Understanding and Resolving Audience Discrepancies

How to Upload a CSV to Create a List:

1. Navigate to either the Companies tab or People tab in Unify (depending on whether you're uploading companies or individual contacts)

2. Click the Upload CSV button in the top right corner

3. Follow the upload process to create your list

4. Note: Uploaded CSVs now appear in Lists rather than Audiences. You have multiple options to use your list in sequences:

   • Click the Create play button at the top of the list to quickly create a new play from that list

   • To add the list to an existing play, use the "exists in list" trigger when configuring your play's trigger criteria

   • Mass select the leads in the list and click Add to sequence in the bottom right corner

5. During upload, you’ll have the option to enroll contacts directly in a sequence if desired

CSV uploads do not consume credits. Credits are only used for enrichment and prospecting operations, not for creating companies or contacts from uploaded files.

Allow 5‑10 minutes for CSV processing to complete, then refresh your view to see all uploaded companies.

CSV Upload Field Mapping Troubleshooting

When uploading CSVs to create lists in Unify, field mapping errors can cause upload failures that aren't immediately obvious. Here's how to avoid and resolve these issues:

Common Field Mapping Issues:

• Data Type Mismatches: Text-based values (like "Employees.10to19") cannot be mapped to fields expecting numerical values (like "Employee count"). This will cause the upload to fail.

• Missing Required Headers: CSV uploads require specific column headers to process successfully. For company uploads, your CSV must include both "Company Name" and "Domain" column headers. Missing either of these required headers will cause the upload to fail. Ensure your CSV file contains these exact column names before attempting to upload.

• Field Format Validation: Ensure your CSV data matches the expected format for each target field type before mapping

Advanced CSV Upload Field Validation Issues

• LinkedIn URL Format Issues: SalesNavigator URLs and certain LinkedIn formats prevent enrichment; use standard LinkedIn profile URLs (e.g., linkedin.com/in/username) or remove them.

• Special Character Validation: Apostrophes or other formatting characters before phone numbers cause failures; remove them via find-and-replace.

• Required Custom Attributes: Person records with required custom attributes not included in CSV will fail; include them or set to optional.

• Pre-Upload Data Cleaning Checklist:

  1. Remove special characters (especially apostrophes) from phone number fields.

  2. Convert full website URLs to bare domain format.

  3. Replace SalesNavigator LinkedIn URLs with standard profile URLs or remove.

  4. Ensure all required custom attributes on Person records are present in the CSV.

Troubleshooting Upload Failures:

1. If your CSV upload fails, review the field mapping step carefully

2. Check that text fields are mapped to text‑compatible target fields

3. Verify that numerical fields contain only numeric values

4. Consider reformatting your CSV data if field types don't align with available target fields

Best Practices:

• Preview your field mappings before finalizing the upload

• Use consistent data formats within each CSV column

• Test with a small sample CSV first if you're unsure about field compatibility

Potential Causes and Solutions:

• Check for Exclusions: Exclusions are filters that can significantly impact the size of your audience and the number of people or companies included. To troubleshoot:

  • Toggle the exclusions feature off to verify if the audience size increases as expected.

  • Review your exclusion criteria to ensure they align with your intended audience goals.

• Understanding and Implementing Exclusions: Exclusions in Unify are global by default, meaning they apply to all audiences automatically. Key points to understand:

  • Company-level exclusions automatically exclude all people/contacts within those companies from sequences.

  • Person-level exclusions only exclude specific contacts from receiving emails. The company will still appear in your audience, and other contacts at that company may still be targeted.

  • You don't need to create separate people-level exclusions if you've already excluded at the company level.

  • While exclusions are global, you can toggle them off for specific audiences if needed.

  • If you see companies in your audience that you expected to be excluded, verify whether you applied person-level or company-level exclusions.

  • Important: Exclusions are evaluated during sequence execution, not just at enrollment. This means a contact can be excluded from the same play that just sent them an email if exclusion criteria are met at execution time.

  • Note: Exclusions are dynamic - if a company or person is removed from an exclusion list and they meet your audience criteria, they will automatically be enrolled in any actively enrolling sequences.

• Specific Exclusion Methods:

  • Company Domain Exclusions: To exclude entire companies (e.g., international or non-target companies), create a company exclusion using domain rules. Go to Settings > Exclusions > New exclusion, select Companies, and add a domain rule such as "Domain contains one of" with the specific company domains you want to exclude.

    Formatting Multiple Domains: When entering multiple domains in the same exclusion rule, separate them with commas without spaces or use the interface to add them individually. Use bare domain format without http:// or www prefixes (e.g., competitor1.com, competitor2.com, competitor3.io).

    Note that companies will only appear in the exclusion interface if they already exist in your CRM or have been deanonymized via web intent. However, the exclusion rule will still apply to those companies if they are added to your CRM or appear via web intent in the future.

