Why Isn't My Survey Showing?

Most surveys that do not appear are working exactly as configured. Go through these in order.

1. The website has not been published since you started it

Starting a survey does not put it on the page; the next publish of the website does. If the Results tab says the survey has not been shown to anyone yet, this is almost always the reason. See Starting, Ending and Managing Surveys for what publishes a website.

2. The page or device does not match its targeting

Check the Pages and Devices rows on the survey's Overview tab.

• Page rules are case-sensitive, and are checked against the full address, including the query string and anything after a #.
• A page qualifies when it matches any one rule. A "does not contain" or "not equals" rule next to other rules does not exclude pages; see Choosing Who Sees a Survey.
• A regular expression that does not compile never matches.
• A survey limited to Mobile will not show in a desktop browser, even with a narrow window.

3. You are not in the experiment it is tied to

If the Experiment row names an experiment, only visitors that experiment has assigned a variant see the survey, and only in the chosen variants if any are listed.

• A draft experiment has assigned no one yet, and an ended one assigns no one, so nobody sees the survey.
• On a running experiment you may not match its targeting, or you may be in a variant the survey is not limited to.

4. Your browser is outside the share of visitors

If the Visitors asked row shows a percentage, each browser is in or out once and stays that way. Yours may simply be out. Deleting the local storage key PERTENTO_SURVEYS, as in the next step, draws again.

5. Your own browser has already used up its chances

The frequency rules are stored in your browser, so testing a survey a few times is enough to stop it appearing for you:

• a survey has already been shown in this tab, and only one is shown per session
• you have answered it, after which it never appears again
• you have dismissed it and the waiting period has not passed
• it has been shown the maximum number of times

To test again, open the browser's developer tools and delete the local storage key PERTENTO_SURVEYS and the session storage key PERTENTO-SURVEY-SHOWN, then reload in a new tab. There is no setting that forces a survey to show.

6. Your browser blocks storage

In some private browsing modes, or with site data blocked, the survey cannot remember whether it has asked you, so it does not show at all. Test in a normal window.

7. The trigger has not happened

• Scroll depth: the page may be too short to scroll, in which case it never fires.
• Exit intent: it only becomes active after 5 seconds on the page or a quarter of the page scrolled. On desktop the pointer has to leave through the top of the window.
• dataLayer event: the name must match exactly, including capitals. Check what your site actually pushes in the browser console with window.dataLayer.
• After a delay: the timer starts when the survey script loads, which is after the page is ready, so allow a moment longer than the delay.

8. Another survey was picked

With several surveys running on one website, each page sets up only one of them: the first whose targeting and limits allow it. If that one's trigger does not fire on the page, the others are not tried. Aiming surveys at different pages, or running one survey per website, avoids this.

9. Surveys are switched off in your browser

If you or a colleague added ?pertento-surveys=off to a page address, or set the local storage key PERTENTO_SURVEYS_OFF, surveys stay off in that browser until the key is removed.

10. The account is not serving

If the account has no active plan, or it chose Keep my plan and has used all its sessions for the period, nothing is served to its websites, surveys included. The header shows the account's state, and Settings then Billing explains it. See Going Over Your Session Allowance.

11. The page is inside a frame

A survey does not show inside an iframe on a page that also runs Pertento, so it is never shown twice on one screen.

Still not showing?

Check that the Pertento script is installed on the page, as surveys load through it. If everything above checks out, contact support with the survey's ID, which is shown on its page.