Context

When running multiple plays, you may want certain exclusion rules to apply only to specific plays rather than having all exclusion rules apply globally across all plays.

Answer

Creating Exclusion Rules: Examples

Before you can apply exclusions to specific audiences, you need to create the exclusion rules themselves. Here's how to set up a customer exclusion using HubSpot's Lifecycle Stage property:

1. In HubSpot, navigate to CRM → Companies and select Actions → Edit properties

2. Search for the "Lifecycle Stage" property and select it

3. Navigate to the Field type section where you'll see a list of options with LABEL and INTERNAL NAME values

4. Find the LABEL value "Customer" and note its corresponding INTERNAL NAME value

5. In your platform, go to Settings → Organization → Exclusions

6. Click "New Exclusion"

7. Choose to exclude Companies

8. Add the Lifecycle Stage property as your exclusion criteria

9. Use the INTERNAL NAME value (not the label) that corresponds to "Customer" in your filter

Important: Multi-select picklist properties are not supported in Unify filters and cannot be used for exclusions. If you need to create an exclusion based on a multi-select property, create a single-select version of that property in HubSpot, populate it with values, and allow approximately 30 minutes for the property to sync to Unify before using it in your exclusion rules.

Important: When you create exclusions at the company level, all people/contacts/prospects within those excluded companies will automatically be prevented from entering sequences. You do not need to create separate person-level exclusions for individuals within excluded companies.

Critical Note: HubSpot properties have different names displayed in the UI compared to the values used at the API level. Always use the INTERNAL NAME value when setting up exclusions to ensure they work correctly.

Once you've created this exclusion rule, you can then selectively apply it to specific audiences through the audience configuration settings.

You can customize which exclusion rules apply to specific plays through the audience settings. When creating or editing an audience, you'll find the exclusion settings in the audience configuration/editing section. This allows you to selectively enable or disable specific exclusion rules for each individual audience.

To configure audience-specific exclusions:

Excluding Companies by Domain

1. Go to Settings → Organization → Exclusions

2. Click "New Exclusion"

3. Select Companies

4. Add a domain rule using "Domain contains one of" and list the company domains you want to exclude. When entering multiple domains, separate them with commas in the same field (e.g., competitor1.com, competitor2.com, competitor3.io). You do not need to include http:// or www prefixes—just the root domains work best.

5. Enable the exclusion's Sequences/Proactive Unenrollment toggle if you want anyone already in sequences to be removed

Note: Company exclusions automatically apply to all contacts at those companies. Enable the proactive unenrollment setting to automatically remove contacts from existing sequences that match the exclusion criteria.

1. Navigate to the audience configuration page

2. Locate the "Exclusions" section within the audience settings

3. Select which exclusion rules should apply to the specific audience and toggle them on

4. Save your Audience settings

This provides the flexibility to apply different exclusion rules tailored to specific audiences within plays. Exclusions are global by default - any exclusions enabled on the Exclusions Settings page will be applied globally to Sequences unless manually turned off at the audience level. Be aware that any exclusions enabled on the Exclusions Settings page will be applied globally to Sequences unless manually turned off at the audience level. For troubleshooting, note the following:

Exclusion Hierarchy

Understanding the exclusion hierarchy is important:

• Universal exclusions are applied by default to all audiences, but can be toggled off at the audience level.

• Audience‑level exclusion settings can override universal exclusions.

• Sequence‑level exclusions always take precedence over both universal and audience‑level settings.

When to Use Audience-Level vs. Sequence-Level Exclusions The choice between audience-level exclusions filter contacts before they enter the play, meaning excluded contacts are completely suppressed from the entry audience. Sequence-level exclusions allow contacts to enter the play but prevent them from receiving emails or being enrolled in sequences—this is useful when you want to include certain people in the sequence for tracking or other non-email actions while preventing outbound communication to them.

Creating Exceptions to Company-Level Exclusions: If you need to enroll specific contacts (such as group-level roles for expansion) while keeping company-level exclusions active for others at the same company, you have two options: (1) Keep company-level exclusions enabled and create a people-level exception using a target list or filters for the specific roles you're targeting for expansion, or (2) Use a CRM field to mark eligible contacts (e.g., group-level contacts) and base your sequence audience criteria on that field. This allows you to maintain protective exclusions for most contacts while targeting specific individuals for expansion efforts.

Understanding the “Exclude from Sequences” Toggle

When you enable the “Exclude from Sequences” toggle in Settings → Organization → Exclusions for a specific exclusion rule, that exclusion becomes a sequence‑level exclusion that will apply at the sequence enrollment node regardless of audience‑level settings. This means:

• Contacts can pass through audience filters successfully

• But still be blocked from entering sequences if they match an exclusion with this toggle enabled

• Even if you’ve toggled that same exclusion OFF at the audience level

This behavior overrides audience‑level settings, ensuring sequence‑level exclusions always take precedence.