  • CSV-Based People Exclusions: For bulk exclusions of specific roles like sales reps, upload a CSV file containing their information with a status column (e.g., "Status" = "Sales Rep"). After uploading, create a People exclusion filtering on the status field (e.g., Status equals Sales Rep).

  • Persona-Level Title Exclusions: In your persona settings, navigate to the settings tab and exclude specific words in job titles (such as "sales") to prevent contacts with those titles from being included in your audience.

  • HubSpot Activity Exclusions: When Unify writes back email activity to HubSpot, it may trigger HubSpot automations that update fields like "last activity date." If these fields are used in your exclusion criteria, contacts who receive Unify outreach can be excluded from sequences, creating an unintended feedback loop. If you experience contacts being excluded after receiving Unify emails, toggle off the "exclude from sequences" option in your HubSpot activity exclusions settings to prevent this issue.

  • Duplicate Company Records: If contacts from excluded companies still appear in tasks or plays despite having exclusions configured correctly, check for duplicate company records in your CRM. When multiple records exist for the same company with different property values, Unify may enroll contacts if any linked record matches your sequence/play conditions, even if other records match your exclusion criteria. To resolve this, identify and merge or delete duplicate company records in HubSpot to ensure exclusions work as intended.

  • Duplicate Person/Contact Records: If a contact who should qualify for an audience based on activity or field values is missing, check for duplicate person records in your CRM. Multiple records for the same individual (e.g., different email addresses) can cause Unify to evaluate a version lacking the necessary data, preventing audience inclusion. Merge duplicate contacts, retain all relevant fields (conversion data, activity history, custom fields), and allow 30‑60 minutes for sync before the audience recomputes.

  • Troubleshooting Unexpected Play Enrollments from Duplicate Records: When investigating why a contact was enrolled in a play despite appearing unqualified, duplicate company records may be the cause. Play enrollment qualification checks evaluate all linked records for a company – if any linked record contains the required fields (such as employee count or funding), the enrollment check will pass, even if other linked records for that company are missing those fields. This means a contact may appear unqualified when viewing one company record, but was actually enrolled based on data from a different linked record for the same company. To troubleshoot unexpected enrollments, check the person's company for multiple linked records and verify which record contains the qualifying data that triggered enrollment.

• Limitations During Enrichment: If you're uploading a CSV to enrich phone numbers or email addresses, lower-than-expected figures may result from:

  • Data provider limitations, where some contact emails or phone numbers cannot be located due to incomplete or outdated records.

  • Ensuring that your source data is up-to-date and contains accurate identifiers (e.g., names, domains) can improve results.

• Advanced Settings and Global Sequence Exclusions: Unify has additional exclusion mechanisms that operate independently of audience‑level exclusions. Verify these settings to prevent enrollment failures.

  • Navigate to Settings → Organization → Exclusions and disable the Advanced Settings Exclusions option.

  • Review each global exclusion and ensure the “sequence exclusion” toggle is OFF.

  • Remember that sequence exclusions are all‑or‑nothing; they cannot be set per sequence.

  Critical Sequence Management: When running sequences, keep audience‑level exclusions, advanced settings exclusions, and global sequence exclusions disabled until the entire sequence completes. Re‑enabling exclusions mid‑sequence will block subsequent steps.

  After disabling exclusions, wait 30 minutes before running or re‑running plays to ensure the changes have fully propagated.

List Count vs Play Trigger Criteria Discrepancies:

When using a list as a trigger for a Play, the Play's trigger criteria preview may show fewer people than the total list size. This discrepancy can arise from three common causes.

• Data type mismatches: Plays run on a single record type (people or companies). If your list contains people but the Play trigger is set to companies (or vice versa), counts differ. Ensure the Play trigger record type matches the list type.

• CSV upload count finalization: After a recent CSV upload, counts may take 2–3 minutes to finalize. Refresh the Play trigger preview after a short wait.

• Exclusions filtering Play audiences: Exclusions affect Play audiences but do not reduce the list count, creating a discrepancy.

Quick Diagnostic Steps:

1. Confirm the Play trigger record type matches your list type (people vs companies).

2. If you just uploaded the CSV, wait 2–3 minutes and refresh the Play trigger preview.

3. Check if exclusions are causing the Play audience to be filtered down from the full list size.

Sequence-Specific Exclusion Rulesets and Queue Behavior

Beyond the global exclusion settings, Unify allows exclusions to be grouped into rulesets that can be applied at the sequence level.

• Exclusions can be grouped into rulesets and applied to a specific sequence rather than globally.

• A contact may appear as “Excluded” for a sequence if they match an exclusion rule that’s part of an enabled ruleset, even when the global “Exclude from Sequences” toggle is off.

