Preview Targeting Before Publishing
Targeting settings are saved as drafts and stay off your live widget until you publish. Use the plain-language summaries, the country preview and the card status to check a rule first.
Every setting on a widget’s Visibility & Targeting tab is saved as a draft first, and a draft has no effect on your website. That gives you room to build a rule, read back what it will do, and publish only when it is right.
Draft And Live Are Separate
Saving and publishing are two steps. Save Changes in an editor stores the setting, and so does the switch on a card. Publish Changes on a card, or Publish at the foot of the tab, puts the saved settings on your live widget. Publishing always uses the last saved draft, so an edit you have not saved is not included. Until the first publish, the line at the foot of the tab reads "Nothing published yet. Save each setting, then publish when you are ready."
Most settings on the tab are published together: device, page, traffic source, date, and days and hours, along with the cards under Attention & Appearance and Integrations. One publish sends every saved setting in that list live. Country Targeting is the exception. It has its own Save Changes and Publish Changes and is published separately.
Read The Status On Each Card
| Status | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Not configured | The setting has not been switched on. |
| Draft changes | The setting is saved and switched on, but not live. Publish to apply it. |
| Active | The setting is live on your widget. |
| Configured · Off | The setting is switched off. |
| Republish needed | The live widget is not using your saved setting. Publish again. |
| Preview only, or Preview · Draft only | Your plan lets you set this up and save it, but not publish it. |
| Temporarily limited | Premium Website Widgets features are temporarily unavailable on the live widget until you upgrade or your usage period resets. |
Check What A Rule Will Do
Each editor states the rule in plain words before you save it.
- Widget Visibility by Device has a Preview line, such as "Visible on desktop and tablet."
- Page Targeting has a Summary line, such as "The widget is hidden on pages matching any of 2 rules."
- Traffic Source Targeting has an In plain language box that describes the whole rule in one sentence.
- Date Scheduling and Days & Hours Targeting show a sentence with the dates, days and hours you chose.
- Country Targeting has a Summary line that names the selected countries.
Test A Country Without Publishing
Country Targeting has a check of its own. In its editor, choose a country under Preview as Visitor From, or choose Country not detected, and click Preview. The answer is Widget visible, Widget hidden, or Widget hidden · Ask AI still appears. The check runs against your saved settings, so click Save Changes first. It does not change your live widget, and it also works on plans that cannot publish Country Targeting. Country Targeting covers the full setup.
Prepare A Setting Your Plan Does Not Include
A targeting setting that your plan does not publish can still be opened, set up and saved. Each card shows an Included from badge with the plan that includes it. The device, page, traffic and schedule cards add the note "You can prepare this now, but it will not go live on your widget. Upgrade Website Widgets to publish it." The saved draft is kept, ready to publish after an upgrade. Pricing lists which plan includes each setting.
While a setting your plan does not include is switched on, Publish at the foot of the tab cannot be clicked. To publish the settings your plan does include, turn that card’s switch off first.
Publish, Then Confirm On Your Website
- Click Publish at the foot of the tab, or Publish Changes on the card. A message confirms "Changes published to your live widget."
- Open your website on a page the rule should affect. Rules are checked when a page loads, so reload any page that was already open.
- For a device rule, remember that the device type comes from the width of the browser window when the page loads. Reload after resizing the window.
- For a traffic rule that uses UTM tags, open the page with the tag in the address, for example
?utm_source=google. - For a schedule, load the page at a time inside the schedule and again at a time outside it, in the time zone you set.
The Live Preview on the Overview and Appearance tabs shows your channels and appearance. It does not apply targeting rules, so confirm them on your website. If a widget also carries Ask AI, a rule hides the Contact side only: the launcher stays and opens Ask AI.
Take A Rule Back Down
- To remove one rule, turn off the switch on its card, then click Publish at the foot of the tab. The card reads Republish needed until you do.
- Turn off at the foot of the tab takes every setting published from that list off your live widget at once, including Widget Attention Effects, Google Analytics 4 and Custom CSS. Your saved settings are kept, and Publish puts them back. The cards can keep their earlier status after Turn off, so confirm the result on your website.
- Country Targeting is stopped from its own card. See Country Targeting.