How to add a popup to WooCommerce

By Mert Özeren, Customer Success Specialist at Popupsmart · Updated September 24, 2026

To add a popup to WooCommerce, paste Popupsmart's one-line embed code into your theme's footer.php or install the optional Popupsmart plugin, then build and publish the popup in Popupsmart. WooCommerce runs on WordPress, so Popupsmart installs the same way as on any WordPress site; the store-specific part is choosing which product, cart and checkout pages show a popup.

WooCommerce has no popup of its own, so the embed code or the plugin is what puts one on the store.

Add a popup to WooCommerce

Setup at a glance

Runs on: WooCommerce
Where the code goes: Appearance → Theme File Editor → footer.php
Add-on: Plugin optional

Before you start

You need admin access to the store and a Popupsmart account; a developer isn't on the list.

An administrator login to the WordPress dashboard your WooCommerce store runs on, so you can edit theme files or install a plugin.
A free Popupsmart account. The free plan covers one website and one live popup, so you can finish this guide without paying.
The address your shoppers use for the store, which Popupsmart verifies after the install.

Paste the embed code into your theme's footer file once. After that you build, change and publish popups in Popupsmart without opening WordPress again.

Step 1: Copy your embed code

Popupsmart Register Page

Click Embed Code in the left-hand menu.

A window opens with your embed code. Copy it to the clipboard.

Embed Code Window

Step 2: Open footer.php in the Theme File Editor

In your WordPress admin, click Appearance in the left-hand menu.

Click Appearance on WooCommerce

Click Theme File Editor.

WooCommerce Theme File Editor Section

WordPress warns that edits made here are lost when the theme updates, so put the code in a child theme if your theme gets updates. If your store uses a block theme, there is no footer.php; use the plugin method below instead.

Step 3: Paste the code and update the file

Under Theme Files, click footer.php. Paste the embed code after <?php wp_footer(); ?>, just before the closing </body> tag, and click Update File.

Adding Embed Code to WooCommerce

Step 4: Add and verify your store

In Popupsmart, click your profile and open Websites.

Click New website.

Type your store's address into Add a new website and click Save.

Adding WooCommerce Website

If the store shows as Unverified, click Unverified, then Verify website, and go back to the dashboard and click Refresh. The guide to verifying your website covers the other cases.

Go to your dashboard and click New Campaign.

Pick a template, change its copy, colours and form fields, and set who sees it and when. Then click Publish in the left-hand panel.

Publish Your Popupsmart Campaign

A window confirms that the campaign is published.

Publish Success

Open your store in a private window and load a page the popup targets. It appears when its trigger fires.

Or use the Popupsmart WordPress plugin

A WooCommerce store is a WordPress site, so the optional Popupsmart plugin works here too, and it keeps the code out of your theme. Install it from Plugins → Add New, open Popupsmart in the WordPress menu, paste the Account ID from Popupsmart's Personal Data page into Account Id and click Save Settings. The WordPress popup guide has every step with screenshots. As of September 2026, the plugin's WordPress.org page notes that it hasn't been tested with the latest three major WordPress releases.

Use one method, not both: the help center warns that adding the code to the same site twice can make it malfunction.

WooCommerce has no built-in popup. According to WooCommerce's product settings documentation, its add-to-cart settings under WooCommerce → Settings → Products → General either send shoppers to the cart page after an add or add items without reloading the page; neither shows a popup.

The nearest thing to a built-in popup comes from Mailchimp. Its Mailchimp for WooCommerce plugin can "automatically embed a pop-up form that converts your website visitors to subscribers." Here is that form, as Mailchimp's popup form guide describes it in September 2026, next to Popupsmart:

	Mailchimp's pop-up form	Popupsmart
Where it runs	Sites connected to Mailchimp; Mailchimp for WooCommerce embeds it on your store	Your WooCommerce store and any other website: 3 websites on Basic, up to unlimited on Expert
When it shows	After 2 seconds on the page by default, or on inactivity, a quick scroll or exit intent	Exit intent, scroll depth, time on page, inactivity or a button click
Where and to whom	All pages or chosen target pages; new visitors by default; all devices, or phone, tablet or desktop	URL rules, device, new or returning visitors, traffic source and location
Where the leads go	Your Mailchimp audience	Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Brevo or another of the 19 destinations the help center lists
A/B testing	Yes, on a draft form	From the Advanced plan
Price	Free plugin; the guide doesn't say which Mailchimp plans include pop-up forms	Free plan; paid plans from $39 a month

If your list lives in Mailchimp and one signup form is the goal, Mailchimp's pop-up form is the shortest route: the plugin that embeds it may already be on your store, it A/B tests drafts, and subscribers go straight to your audience. Popupsmart earns its install when leads go to a tool other than Mailchimp, when a popup should open on a button click, or when you run stores and sites beyond this one from the same account.