Dynamic Exclusion Monitoring: Exclusions are monitored continuously throughout sequence execution, not just at initial enrollment. If a contact meets exclusion criteria after a sequence has started, they will be automatically removed from the active sequence.

CRM‑based exclusions (such as opportunity creation) typically update every 15 minutes, and exclusion toggle changes take approximately 30 minutes to propagate across all systems. Allow time for configuration changes to take effect.

• Exclusions can be toggled off at the audience level to prospect for new contacts within companies.

• Contacts that fall under global exclusions will not enter Sequences unless the related exclusion is manually disabled at the global level.

• Person-level exclusions may not work immediately for new contacts due to caching delays in the system. If you need to exclude competitors or other contacts reliably, create exclusions at the company level instead of the person level to avoid this limitation.

• When contacts are removed from exclusion lists, they can re-enter active sequences if they meet the audience criteria and the audience is actively enrolling into a sequence.

• Enable proactive unenrollment when creating exclusions to automatically remove existing contacts from active sequences when they match new exclusion criteria, rather than only preventing future enrollments.

• Duplicate CRM records can cause exclusions to fail. If a company has multiple records in HubSpot with different property values (e.g., one record with Lifecycle Stage = "Customer" and another with Lifecycle Stage = "Lead"), contacts may still be enrolled in plays even when an exclusion should apply. This happens because if either duplicate record matches the play conditions but not the exclusion criteria, the contact will be enrolled. To resolve this, identify and merge or delete duplicate company records in your CRM to ensure exclusions work correctly.

• Allow a short window for updates to propagate after creating or updating exclusions before they take effect.

Sequence Rulesets: The Missing Piece in Exclusion Configuration

Understanding Sequence Rulesets

• Sequence rulesets can override exclusion configurations set at organization or audience levels

• If a sequence's ruleset has exclusions toggled off, those exclusions will not apply even if they're enabled elsewhere

• Each sequence can use either the default ruleset or a custom ruleset configuration

Accessing Ruleset Settings

1. Navigate to the sequence → settings → ruleset to see which exclusions are toggled on or off for that specific sequence.

2. For the default ruleset, go to settings → sequence → ruleset to check or modify the default ruleset that applies to new sequences.

Troubleshooting Ruleset Issues

1. Check the sequence's ruleset configuration in sequence → settings → ruleset.

2. Verify that the relevant exclusions are toggled on in the ruleset.

3. If the sequence is using the default ruleset, check if the default has exclusions disabled.

4. Remember that ruleset settings can override exclusion configurations set at other levels.

Troubleshooting and Verification Steps

• If contacts aren't enrolling after a bulk upload or list import: Navigate to the sequence's Enrollments tab and check the Not Enrolled breakdown to see per-contact failure reasons. This shows the specific rule, limit, or exclusion that blocked each contact from enrolling. Common reasons include: already enrolled in another sequence or within a re-enrollment cooldown window, exclusions at the sequence or organization level, opted out status, missing/invalid template variables, persona/routing mismatches, or mailbox/sequence sending limits. Note that enrollment counters may lag by 30-60 minutes during bulk enrollment eligibility checks, so allow time for the Not Enrolled list to fully populate. For further diagnosis of specific exclusion rules, navigate to the play and toggle exclusions on/off to identify which exclusion rules are blocking enrollment and see which contacts are being filtered out by each specific exclusion.

• Identify which exclusion is blocking a specific contact: Navigate to Contacts, search for the person by email, open their contact record, and select the "Exclusion" tab to see which exclusion rule(s) apply.

• Verify exclusion rules are working: Check the contact's Activity tab in Unify or the Play's Logs tab. If a contact is excluded due to sequence re‑enrollment rules, the activity log will show a “not enrolled” status with a failure reason such as “already enrolled” or “recently enrolled.” If the Play runs only once per contact and the contact has already run through it, no new activity log entry will appear for subsequent audience syncs.

• Template Variable Troubleshooting: When contacts are blocked due to missing or invalid template variables, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the sequence's Enrollments tab.

  2. Bulk select the contacts showing template variable errors.

  3. Click "Refresh template variables" to retry enrollment.

Re-enrollment Settings Configuration Guide

Re-enrollment Cooldown Settings

Re-enrollment cooldown periods can be adjusted in Settings → Sequences → Enrollment Settings. These settings control the minimum time that must pass before a contact can be enrolled in any sequence again after completing or being removed from a previous sequence.

Sequence‑Specific Re-enrollment Settings

To allow re‑enrollment into the same sequence, an admin must edit the sequence’s ruleset and enable the “Allow re‑enrollment into the same sequence” toggle. This setting is separate from the global cooldown period and specifically controls whether contacts can enter the same sequence multiple times.

