How Campaign Cookies and the Global Cookie Work in OptinMonster

OptinMonster uses cookies to control how often your campaigns appear to visitors.

In this article, you’ll learn how the campaign and global cookies work and how to set cookies for your campaigns.

Before You Start

Here are some things to know before you begin:

• OptinMonster uses cookies to determine when a campaign was shown to a visitor, closed, and successfully converted. Using that information we can then hide or show the campaign again at a later date.
• A cookie is a small file stored on your computer that provides information.
• Campaign cookies control the individual campaign you’re editing.
• Global cookies control all campaigns on your site and can be used to override the campaign cookies.

Edit Campaign Cookies

When you create a campaign in OptinMonster you can choose how often the campaign appears to visitors by configuring the campaign cookies.

To configure campaign cookies, follow these steps:

1. In the Design view of the campaign builder, select the Settings icon.
   
2. Next, from the Basic tab of the sidebar expand the Display Settings option and you’ll find two campaign cookie settings: has been closed and has been converted.
   
3. Adjust the cookie settings as desired.
4. When you’re finished, click Save.

Campaign Cookie Options

Each of the campaign cookie settings will allow you to choose one of the following:

• after x days (default setting): the campaign will not appear again until the number of days set has passed. A day consists of 24 hours.
•  on their next visit to the site: this setting uses session cookies to show the campaign only on the next visit to the site.
  We estimate that a regular user session / interaction lasts around 20 minutes and use this as the minimum time that must pass before the visitor can be exposed to the same campaign again.
  When testing this setting, wait 20 minutes after interacting with or converting the campaign, then retest.
• any time the display rules are met: this setting will allow the campaign to appear repeatedly as long as the Display Rules are met.
• never, or until browser cookies are cleared: this setting will set a cookie in the browser that does not expire, to hide the campaign forever or unless the visitor clear’s their browser cookies.

MonsterChains Cookie

OptinMonster uses cookies to determine how long to remember if a visitor has seen, closed, or converted through a campaign when using our MonsterChains targeting rules.

You can configure the MonsterChains cookie by following these steps:

1. In the Design view of the campaign builder, select the Settings icon.
   
2. Next, from the Basic tab of the sidebar expand the Display Settings option and you’ll find the MonsterChains cookie option at the bottom of the panel.
   
3. Adjust the cookie setting as desired.
4. When you’re finished, click Save.

MonsterChains Cookie Examples

In this example, you have two campaigns (Campaign A and Campaign B).

Campaign B is configured to show only if the visitor has not seen Campaign A. You could expect the following behavior with each cookie setting option:

• after x days (default setting): allows you to specify how many days after Campaign A was shown to remember, and not show Campaign B.
  If the visitor has seen Campaign A within the last number of days specified, Campaign B will not be shown.
  The default is 30 days, can be edited to use any whole number value.
• on their next visit to the site: remembers Campaign A was shown as long as the visitor’s session on your site remains active, and Campaign B will not be shown during that same session.
  If the visitor leaves your site and 20 minutes are allowed to pass; when the visitor returns they will have started a new session and Campaign B could be shown to them.
• anytime the display rules are met: no cookie will be set, it will not be remembered that Campaign A was shown so Campaign B can always appear.
• never, or until browser cookies are cleared: once Campaign A has been shown a cookie is set with no expiration date (lifetime), and Campaign B will not ever be shown unless the browser cookies are cleared by the visitor.

Global Cookies

Global cookies are specific to a registered site in your account and control all campaigns embedded on that site.

To configure global cookies, follow these steps:

1. From the OptinMonster Dashboard, navigate to My Account through the user icon in the top-right corner of the page.
   
2. Next, select Sites from the sub-navigation.
   
3. On the Sites screen, locate the site you want to configure global cookies for and select the Edit button.
   
4. On the site edit screen, you’ll be able to configure the global cookies.
   

Global Cookie Options

When configuring Global Cookies you’ll find the following options available:

• Global Interaction Cookie: this cookie is set after any campaign on your site has been closed by the visitor. Once this cookie is set no campaigns will appear on your site for the visitor until the cookie expires.
• Global Success Cookie: this cookie is set after any campaign is successfully converted. Once this cookie is set no campaigns will appear on your site for the visitor until the cookie expires.

To disable either cookie option, set the number of days to zero (0).

Examples

The following is an example of how you can use the Campaign Cookie and Global Cookie options together.

• Campaign cookies: after 1 days
• Global Success Cookie: 90 days.

In this setup, you give the visitor an opportunity to convert through the campaign once-a-day. After the visitor has converted they won’t see any campaigns again for 90 days.

If you’re serious about jumpstarting your website growth, then get started with OptinMonster today!

FAQs

Are you showing the same campaign on a top-level domain and subdomain?

Check out our article on how to make campaign cookies persist across subdomains.

Where can I view all cookies set?

See our Cookie List for details on how cookies are named and used.

Why is there a third cookie setting in the Display Settings section?

The third cookie setting is specifically for use with MonsterChains.

How can I hide all campaigns from existing subscribers?

Please follow our guide here to hide campaigns from existing subscribers.

Can I manually set OptinMonster Global cookies?

Yes, you can use Javascript to manually set Global cookies in the browser to hide all OptinMonster campaigns. Use the following Javascript example and update the expiration date as desired:

Troubleshooting

I keep getting this message while testing my campaign “Campaign loading is disabled because you have interacted with this campaign in the past”, how do I test my campaign?

We use cookies to control how often a campaign can reappear to the same visitor once they’ve closed or converted it.

If you see a notice of “Campaign loading is disabled because of the interaction cookie.” or “Campaign loading is disabled because of the global interaction cookie.” this indicates a cookie has been set in your browser from previous testing that is now hiding the campaign according to the cookie settings.

The default cookies settings for all new campaigns are to hide the campaign for 30 days after being closed and 365 days after being converted.

Learn more about how we use cookies, the options available, and how to change the default cookie settings here.

To clear the notice during testing you can use one of the following approaches:

• Use a brand new Incognito window for your test (recommended); OR
• Add ?omclear=true to the end of your testing URL (e.g. https://mywebsite.com?omclear=true), this will remove only the OptinMonster cookies; OR
• Manually clear the cookies from your browser (like this).

My cookie setting changes aren’t working.

Be sure to test from a brand new Incognito window (aka private browsing session) OR manually clear the cookies from your browser before re-testing a campaign. This will ensure any previously set cookies are removed so the campaign can appear according to the new cookie settings you’ve saved.

My campaigns are reappearing in some browsers before the cookie expiration I set, why?

Some browsers now automatically remove first-party cookies after a specific period of time regardless of the expiration date set, like Safari and Brave.

We recommend you refer to CookieStatus for the latest details on how cookies are handled in individual browsers.