A WooCommerce add-to-cart popup in Popupsmart works through the cart page. Popupsmart has no WooCommerce-specific targeting and doesn't read the WooCommerce cart, so a campaign on a WooCommerce store is aimed at a page address:

In WooCommerce → Settings → Products → General, tick Redirect to the cart page after successful addition, so every add takes the shopper to the cart.
In the campaign's Segment step, add a URL rule that shows the popup on your cart page's address, usually /cart/.

When a store asks me for an add-to-cart popup, I check that setting first. With the redirect off, shoppers stay on the product page after adding an item, and a popup aimed at the cart page waits until they open it. Cart-value rules, such as a discount shown only above a cart total, belong to Popupsmart's Shopify Audience Targeting and aren't available on WooCommerce.

A WooCommerce popup shows on the pages its campaign targets, not the page you paste code into. Popupsmart loads on the whole store once, and each campaign's URL rule shows or hides it where the address contains or matches a keyword:

Product pages, with a rule on /product/, for an upsell or a question about sizing.
The cart page, with a rule on /cart/, for a free-shipping threshold or a last offer.
The checkout page, with a hide rule on /checkout/, so nothing sits between the shopper and payment.

The trigger deserves the same attention as the page. Across 500 Popupsmart campaigns analysed in 2026, 95.4% fire as soon as the page loads and only 2.0% use exit intent, as the exit-intent study reports, so when a popup fires is the lever most campaigns never pull.

A store's popups usually grow the list or save the sale:

Free shipping in exchange for an email: the free shipping popup recipe.
A last offer at the cart for shoppers about to leave: the cart abandonment popup recipe.
A product launch with a countdown and a signup: the countdown popup recipe.
Feedback on the shopping experience: the survey popup recipe.

Popupsmart sends every email address a popup collects to the email tool you already use, through a connection in the campaign's Integration section. If Mailchimp for WooCommerce already syncs your customers and orders, it keeps doing that; Popupsmart adds popup signups to the Mailchimp audience you choose. Phone numbers and SMS consent can go to Klaviyo, Mailchimp and HubSpot.

The Mailchimp popup guide walks through a connection. The help center lists 19 destinations, including Klaviyo and Brevo; a webhook, Zapier or Make covers a tool that isn't one of them.

A Popupsmart popup doesn't hold up your WooCommerce pages: the embed code loads asynchronously (async defer), so the browser finishes building the page before it fetches Popupsmart. The popups aren't stored in your WordPress database and aren't rendered by PHP; they load from Popupsmart.

When a WooCommerce popup doesn't appear, check the cache first, then the theme files, the store's verification and the trigger:

A cache is serving the old page. If you use a caching plugin or a CDN, clear its cache after saving footer.php.
The theme was updated or changed. Code pasted into footer.php goes with the old theme files. Paste it again, use a child theme, or switch to the plugin.
The code is installed twice. Keep the plugin or the footer.php code, not both.
The store isn't verified. A campaign runs only on a verified website; see Step 4.
The address doesn't match. www.example.com and example.com are different sites to a browser. Add the address your shoppers actually use.
The trigger hasn't fired yet. An exit-intent or scroll trigger waits for the visitor to leave or scroll; test in a private window and behave like a shopper.

Still stuck? Contact Popupsmart support with your store's address and the campaign name.

💬

From the support queue: The mistake to avoid is pasting the code into the parent theme's footer.php and leaving it there. WordPress replaces a theme's files when the theme updates, and the popup disappears with them. My advice for a store is a child theme or the Popupsmart plugin, and a check in a private window after every theme update.

Yes. Popupsmart's free plan is permanent, not a trial: one website, one live popup and 5,000 pageviews a month, with Popupsmart branding. It is enough to install the code and run your first popup on a WooCommerce store.

The Popupsmart pricing page compares it with the paid plans.

No. The embed code in footer.php is enough. Because a WooCommerce store is a WordPress site, the optional Popupsmart WordPress plugin is the other way in; it adds the same script without a theme edit.

Yes. A URL rule on the checkout page's address, usually /checkout/, shows or hides a campaign there. A hide rule on that address keeps the payment step clear of popups while the rest of the store shows them.

Yes, with the right install method. On a classic theme the embed code goes into footer.php. A block theme has no footer.php, so install the Popupsmart plugin there instead.

Do Popupsmart popups work on mobile?

Yes. Popupsmart popups are responsive, and you can switch the editor to the mobile view to check and adjust how a popup looks on a phone before you publish it.

How to add a popup to WooCommerce

Before you start