Rival Pop shows a popup invitation on your website and opens a Rival chat inside the page when a visitor accepts. Visitors stay on your website, and their responses flow back into Rival alongside the data from your other chats. Because the popup can appear at a specific moment, such as when a visitor is about to leave their cart or has finished reading a help article, you capture feedback while the experience is fresh.
Use Rival Pop when you need to understand:
Why visitors leave without completing an action, such as checking out
Whether visitors found what they came for, such as after reading a support article
How the experience differs for visitors from different traffic sources, or for repeat visitors
Before you start
You'll need:
Rival Pop installed on your website. If you haven't done this yet, see Setting Up Rival Pop on Your Website
Your website domain whitelisted in your Rival Research Domain with the purpose Embedded Responding
A Rival chat you're ready to publish
How Rival Pop is organized
Site - A website you registered in Rival Pop. You install the script once per site.
Campaign - A container for multiple popups on one site, such as a "Q1 Customer Feedback" campaign with separate popups for the homepage, checkout, and product pages. Each popup tracks its own metrics, and the campaign shows the combined totals.
Popup - The invitation visitors see. Each popup is connected to one Rival chat and uses one trigger that decides when it appears.
Preparing your chat
Rival Pop displays the chat inside your website, so it needs the embedded version of your chat link.
Log in to Rival and open your Research Domain.
Create a new chat or open an existing one, build the questions and messages you want visitors to see, and preview the chat to test the participant experience.
When the chat is ready, publish it.
Open the published chat and go to the Distribute tab.
Under Links, click Create and save the link.
Copy the link.
Add /embed before the /c/ part of the link. Keep everything else the same, including the domain and the chat identifier.
Standard link - https://ca.rival.chat/c/abc123
Embedded link - https://ca.rival.chat/embed/c/abc123
Always use the embedded link in Rival Pop. A link without /embed/ will not load inside the popup. The Chat URL field in Rival Pop shows an example on a different domain, so use the domain from your own link. For more, see How to Embed a Chat. |
Creating a campaign
In Rival Pop, click Campaigns in the top navigation, then click New Campaign.
Select the Website where the campaign will run.
Enter a Campaign Name, such as Q1 Customer Feedback.
Optionally, add a Description so your team understands the campaign's goals and target audience.
Click Create Campaign.
You can move a campaign, along with all of its popups, to a different site later. Open the campaign, choose a different Website, and click Save Changes. You can use to this test on your staging site before making the popups live on your production site.
Creating a popup
Open your campaign and click New Popup.
Under Popup Content & Settings, fill in:
Internal Name - A name for your team, shown only in the Rival Pop dashboard. Visitors don't see it. If you leave it blank, the popup title is used.
Popup Title (required) - The headline visitors see at the top of the popup.
Description - A short explanation of why you're inviting the visitor to take part. The limit is 280 characters, and one or two sentences work best.
Chat URL (required) - Paste the embedded link you created above.
Priority - Controls which popup is shown first when more than one is eligible. 1 is the highest priority. Leave it empty to auto-assign the next available priority.
Scheduling - Set a Start Date for when the popup becomes active, or leave it empty to activate the popup immediately. Active until manually paused (no end date) is selected by default.
Under Popup Branding, customize the popup to match your website:
Background Color and Text Color - The colors of the popup and its text.
Button Color and Button Text Color - The colors of the button visitors select to start the chat.
Button Label - The text on the button. The default is Start Chat.
Border Radius - How rounded the popup's corners are.
Font Size - The size of the popup text.
Logo URL - The web address of your logo. Recommended: 240x60 px maximum, PNG or SVG. The logo is fit inside a space 120 px wide by 60 px tall.
Popup Width (px) - A fixed width in pixels. Recommended: 200 to 900.
Popup Position - Where the popup appears on the page, such as Bottom Right.
Under Popup Triggers, choose when the popup appears and fill in its settings. See the next section for details.
Use the popup preview to check your invitation, then save the popup.