• To investigate if rulesets are blocking enrollment, open the sequence settings, review the enabled rulesets, and check which exclusion rules are included.

• This provides finer‑grained control over exclusions without affecting other sequences.

Expected Queue Behavior for Excluded Contacts

When contacts matching exclusion criteria show up as “queued” in a sequence, this is expected. Exclusions are evaluated at send time, so the system automatically skips those contacts when the sequence attempts to send, requiring no further action.

Exclusions do not affect the list count itself; they are applied only when the list is used as a play trigger, which can cause a discrepancy between the list size and the play enrollment count.

Note for CSV Uploads: After a CSV upload completes, the final count may take 2–3 minutes to fully process. Refresh the Play's trigger preview after a few minutes to see the accurate count.

Domain-Based Company Deduplication:

When uploading CSVs to create audiences in Unify, the system automatically deduplicates companies by domain, which can cause fewer companies to appear than expected.

• Unify maps companies by their domain, so multiple rows with the same domain result in a single company record.

• To work around this, focus on prospecting additional people within each company rather than trying to create separate company records.

• If a domain typo occurs, re‑upload a single‑row CSV containing the corrected “Company Name” and “Domain” (use a bare domain format, e.g., loq.us). If the company originated from your CRM, update the domain in the CRM and allow 15‑30 minutes for the change to sync back to Unify.

Missing Email Addresses in CRM Syncs:

When syncing audiences from HubSpot or other CRMs, Unify can only ingest contacts that have email addresses. Contacts without emails will not appear in your Unify audience, even if they meet all other criteria.

How to Identify This Issue:

• Check your source CRM for contacts matching your criteria but lacking email addresses

Compare the total count of matching contacts in your CRM versus what appears in Unify.

Workaround Solution:

Download the contacts without emails as a CSV from your CRM, then upload to Unify for email enrichment. The CSV must include: first name, last name, company name, and company website. This will create a new audience that you can use in your plays.

Setting Up Exclusions in HubSpot: If you're using HubSpot and need to set up exclusions (such as excluding closed deals using deal lifecycle stage), follow these steps:

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

2. Search for the property you want to use (e.g., "Lifecycle Stage") and select it

3. In the Field type section, note the INTERNAL NAME value that corresponds to your desired LABEL value (e.g., find "Customer" label and note its internal name)

4. In Unify, go to Settings → Organization → Exclusions

5. Click "New Exclusion" and choose to exclude Companies

6. Add your property as the exclusion criteria

7. Use the INTERNAL NAME value (not the label) in your filter

Important HubSpot Deal Exclusion Behavior: Native HubSpot deal‑based exclusions in Unify operate at the company level only. When you create an exclusion using Unify Opportunity fields (which pull HubSpot deal data), it will exclude all contacts at companies with deals matching your criteria, not just the contacts directly associated with those deals. To exclude only specific contacts tied to deals, create a contact‑level field in HubSpot (e.g., a checkbox “Has associated deal in stage X”), populate it via a HubSpot workflow, sync the field to Unify, and then set a people‑level exclusion on that custom field.

Important Limitation: When Unify writes back email activity to HubSpot, it may trigger HubSpot automations that update fields like "last activity date." This can cause contacts who receive Unify outreach to be excluded from sequences, creating an unintended feedback loop. If you experience contacts being excluded after receiving Unify emails, toggle off the "exclude from sequences" option in your HubSpot activity exclusions settings to prevent this issue.

Limited HubSpot Field Visibility:

• Initial sync timing: Allow up to 60 minutes for the two‑cycle link process and up to 24 hours for the first‑time full sync after connecting HubSpot.

• Unsupported field types: Multi‑select fields, campaign fields, HubSpot Lead‑object fields, and contact or company lifecycle stages are not currently supported in Unify. Only deal lifecycle stages are supported for filtering and exclusions.

• Read-only Unify fields: Certain Unify-specific fields like “Last Web Activity” can only be populated by Unify's own tracking system and cannot be mapped from external HubSpot properties, even if those properties contain similar data from third‑party tools (e.g., Warmly, Clearbit). While you can use HubSpot properties from external providers to create audiences and filter criteria, the data cannot populate Unify's native tracking fields.

• Refresh your audience builder after the sync window has elapsed to see newly available fields.

• Column visibility vs. filtering capability: HubSpot fields that sync to Unify can be used to create audiences and apply filter conditions even if they don't appear as displayable columns in the audience view. If you need to target contacts based on a specific HubSpot property (such as a third‑party web activity field), create your audience using that property as a filter criterion rather than expecting it to appear as a column.

• Multi-Select Property Workaround: When you need to filter on a multi‑select property that isn’t supported in Unify, create a single‑select version of the property in HubSpot as a workaround. Populate at least one company with a value, then allow approximately 30 minutes for the property to sync to Unify before using it in your filters.

