Traffic-Source Rules
Traffic Source Targeting shows or hides a widget by where a visitor came from, using source presets and custom UTM or referrer rules. It is included from Website Widgets Pro.
Traffic Source Targeting shows or hides a widget’s Contact side depending on where a visitor came from: a search engine, a social network, an email, another website, or a campaign link you tagged yourself. You build the rule from ready-made source presets, from custom rules, or from both.
Where To Find It And Which Plans Include It
In the dashboard, open Website Widgets, open the website, and select the Visibility & Targeting tab. Traffic Source Targeting is the third card in the list. If the website has several widgets, choose the widget first in the Website Widgets card on the Overview tab.
The setting is included on Website Widgets Pro, Business and Agency, and on Enterprise it follows your agreement. On Free and Starter you can build the rule and save it as a draft, but not publish it: the card shows an Included from Pro badge and an Upgrade button. It follows your Website Widgets plan, not your AI Chatbot plan. See Pricing.
Set Up A Traffic Rule
- On the Traffic Source Targeting card, click Configure, or Edit if that is what the button reads.
- Under Targeting Behavior, choose Show Only Matching to show the widget only to matching visitors, or Hide Matching to hide it from them. The presets and rules appear once you pick one of the two. Show on All Traffic switches the rule off.
- Under Source Presets, select any of Direct, Search, Social, Email and Referral.
- Under Custom Rules, click Add Rule for anything the presets do not cover. Choose a field (UTM Source, UTM Medium, UTM Campaign or Referrer Domain), choose is or contains, and type the value.
- Read the In plain language box. It states the whole rule in one sentence.
- Click Save Changes, then Publish Changes on the card or Publish at the foot of the tab.
Under Add from template, four shortcuts add a ready-made custom rule. Email Newsletter adds UTM Medium is email, Google Ads adds UTM Source is google, and Facebook Campaign adds UTM Source is facebook. Partner Referral adds a Referrer Domain rule and leaves the domain for you to type. Reset Targeting clears every preset and rule in the editor and switches the rule off; save and publish to apply that.
What Each Source Preset Matches
| Preset | A Page View Matches When |
|---|---|
| Direct | There is no referring website and no utm_source, utm_medium or utm_campaign tag in the address |
| Search | The referring website is Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Baidu or Yandex, or utm_medium is organic, cpc or paid_search |
| Social | The referring website is Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest or Reddit, or utm_medium is social or paid_social |
utm_medium is email or newsletter | |
| Referral | There is a referring website, and the page view does not match Search or Social |
utm_medium=email to the links in your emails so those visits match.How Matching Works
- A visitor matches when any selected preset or any custom rule matches. Presets and rules are alternatives, not a checklist that must all be true.
- The UTM fields read
utm_source,utm_mediumandutm_campaignfrom the address of the page the visitor is on. - Referrer Domain is the domain of the page the visitor came from, with no
https://and no path. With is,example.comdoes not matchwww.example.com; contains matches both. - Capital letters do not matter.
Googleandgoogleare treated the same. - The source is read again on every page load. It is not remembered as a visitor moves through your site.
After The Landing Page
When a visitor clicks through to a second page of your site, the page they came from is your own site and the campaign tags are usually gone from the address. That page view normally matches Referral, and no longer matches Direct, Search, Social, Email or a UTM rule. Traffic rules therefore work best on the page a campaign sends visitors to. A widget built for a campaign can combine a traffic rule with Page Targeting on its landing page; see Page-Specific Widgets For Campaigns.
What Visitors See
A visitor the rule excludes does not get the widget’s Contact side. If the widget has no Ask AI, nothing appears, launcher included. If an AI assistant is connected to the same widget and Ask AI is available, the launcher stays and opens Ask AI only. Every rule that is switched on across the tab must pass together, so a traffic rule narrows whatever your device, page, country and schedule rules already allow.
If The Rule Does Not Behave As Expected
- The card reads Draft changes: the rule is saved but not live. Click Publish Changes.
- You edited a rule that was already live: after Save Changes, click Publish at the foot of the tab.
- The editor says "Enter a value for this rule." or "Use a domain like example.com.": a custom rule is empty, or a Referrer Domain value contains a space or a slash.
- The editor says "Choose a preset or add a rule.": the rule is switched on with nothing to match.
- A UTM rule never matches: open your page with the tag in the address, for example
?utm_source=google, and compare the value with your rule. - The widget disappears on the second page of a visit: this is the behaviour described under After The Landing Page.
To check a rule before it goes live, see Preview Targeting Before Publishing.