If you set Site Branding Defaults on your site's page, new popups start with those settings. Change any setting on a popup to override the default for that popup only.
Choosing when the popup appears
Triggers let you invite visitors at a relevant point in their journey instead of showing the popup to everyone right away. In Popup Triggers, use the Trigger Type dropdown to choose one. Each popup uses one trigger type.
Exit Intent (Desktop) - The popup appears when a visitor's cursor moves toward the browser's close or tab area, for example to ask why a visitor is leaving checkout. Set Exit Intent Sensitivity (pixels), the distance from the top of the browser window that triggers the popup when the mouse exits. Lower values are more sensitive. The default is 20 px.
Hover Element - The popup appears when a visitor hovers over an element on your website, such as a Save for Later button. Enter a CSS Selector for the element or elements, such as #pricing-button, .cta-link. The selector must match an element that exists on your site.
Scroll Depth - The popup appears when a visitor scrolls past a set percentage of the page, for example to ask "Did you find what you need?" after they have read most of a support article. Enter a Scroll Depth (%) from 0 to 100.
Referrer Source - The popup appears only for visitors arriving from specific traffic sources, based on the URL they came from, such as a social media ad or a newsletter. Enter one or more Referrer Patterns, one per line.
Visitor Count - The popup appears for a sample of visitors instead of everyone. Enter a number in Show every N visitors: 1 shows the popup to every visitor, and 50 shows it to every 50th visitor.
Visit Count - The popup appears once a visitor has loaded your site at least a set number of times, tracked with cookies. This is useful for reaching returning visitors, for example to ask a longer set of questions. Enter a Visit Count Threshold.
Exit Intent works on desktop only. It relies on a mouse cursor leaving the browser window, so mobile visitors will not see this trigger. All other triggers work on both desktop and mobile browsers. |
Writing Referrer Patterns
Referrer Patterns are regular expressions matched against the URL the visitor came from. The popup appears only when the visitor's referrer matches at least one pattern. Use \. for a literal dot. For example:
google\.com - Visitors from Google
facebook|twitter|linkedin - Visitors from any of these social media sites
utm_source=newsletter - Visitors from newsletter links
Settings available with every trigger
Delay (milliseconds) - How long to wait after the trigger condition is met before the popup appears. Enter 0 to show it right away.
After Dismissal - Controls what happens after a visitor closes the popup. Choose Dismiss for X days to keep it hidden for a set number of days, or Always show to skip saving the dismissal so the popup appears again on the visitor's next page load or refresh. Dismissal is tracked per browser.
Dismiss Duration (days) - How many days the popup stays hidden after it's dismissed. Common values are 1 (daily), 7 (weekly), and 30 (monthly). The popup reappears once the duration expires.
Page Filtering (optional) - Control which pages show the popup. Enter pages to include, one per line, such as /blog/ or /pricing, and pages to exclude, one per line, such as /checkout or /admin. Leave both empty to show the popup on all pages.
Custom Parameter Mapping (optional) - Pass information from your website into the chat. Use the Dynamic tab to read a value from the visitor's URL. For example, mapping the source parameter user_id to the target parameter uid sends uid=abc to the chat when the page URL contains user_id=abc. Use the Static tab to always send a fixed value, such as campaign = spring2025. No script changes are needed. To use these values in your chat, see How to append an Input Variable to a chat link.
Allowed Data Attributes - Choose which of your site's data attributes this popup receives. Leave all unchecked to pass all attributes. You define the attributes on your site's page first.
How multiple popups behave
If you run more than one popup on the same website, these rules apply:
One popup at a time - A visitor never sees two popups at once. While a popup or its chat is open, no other popup appears.
Priority decides the order - When several popups are eligible, priority 1 is shown first. A popup with a broad trigger, such as one that shows to every visitor, and a high priority can block lower-priority popups from being seen. If the visitor closes or dismisses the first popup, the next eligible popup by priority can appear.
