one countries and territories where Usertick can’t bill a subscription aren’t in the list, among them Russia, Belarus, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, China and Kosovo. A survey limited to selected countries doesn’t open for a visitor from one of them, and a survey set to every country except the selected ones does. The country is read from the visitor’s connection once per browser session, which has two effects:
  • A visitor whose country can’t be determined doesn’t see the survey. That includes a failed lookup, a VPN or proxy that hides the origin, and Tor, and it applies to “every country except” lists too. This rule is best left empty unless it is needed.
  • On the first page of a session, the survey opens a moment later while the lookup runs.
If your site sends a strict Content Security Policy, it needs to allow connect-src https://cdn.usertick.com; otherwise the lookup is blocked and no visitor sees the survey. Show on devices and Visitor country also apply to link and QR surveys: visitors on other devices or from other countries see the survey’s closed screen. To show a different version of a survey by country instead of hiding it, use a variant: the editor’s variant rules take the same country condition.

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Visitor type

Visitor type selects Everyone, New visitors (the first browser session) or Returning visitors (from the second session on, with an optional Minimum visits). Visits are counted per browser.

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Sign-in state and traits

After your own code tells the widget who the visitor is, targeting can use it:
  • Sign-in state: Everyone, Identified (your code called identify with a user ID) or Anonymous.
  • User traits: rules over the traits you pass, such as plan is pro or seats is at least 10. Numbers compare as numbers, and text ignores case and extra spaces. is and is not read a value with a leading zero, such as the zip code 02134, as text. Trait names match in any case, and is set and is not set check whether a trait exists. All rules or Any rule sets how the rules combine.
These rules run in the visitor’s browser. The ID and traits are also sent with a response, so the inbox shows who answered, unless the site or the survey turns that off. Calling Usertick.logout() when the user signs out makes the visitor anonymous again. See Identify your users.

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Earlier surveys

Earlier surveys targets what this browser did with your other website surveys on the same site. Add survey rule adds a rule with one of these states:
  • was shown or was not shown
  • was answered or was not answered
  • was closed without an answer
Each rule can look back a number of days, for example “the NPS survey was not answered in the last 90 days”, so a follow-up is asked only where the first survey went unanswered. The rules combine with AND.

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Referrer and query parameters

  • Referrer: the survey shows only to visitors who arrive from a matching site. The rule is a regular expression tested against the referring URL, ignoring case, so google\. matches every Google domain. An empty field allows any referrer.
  • Campaign parameters: the survey shows only when the page URL includes one of the listed query parameters, such as utm_campaign, optionally with a value such as spring. An empty value matches any value, and one matching parameter is enough. Names and values ignore case, and a value can be written as it appears in the address bar, such as summer+sale.

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Traffic share

Traffic share shows the survey to a percentage of eligible visitors, from 1 to 99. Each visitor always gets the same result for a survey, so nobody moves in and out of the sample.

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Availability

  • Opens at keeps the survey closed until a date and time, and Closes at closes it at a date and time that is the same for every respondent. Tell respondents adds the closing date to the survey’s footer. Usertick still accepts responses for 30 minutes after Closes at, so a respondent who started before the close can finish, and a response given in time that the browser could only send later, after a network error, is accepted when it arrives within 3 days of the close.
  • Only on certain days or hours limits the survey to selected Days of week and Hours, in each respondent’s local time. An overnight range, such as 22 to 6, wraps past midnight.
  • Response limit stops showing the survey once it reaches the Maximum responses. The limit is enforced on the server, so every browser stops at the same count.

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How often

Show frequency in the same tab holds the Repeat behavior (Until answered, Once, Every N days or Every visit) and Hide when the browser blocks storage. Both are described under Frequency and politeness.
Narrow targeting with a considerate trigger usually works better than one broad survey everywhere. “Pricing page, returning visitors, plan is free, 30% traffic share, exit intent” asks at a specific moment; “every page, on load” interrupts everyone.