Display, teasers & triggers

How a form shows up on your storefront — and how persistent it is — matters as much as what's inside it. This guide covers the four display types, the triggers that open a form, teasers, dismiss behavior, and frequency (how often a returning shopper sees the form again).

Placement lives in the builder inspector's Form scope; everything else here lives in the Settings sheet (title bar) under the Trigger, Teaser, Frequency, and Dismiss Behavior tabs.

Display types

Every form has exactly one of four display types:

A form can also carry a separate mobile display type: when you pick Popup, Slide-in, or Inline while creating a form, Formtoro sets the phone experience to Full Page by default — most popups read better as a takeover on a small screen. The Settings sheet shows both values under the Trigger tab's placement summary.

Inline forms behave a little differently

Because an inline form sits where you placed it in your theme, it doesn't sneak up on anyone — so Formtoro deliberately skips the popup machinery for it:

• Frequency caps don't apply. A merchant-placed section shouldn't vanish.
• Only the After delay trigger applies. Scroll, exit intent, cart value, and page views are popup behaviors; an inline form appears on load (or after its delay). On click (launcher) works too, paired with a launch button on the same page.
• Audience rules fully apply. An ineligible visitor sees nothing — the space simply collapses. See Audience filtering.
• The close button is off by default for inline forms (turn it on in the inspector if you want one), and a dismissed inline form collapses to the same floating teaser popups use.

Setup for the inline block lives in Going live.

Triggers

The Trigger tab decides when an eligible visitor's form opens:

Open on click instead of automatically

If you'd rather the shopper open the form by clicking a button — say a "Find my size" button right below your Buy Buttons — set the trigger to On click (launcher) and place a Formtoro Launcher block in your theme. The form loads and waits silently until the button is clicked. See Launch buttons for the full setup.

One coherence rule: a form with the On click (launcher) trigger can't have a teaser — the launcher is its entry point, so the Enable teaser toggle is locked while that trigger is selected.

Teasers

A teaser is a small, clickable prompt that invites shoppers to open the form instead of showing the whole thing immediately — a gentler entry point that keeps the storefront uncluttered. All four display types support one.

Configure it in the Teaser tab of the Settings sheet:

• Enable teaser — turn the teaser on.
• Quick presets — one-click starting points: Bottom-left bubble, Top banner, or Bottom banner.
• Mode — Bubble (a floating pill anchored to a corner or edge) or Banner (a full-width bar across the top or bottom of the page).
• Edge — for Banner mode, Top or Bottom.
• Position — for Bubble mode, one of eight anchors (Top Left, Center Left, Bottom Left, Top, Bottom, Top Right, Center Right, Bottom Right).
• Initial display — Start open (the full form shows first) or Start as teaser (only the teaser shows until clicked).
• Teaser text — Use first visible heading, or Custom text (e.g. "Get 10% off").
• Background color and Text color — inherit your theme by default; pick a value to override, and Reset to theme colors to go back.
• When dismissed and Allow full close — see Dismiss behavior below.

Mobile vs. desktop teaser

The location controls have Mobile and Desktop tabs. Mode, Edge, Position, and Initial display can each be set differently per screen — for example, a top banner on mobile (where it won't clash with cart drawers) and a corner bubble on desktop. Mobile is the base; the Desktop tab writes overrides, with a Reset to mobile defaults link to clear them.

Dismiss behavior

Two settings on the Teaser tab decide what the close button does:

• When dismissed — Collapse to teaser shrinks the form back to its teaser so the shopper can reopen it later; Hide completely removes both form and teaser for the rest of the visit.
• Allow full close — gives the teaser its own close control, so a shopper can dismiss the teaser entirely even when the form collapses to it.

Send dismissing subscribers to a step

The Dismiss Behavior tab has one more trick, On dismiss: instead of Close (default), choose Go to step and pick a step (typically a coupon or offer step). When a shopper who has already submitted their email or phone tries to close the form, they're sent to that step instead — a last-chance nudge.

Guardrails, so nobody gets trapped:

• Subscribers only. It fires only after a submitted email or phone — a visitor who typed an email but never submitted closes normally.
• Fires once. The next dismiss closes the form normally.
• Still counts as a dismissal. Even though the shopper lands on your offer step, Formtoro durably records the close — the form won't reopen on later page views.

How often a form shows

The Frequency tab controls whether a returning visitor sees the form again. This is the setting merchants most often misread, so here's the full picture:

Until subscribed — the default

A visitor counts as subscribed the moment they submit a step containing their email or phone — on any of your forms, even if they never finish the rest of that form. From then on, every form of yours set to Until subscribed stops appearing in that browser. The idea: never nag someone who already gave you their contact.

Formtoro remembers the subscribed state in the shopper's browser, scoped to your store, for about 6 months. Your audience rules — such as excluding existing Klaviyo subscribers — remain the durable, server-side way to keep known subscribers out beyond that window.

Until form completed

Choose this when finishing the form matters more than capturing the contact — surveys and quizzes, for example. The form keeps showing until the visitor reaches a true end state: completing the form, being redirected, or closing the teaser with its Allow full close control.

Two useful consequences:

• A visitor who gave their email mid-form but didn't finish keeps seeing this form so they can complete the remaining steps — and it resumes on the step where they left off, even across visits.
• Saving a new live version resets that resume point: mid-form visitors start again from step one (the form still shows; only their place is lost).

Good to know

• Eligibility comes first. A form only reaches the frequency check if the visitor matches its audience and the form is live.
• Frequency state lives in the shopper's browser, scoped to your store. In private browsing (where storage is blocked), the form simply shows on each eligible page load — the safe direction.
• Every visit and the impression-based options count an appearance when the form (or its teaser) is shown, not when it's opened.

Next steps

• Audience filtering — decide who is eligible to see a form.
• Launch buttons — open forms from a button in your theme.
• Going live — the app embed, inline blocks, and the "why isn't my form showing?" checklist.
• Building forms — design what's inside.