Survey Intercepts

Last updated: April 17, 2026

Embed a survey widget directly in your website and show it to the right visitors at the right moment.

Who this is for: Developers, Admins, Product and CX teams running in-context feedback programs

Overview

Intercepts let you serve survey questions inside your website or web app. A lightweight JavaScript widget embeds on any page and displays your survey to visitors who match the targeting rules you configure. Because the survey appears in context — while the customer is actively using your product or completing a transaction — responses tend to be more immediate and more specific than those collected after the fact.

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Prerequisites

  • An active Unwrap account with admin access

  • Ability to add a JavaScript snippet to your website or web app

  • A survey created in Unwrap (at least one question, design configured)

How It Works

You embed the Unwrap widget snippet on your site once. From there, Unwrap evaluates your targeting rules on each page load and determines whether to display the survey to that visitor. If the visitor matches all the conditions you've defined, the survey appears. If not, nothing happens — the visitor's experience is unaffected.

You configure targeting rules in Unwrap's UI without touching code. Your developers only need to handle the initial snippet installation.

Setting Up an Intercept On Your Site

Step 1: Create your intercept

  1. Navigate to Surveys>Intercepts

  2. Name and Create your Intercept

  3. Add a rule:

    1. Decide which survey you want the intercept rule to reference. You can choose a new survey or to create a copy of an existing survey. You will finish creating the survey after creating the rule.

    2. Decide who/when you want to target on your website and configure conditions accordingly. 

Building rules

Rules are composed of one or more conditions to target page viewers. You can find the full list of condition types at the bottom of this article. You can combine conditions with AND, OR, or nested AND/OR logic:

  • AND — The visitor must match all conditions (more targeted)

  • OR — The visitor must match at least one condition (broader reach)

Example rule: Show the survey on the order confirmation page, on desktop only, to customers whose account tier is "premium":

Page URL contains "/order-confirmation"

AND Device = Desktop

AND Metadata: account_tier = "premium"

You can build as many conditions as your use case requires.

  1. Click Create Rule – this will establish your rule.

Step 2: Create your survey

  1. On your selected intercept rule, click the link to your survey

  2. Add your questions in Survey Settings as you would configure a normal survey. Enable Allow AI Follow Up on open-text questions. Follow-ups only fire when a response is low in detail — respondents who give thorough answers won't see one. For intercepts especially, this keeps the experience feeling lightweight while still capturing depth when it's needed.

  3. Customize your branding in Survey Design.

  4. Connect the survey to a View so responses are analyzed in Unwrap.

Note that intercept surveys do not feature a background design. Only the logo is customizable.

Step 3: Add the widget snippet to your site

You can find the widget’s snippet on the relevant Intercepts Settings page under “Embed Snippet”

Add the snippet to any page where you want the intercept to potentially appear. You can add it globally (e.g., in your site's <head>) and rely on targeting rules to control where it actually shows, or add it only to specific pages.

Note: Only add one intercept per page. Use Rules to determine who sees which survey on a given page. 

Step 4: Turn on your Survey and Intercept

  1. Under Survey Settings, set your Survey to Active status

  2. Under Intercept Settings, set your Intercept to Active status

Passing Data to the Widget

If you want to use visitor data in your survey questions (via {parameter_name} personalization) or attach metadata to responses for filtering in Unwrap later, pass that data to the widget through the targeting dimensions during rule creation — page and metadata attributes are the most common methods for web apps.

Best Practices

  • Target a specific moment, not a whole site. The more precise your targeting, the more relevant the question feels to the visitor. A survey triggered on the order confirmation page after a purchase will outperform one triggered on the homepage.

  • Keep the survey short. Intercepts interrupt the visitor's flow. One or two questions — with AI follow-ups enabled on open text — is almost always better than a multi-question form for in-page delivery. Follow-ups only appear when a response is vague, so detailed respondents move through quickly.

  • Use page URL targeting as your baseline condition. Even if you layer on other dimensions, always anchor your rule to at least one page condition to avoid showing the survey in unexpected contexts.

  • Test on a staging environment before going live. Use a specific cookie or query parameter as a targeting condition (e.g., ?unwrap_test=true) during testing so only you see the widget.

  • Avoid showing intercepts on high-intent pages like checkout or payment forms — the interruption cost is too high.

Limitations

  • Intercepts are currently available for web (browser-based) environments only.

  • In-app mobile delivery via native SDK is not yet available.

  • A visitor who dismisses the intercept without responding will not see it again unless they refresh the page. 

  • Branching logic (routing respondents to different questions based on answers) is not yet available.

List of Condition Types and Details:

Condition Types

What It Targets

Page

The current URL or URL pattern (e.g., show only on /returns/*) Can select based on URL, Path, Referrer, or Title

Device

Device type, language, or screenWidth

Contact

Contact details based on email, firstname, or lastname

Metadata

Custom attributes passed from your application

Cookie

Browser cookies set by your system

JS variable

JavaScript variables available in the page's global scope

Query parameter

URL query string values (e.g., ?source=email)

Data layer

Values pushed to a JavaScript data layer (e.g., a tag manager data layer)

FAQ

Q: Can I show different surveys on different pages of my site?

A: Yes. Create a separate survey for each use case and configure distinct targeting rules for each — for example, one survey on your returns page and a different survey on your checkout confirmation page.

Q: Can I show multiple intercepts on the same page?

A: No. Only add one survey per page. Use Rules (detailed above) to determine who sees which survey on a given page. 

Q: Can I use intercepts and email delivery for the same survey?

A: No. A survey is active on only one channel. You can copy and reuse survey questions from one channel for another and combine the responses, however. 

Q: Do I need to re-embed the snippet if I create a new survey?

A: No. The snippet is installed once. Survey display is controlled entirely by the targeting rules you configure in Unwrap — no code changes needed when you create new surveys or update existing ones.