This article applies to audiences created using UTM parameters, Web Intent, Landing Page URL, Company or Person level filters, and lists created via CSV upload.

Play Sequence Prospecting Limitations:

Loop Requirements After Prospecting:

When using prospecting nodes in plays, a loop is always required to process the results:

• Prospecting nodes return a list of people, not individual contacts

• The loop iterates through this list and runs downstream actions (like sequence enrollment or CRM sync) once per person

• Without a loop, sequence nodes cannot enroll individual people, resulting in zero enrollments

• The typical node order is: Prospect → Loop → Sequence → Sync (or other actions)

When using company-level actions in Plays (such as 'Get the Company', AI Qualification nodes, or other company-level qualification steps), the context switches from person‑level to company‑level, which means subsequent steps will no longer have access to person‑level fields. To maintain access to person data while leveraging company information:

• Design your flow to maintain the link to the original person throughout your qualification steps, ensuring the original person remains referenced even when evaluating company‑level criteria

• If you need to pivot back from company to people after company‑level actions, use the Get People action to fetch individuals at that company (who already exist in Unify), then continue with person‑level steps

• Alternatively, use person-level agents or qualification criteria instead of company-level agents/actions when you need to maintain person context throughout the flow (e.g., use a person-level AI agent instead of a company-level AI Qualification node)

• When working with a list of people and performing person‑level actions (such as routing, messaging, or enrichment), use a Loop node to process person‑level actions one‑by‑one so each step receives a single person record with full access to person fields

If your play shows zero enrollments despite prospecting successfully, verify that you have a loop node between your prospecting node and sequence node.

Prospecting Node Settings: If you're using play sequences and notice fewer people enrolled than expected based on the number of runs, this may be due to prospecting node configuration:

• By default, prospecting nodes may only search for new contacts rather than including existing ones in your database

• To increase enrollment numbers, update your prospecting node to include “Use Existing People in Unify or CRM” which will pull people from your CRM and increase the total number of people enrolled

• This setting allows the system to leverage your existing contact database in addition to finding new prospects

Sequence Enrollment Rules: If you're creating audiences based on sequence engagement (e.g., people who were enrolled but didn't reply) and then trying to enroll them in new sequences, you may encounter enrollment failures even though people appear in your audience. This occurs due to sequence enrollment rules that prevent re‑enrollment within a certain timeframe:

• Navigate to Settings → Organization → Sequences → Rulesets to review your enrollment rules

• Check if “Prevent enrollment if recently enrolled in another sequence” is enabled

• Adjust the timeframe or disable this rule if you need to re‑enroll people sooner

• Use the Metrics tab in your Play to see why specific people weren't enrolled (e.g., “recently enrolled into another sequence”)

Sequence Enrollment Limitations: When enrolling an audience into a sequence, you may notice fewer people enrolled than the total audience size. Common reasons include:

Note: During bulk enrollment operations, the enrollment count may appear to pause or progress slowly while the system evaluates each contact. This is expected behavior—not all selected contacts will enroll due to eligibility checks. Wait for the process to complete before troubleshooting.

When bulk enrollment fails for some or all contacts, you may see an error notification such as "Sequence attempt was blocked — Failed to add all People to Sequence." This indicates that one or more contacts didn't meet enrollment eligibility requirements. You may need to wait a short period before retrying while the system completes eligibility checks for all selected contacts.

• People already enrolled in another active sequence

• People who have opted out of communications

• People who don't meet sequence‑specific enrollment criteria

• Mailbox or sequence daily sending limits have been reached (queued contacts will enroll automatically as capacity becomes available)

• Company-level enrollment caps have been met

• Missing or invalid template variables in sequence emails (Unify blocks sends when email templates contain unresolved placeholders or merge fields)

• To troubleshoot, check the sequence's Enrollments tab and review the Not Enrolled section for per-contact reasons why specific individuals were not enrolled (e.g., “recently enrolled into another sequence,” “missing template variables”). You can also navigate to your play's Metrics tab to view detailed enrollment status.

Reassigning Queued Sequence Enrollments to Different Mailboxes:

1. Navigate to Email Backlog

2. Scroll to Reassign Sequence enrollments

3. Click Reassign Enrollments for your sequence

4. Select the new mailbox(es) and save

Important: This reassignment only works for queued enrollments that haven't been sent yet. Already‑sent emails cannot be reassigned.

Dynamic Audience Behavior: Audiences in Unify are dynamic and change in real‑time as people move in and out based on your criteria, while play logs remain static records of who participated at the time of execution. This means:

• Your current audience count may be lower than the number of people who have historically participated in associated plays

• People may have qualified for the audience when a play ran but no longer meet the criteria due to updated data or recent activity exclusions

• To see historical participation, check your play logs rather than relying on current audience size