How to Use Language Targeting for Instant Popups

Instant Popup – Language Targeting lets you control which visitors see a popup based on their browser language preferences.

When a visitor loads your website, their browser sends language preference information through the Accept-Language header. This extension reads that language information and compares it with the rules you configure for each popup.

You can use Language Targeting to show popups only to visitors who speak a specific language, hide popups from selected languages, or create separate popup campaigns for different languages or regions.

What This Extension Does

Instant Popup – Language Targeting allows you to:

• Show a popup only for selected browser languages
• Exclude selected languages from seeing a popup
• Choose between base language matching and exact locale matching
• Set fallback behavior when a visitor’s language cannot be detected
• Configure language targeting separately for each popup

This extension filters popups before they are displayed to visitors.

What This Extension Does Not Do

Language Targeting does not:

• Translate popup content automatically
• Change your WordPress site language
• Detect a visitor’s country, city, or location
• Use IP-based geo targeting
• Replace a multilingual plugin

To display translated popup content, create separate popups for each language or use a multilingual plugin alongside Instant Popup Builder.

Where to Configure Language Targeting

Language targeting is configured individually for each popup.

To configure it:

1. Go to Instant Popups in your WordPress admin dashboard.
2. Click Add New or edit an existing popup.
3. Go to the conditions tab under popup settings.
4. Select the Language Targeting tab.

Language Targeting Settings

Inside the Language Targeting tab, you will see the following options:

• Enable Language Targeting for this popup
• Include Languages
• Exclude Languages
• Match Mode
• Fallback behavior for unknown languages

Enable Language Targeting

Use this option to turn language targeting on or off for the current popup. When this option is disabled, the popup behaves normally and language rules are not applied. When this option is enabled, the popup is shown or hidden based on the language rules you configure.

Language targeting works together with your other popup rules, such as page targeting, triggers, timing, and display conditions.

Include Languages

The Include Languages option works like an allow list. When one or more languages are added to the Include list, the popup will only show to visitors whose browser language matches at least one of those languages. For example, if you add es, the popup can be shown to visitors whose browser language is Spanish.

If the Include list is empty, there is no language allow-list restriction. In that case, visitors are allowed unless they match an excluded language.

Use Include Languages when you want a popup to appear only for specific language audiences.

Exclude Languages

The Exclude Languages option blocks selected languages from seeing the popup. If a visitor’s browser language matches any language in the Exclude list, the popup will not be shown. Exclude rules are checked before Include rules. This means that if a visitor matches both an included language and an excluded language, the popup will be hidden.

Use Exclude Languages when you want a popup to show to most visitors except selected language groups.

Match Mode

Match Mode controls how browser language codes are compared with the languages you select.

Base Language

Base language matching compares only the main language code.

For example:

• en matches en
• en also matches en-us
• en also matches en-gb

Use Base Language when you want to target a general language group, regardless of region.

Example use case:

Show the same English popup to visitors using English from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, or Australia.

Exact Locale

Exact locale matching requires the full language code to match exactly.

For example:

• en-us matches en-us
• en-us does not match en-gb
• en-us does not match en

Use Exact Locale when regional differences matter.

Example use case:

Show one popup to visitors using en-us and a different popup to visitors using en-gb.

Fallback for Unknown Language

Some visitors may not send a usable browser language. This can happen with bots, privacy tools, stripped headers, proxies, or unusual browser configurations.

The Fallback setting controls what happens when the visitor’s language cannot be detected.

Do Not Show When Language Is Unknown

The popup will be hidden when no usable language is found.

Use this option when you only want to show the popup if the visitor’s language is known.

Allow When Language Is Unknown

The popup will still be allowed when the visitor’s language is unknown.

Use this option if you do not want to hide popups from visitors whose language cannot be detected.

Using Custom Language Codes

The Include and Exclude fields include common language options, but you can also add custom language codes.

Examples:

• sv for Swedish
• vi for Vietnamese
• pt-br for Brazilian Portuguese
• en-gb for British English

Language codes are stored in a normalized format using lowercase letters and hyphens.

For example:

en_GB becomes en-gb

Invalid language code formats may be removed for safety.