Visit Cooldown spaces popups apart - On your site's page, Visit Cooldown (minutes) applies across all popups on the site. After a popup is shown, no other popup appears for that many minutes in the same visit.
Dismissal is set per popup - When a visitor dismisses a popup, that popup stays hidden in that browser for the number of days you set. Other popups are not affected by this setting.
To avoid overloading visitors, use Page Filtering, Priority, and Visit Cooldown together to limit which popups can appear, and when.
Testing your popup
Test on your actual website, not only in the Rival Pop preview. This confirms that the script, trigger, popup, and embedded chat all work together. Popups become active on their Start Date, or immediately if you left it empty, so consider testing on a staging site or a low-traffic page first.
Check that:
The Rival Pop script loads on your website
The correct campaign and popup are connected to your site
The popup appears when its trigger condition is met
The title, description, button, and branding display correctly
Selecting the button opens the correct Rival chat inside your website
The chat works on both desktop and mobile
Visitors can complete the chat without being redirected away from your website
Page Filtering, Scheduling, and other settings behave as expected
Dismissal is tracked per browser, so a popup you dismiss while testing stays hidden for the number of days you set. To see it again, clear your browser's site data or test in a new private browsing window. You can also set After Dismissal to Always show while testing. Switch it back before you go live so visitors aren't shown the popup on every page load.
Going live
A popup goes live on its Start Date, or as soon as you save it if you left the Start Date empty. On the Campaigns page, each campaign shows as Active or Inactive, and the Popups in Campaign table on each campaign shows the status of every popup. After your popup is live, visit your website and confirm it appears under your trigger conditions.
You can return to Rival Pop at any time to update popups, create new campaigns, or connect new Rival chats. You do not need to reinstall the script.
Understanding your Rival Pop metrics
The Campaigns page lists each campaign with its totals, and each campaign page shows the combined totals for all of its popups. Each popup also tracks its own metrics.
Total Shown - The number of times a popup was displayed to a visitor. For a campaign, this is the total across all of its popups.
Total Clicked - The number of times a visitor selected the popup button to start the chat.
Click % - Total Clicked as a share of Total Shown. For a campaign, this is the campaign average.
Total Clicked does not mean a chat was started or completed. It only records that a visitor selected the button. Not every click leads to a chat participant, so these numbers might not match the participation counts in your chat's reporting in Rival. Use your chat's reporting in Rival to see who started and completed the chat. |
Current limitations
Exit Intent is desktop only. Use another trigger if you need to reach mobile visitors.
Each popup uses one trigger type. You can't combine trigger types, such as scroll depth and referrer source, on the same popup. Page Filtering can be used with any trigger.
Mid-chat redirects are not supported. Sending a participant to another URL partway through a chat won't work inside a popup, because the redirect is blocked when the chat is shown within your website.
Rival Pop works on websites only. It is not available inside mobile apps.
Troubleshooting
Issue | What to check |
The popup does not appear | Confirm the Rival Pop script is loading, the campaign and popup are active, and the trigger and Page Filtering conditions have actually been met. Also check whether the popup was dismissed earlier in that browser, whether a higher-priority popup is being shown first, and whether the site's Visit Cooldown is active. |
The chat does not load | Confirm the chat is published, the Chat URL contains /embed/c/, and your website domain is whitelisted in Rival with the purpose Embedded Responding. |
The wrong chat opens | Check the Chat URL on the popup and confirm it points to the chat you intended. |
The popup appears at the wrong time or on the wrong pages | Review the trigger settings, Page Filtering, Delay, Scheduling, and Priority. |
The popup keeps reappearing on every page load | Check whether After Dismissal is set to Always show. Change it to Dismiss for X days. |
Exit Intent does not fire on mobile | This is expected. Exit Intent works on desktop only. |
Total Clicked is higher than my chat's participation | This is expected. Total Clicked records button selections, not chats started or completed. |
I want to distribute a different chat | Publish the chat, create its embedded link, and connect it to a new or existing popup. You do not need to reinstall the script. |