Symptom: You've set up a popup (Form in the dashboard) but it isn't appearing on your storefront, or visitors say they never see it.
Most cases of "my popup isn't showing" come down to one of six things. Walk through them in order. It takes about three minutes.
1. Is the popup published, or still a draft?
Go to Forms > Campaigns. Find your popup in the list.
The badge next to the popup name tells you the state:
Live (green pill): the popup is being served to visitors.
Draft (grey pill): the popup is saved, but no one will see it yet.
If you see Draft, click the popup row to open it in the editor, then click Publish in the top right.
2. Are your triggers actually firing?
Triggers live at the campaign level. From Forms > Campaigns, click Targeting on the campaign card. Look at the Triggers section.
A popup won't fire if:
Wait time (time spent on page) is longer than the visitor's actual session. Example: 30 seconds on a page they viewed for 5.
Scroll depth is higher than the visitor scrolled. Example: 75% on a page they scrolled 20%.
Exit intent is on, but the visitor never moves the cursor toward the browser chrome (desktop), or doesn't scroll up, switch tabs, or go idle (mobile).
Cart triggers are on but the visitor's cart is empty, or below the threshold.
To test, set Wait time to 0 seconds for both desktop and mobile, and disable every other trigger. The popup should fire on page load. Restore your real triggers once you've confirmed everything else is wired up.
The trigger logic operator at the top of the Triggers section defaults to OR: any single condition fires the popup. Switch to AND if you need all conditions to be true at once.
3. Is the targeting rule excluding this visitor?
Still inside Targeting, scroll past Triggers to the Targeting section. Common reasons a popup never shows for a specific person:
Device is set to Mobile only or Desktop only and you're testing on the other device. (Heads up: some templates default to Mobile only, so desktop testing will skip the popup entirely.)
Page targeting is set to "Only show on specific pages" and the current URL doesn't match.
Country targeting restricts to countries that don't include the testing IP.
Visitor type is New visitors (the default), but you've already subscribed via email or SMS, so the system treats you as Returning.
UTM rule is on, but the test URL doesn't have the right
utm_*parameters.Subscriber list targeting is set to exclude lists you're already on.
To test, set Device to All devices, Page targeting to Show on all pages, Country to All countries, and turn off UTM and subscriber list targeting. Then open your store in an incognito window.
4. Is the Brevo PushOwl app embed enabled in your theme?
PushOwl Forms rely on Shopify's App embeds to inject the popup script on your storefront. If the app embed is off, no popup will ever load.
To check (Shopify):
From the Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
Click Customize on your published theme.
In the theme editor, click the App embeds icon on the left sidebar.
Find PushOwl in the list and confirm the toggle is on.
Save the theme.
If you don't see PushOwl in the App embeds list, reinstall the app from the Shopify App Store.
5. Did you already see this popup recently?
Each campaign has a Display frequency setting (in the Targeting dialog, below the targeting section):
Max times to show defaults to 3 per visitor.
Defer for days after close defaults to 0.
If you've already seen this popup 3 times in this browser, the frequency cap is suppressing it. Quick fix: open your store in an incognito or private window, or clear cookies for your storefront domain.
To allow unlimited shows during testing, clear the Max times to show field.
6. Are you a returning visitor instead of a new one?
This is the most common reason "the popup works for me on my phone, but not on my desktop where I'm signed in":
The Visitor type rule (in the Targeting section) defaults to New visitors, defined as visitors who haven't signed up for email or SMS yet. The moment you submit the form once, the next page view treats you as Returning and skips the popup.
To re-test as a new visitor:
Open your store in incognito (cookies cleared).
Or, in your live browser, clear cookies for the storefront domain.
If you want the popup to show to returning visitors too, either create a second campaign targeting returning visitors, or remove the visitor-type rule on this campaign.
Still stuck? Share these with our team
If you've checked all six and the popup still isn't appearing, share these with our team so we can dig in:
The campaign and popup name (from Forms > Campaigns).
The page URL where you expected the popup to show.
Screenshots of your Targeting dialog (Triggers + Targeting sections).
Whether you tested in incognito.
Need help? Talk to our team via the in-app chat at the bottom right of your dashboard.