Key Distinctions

Re-enrollment cooldown periods are configured in Settings → Sequences → Enrollment Settings, while ruleset re‑enrollment settings are configured within each sequence’s ruleset. Both are distinct from exclusion rules, but any of these three configurations can prevent a contact from enrolling.

If you need to modify an active sequence, edit the sequence and use the “upgrade all enrollments” option to apply changes to active and queued contacts instead of unenrolling and re‑enrolling them. This avoids triggering re‑enrollment restrictions and keeps sequence continuity.

Manual enrollment cannot bypass active exclusions: If a contact matches any active exclusion rule (company-level, sequence-level, or audience-level), they will be blocked from enrollment even if you attempt to add them manually. To enroll a contact that's currently excluded, temporarily disable the relevant exclusion in Settings → Organization → Exclusions, wait approximately 30 minutes for the changes to propagate across all systems, then enroll the contact. You can re‑enable the exclusion afterward if needed. Note that if you're enrolling via an audience, turning off an exclusion at the audience level will not work if that exclusion has “Exclude from Sequences” enabled at the organization level—it will still block sequence enrollment due to the sequence‑level precedence described in the Exclusion Hierarchy section above.

Advanced Troubleshooting: Duplicate Contact Records and Hidden Exclusion Sources

1. Duplicate contact records with different emails: When the same person exists as multiple records with different email addresses, one record may show as enrolled while the duplicate shows as “Excluded.” Search for the contact by name in your CRM to see if multiple records exist. Merge duplicates to resolve the enrollment issue.

2. Ruleset‑based exclusions: Check whether the sequence has Rulesets applied at the sequence level. Exclusions in Rulesets block enrollment even if they don’t appear on the contact’s Exclusions tab. Remove the Ruleset, disable the specific exclusion rule, or add an exception filter (e.g., “email is not …”) to allow the contact through.

3. Queued status despite matching exclusions: Contacts may appear as “queued” even when they match active exclusion rules. Exclusions are evaluated at send time, so such contacts will be automatically skipped when the sequence attempts to send.

Viewing and Verifying Exclusion Configurations

To verify which exclusions are applied to your plays and audiences:

• At the play level: Open the play editor, click into the trigger node, and scroll to the bottom to see applied exclusions (note: this view is only available for plays with automatic triggers, not manual enrollment).

• At the audience level: Edit the audience and navigate to Advanced settings, then scroll to the bottom.

• In play logs: Review play logs to see if a record was excluded and identify which specific exclusion rule caused it.

Additional Exclusion Limitations and Clarifications

• Companies cannot be directly excluded based on sequence enrollment status. If you need to exclude companies when someone from that company is enrolled in a sequence (e.g., to avoid using credits on website visitors from companies already being prospected), use a CRM field at the company level that indicates "actively prospected" or "in sequence" status (such as a custom flag, lifecycle stage, or deal stage). Then create a company exclusion using that field and apply it to the relevant play.

• "Completed: Excluded" enrollment status in play logs indicates that a contact's sequence was terminated because they met an exclusion rule during sequence execution, not necessarily that they currently match an exclusion. Check the contact's Exclusions tab to see their current exclusion status.

• HubSpot lists cannot be used in exclusions. While you can use HubSpot properties and field values to create exclusion rules, HubSpot lists themselves are not supported as exclusion criteria in Unify.

Deal/Opportunity Exclusion Limitations and Workarounds

Important limitation: Unify's native deal/opportunity-based exclusions work at the company level by default. When you create an exclusion using Unify Opportunity fields (which pull HubSpot deal data), it will exclude all contacts at companies with matching deals, not just the contacts directly associated with those deals.

Note: When using Salesforce as your primary CRM, opportunity‑based exclusions also evaluate opportunities from HubSpot. A company may be excluded due to an open HubSpot opportunity even if all Salesforce opportunities are closed. Check both systems when troubleshooting unexpected opportunity‑based exclusions.

1. Create a contact-level field in HubSpot (e.g., a checkbox or dropdown property like “Has associated deal in stage X?”)

2. Use a HubSpot workflow or list membership to populate that field for contacts tied to deals in the target stage(s)

3. Allow approximately 30 minutes for the new property to sync to Unify

4. In Unify, go to Settings → Organization → Exclusions and create a people-level exclusion (not company-level) using your new contact field

5. Enable the Exclude from Sequences toggle to automatically unenroll matching contacts

This workaround ensures only the specific contacts associated with deals are excluded, leaving other contacts at the same company unaffected.

Additional consideration: When using Unify Opportunity fields to exclude based on HubSpot deal stages, use the deal stage’s internal value (pipeline stage ID) rather than the display label to ensure the exclusion works correctly.