How do exclusions work in Unify?

Last updated: May 5, 2026

Context

Exclusions in Unify allow you to prevent specific companies or contacts from being targeted in plays and sequences. Understanding how exclusions work is crucial for ensuring you don't reach out to current customers, active opportunities, or other contacts that should not receive outreach.

Answer

Types of Exclusions

Exclusions can be created at two levels:

Company level - excludes all contacts associated with specific companies (when one contact triggers the exclusion criteria, it affects the entire company)
People level - excludes specific contacts based on criteria

Understanding Exclusion Counts: When you create a company-level exclusion, the “Excluded Count” displayed in the UI shows the total number of people at those companies, not the number of companies excluded. This count can be significantly higher than your selected company count because it includes all contacts associated with those companies. If you only want to exclude specific contacts at certain companies (rather than everyone at those companies), use a people-level exclusion instead.

Be careful when enabling proactive unenrollment for exclusions based on activity dates or sequence engagement, as this may accidentally remove contacts who are actively receiving sequences.

Important limitation: When manually adding contacts to sequences, exclusion settings are not respected. Contacts matching exclusion criteria will be filtered out regardless of exclusion toggles. To work around this, you must use the play-based enrollment process described below.

How Exclusions Work

2. Proactive Unenrollment

Using the "Sequences" toggle at the bottom of an exclusion's settings, you can enable proactive unenrollment. When enabled, contacts who meet exclusion criteria after enrollment will be automatically removed from active sequences.

When the "Sequences" toggle is turned OFF for an exclusion, that exclusion will not prevent contacts from being enrolled through any method—including play-based enrollments, manual additions, or automated triggers. The sequence-level exclusion toggle takes precedence over all enrollment rules. Only when the toggle is ON will the exclusion both prevent new enrollments and proactively unenroll contacts who later meet the criteria.

When a company-level exclusion is triggered (such as when a deal reaches a specific stage), all contacts associated with that company will be automatically removed from active sequences.

Be careful when enabling proactive unenrollment for exclusions based on activity dates or sequence engagement, as this may accidentally remove contacts who are actively receiving sequences.

Creating an Exclusion

To create a new exclusion:

Navigate to Settings > Exclusions
Click "New Exclusion"
Choose whether to exclude Companies or People
Warning: Changing the exclusion type after creation resets all filters. If you switch from company-level to person-level (or vice versa), your exclusion criteria will be cleared. This can create unintended consequences—for example, switching to person-level might result in criteria like “email is not [specific email]”, which would match everyone except that one person, potentially causing mass exclusions and unenrollments if the exclusion is used in sequence rulesets. Always review and reconfigure your criteria after changing exclusion types.
Set your exclusion criteria (e.g., domain, status, employee count)
When entering multiple domains in a single exclusion field (such as for competitor exclusions), separate them with commas. For example: competitor1.com, competitor2.com, competitor3.io. Do not include http:// or www – just use the root domains.
Optionally enable the "Sequences" toggle for proactive unenrollment
Click "Create Exclusion"

Permanent Exclusion Exceptions Using AND Conditions

You can create permanent exceptions to exclusion rules by adding AND conditions directly to the exclusion criteria. This lets you keep the exclusion active for most contacts while allowing specific domains or email addresses to be enrolled.

For company-level exclusions

Navigate to Settings > Exclusions and edit the relevant exclusion.
Add an AND condition: domain is not equal to [specific-domain.com].
Save the exclusion.

For people-level exclusions

Navigate to Settings > Exclusions and edit the relevant exclusion.
Add an AND condition: email is not equal to [specific-email@domain.com].
Save the exclusion.

Editing Existing Exclusions with AND/OR Logic

Go to Settings → Exclusions
Open the exclusion you want to modify
Use AND to add exceptions inside a rule (e.g., AND domain is not equal to specific-domain.com)
Use OR by adding a new Group and setting group logic to OR for broader matching
Save changes

Advantages: More targeted, permanent, simpler, and safer than disabling exclusions or using play‑based workarounds.

Using a CSV List for Exclusions

To exclude contacts from an uploaded CSV list:

Navigate to People or Companies and upload your CSV
During the upload process, map a column to a field like Status (e.g., set the value to “Exclude”)
Go to Settings → Exclusions and create a new exclusion
Set the exclusion criteria to match the field you mapped (e.g., status = exclude)
Save the exclusion

Once saved, all contacts from your uploaded CSV will be excluded from plays and sequences.

Troubleshooting Enrollment Issues

Here are some steps to troubleshoot enrollment issues:

Verify exclusion criteria
Account for enrollment processing delays – After bulk enrollments (such as CSV uploads), enrollment counters can lag during eligibility checks. Wait 30‑60 minutes for the enrollment evaluation to complete and counters to fully update before troubleshooting. The “Not Enrolled” list will finalize once processing completes.
Check sequence settings. Verify that the “Sequences” toggle is enabled for the relevant exclusions. If this toggle is OFF, contacts matching the exclusion criteria can still be enrolled through plays, manual additions, or any other method.
Check ruleset‑level exclusion overrides – Even if global exclusions are enabled, verify the ruleset settings for your specific sequence. Navigate to Settings → Features → Sequences → Rulesets, select the relevant ruleset, and confirm which exclusions are toggled on or off. Ruleset‑level settings can override global exclusion configurations.
Review play settings
Use play‑based enrollment for excluded contacts – If you need to enroll contacts that match existing exclusion criteria (such as for closed‑lost campaigns):
- Preferred method (ruleset‑level): Navigate to Settings → Features → Sequences → Rulesets, select the ruleset containing your target sequence, toggle off the relevant exclusions for that specific ruleset, wait ~30 minutes for the changes to propagate, re‑run your play, then re‑enable the exclusions.
- Alternative method (global level): Create or modify a play with your target audience, go to Settings → Organization → Exclusions, toggle off “Exclude from Sequences” for the relevant exclusions, wait ~30 minutes, re‑run your play, and finally re‑enable the global exclusion settings.
Important: The ruleset‑level method is safer because it limits the scope of the exclusion change to specific sequences, reducing the risk of unintended enrollments in other sequences.
Re‑enrollment after exclusion removal – When a contact or company is removed from an exclusion list (either by changing exclusion criteria or by the contact no longer meeting the exclusion conditions), they can be enrolled in sequences if they meet audience criteria and the audience is actively enrolling. This happens automatically during the next sync cycle, typically within 15 minutes of the exclusion change taking effect.
Check for duplicate CRM records – If contacts are being enrolled despite matching exclusion criteria, verify whether duplicate company records exist in your CRM. When multiple records exist for the same company with different field values, enrollment can occur if either record matches the play conditions, even if one record meets exclusion criteria. To resolve this, identify and merge or delete duplicate company records in your CRM.
Important limitation not covered in standard exclusion troubleshooting: Pausing a sequence does NOT automatically unenroll contacts. Contacts who remain enrolled in paused or incomplete sequences will be blocked from enrolling in any future sequences, even if they meet new audience criteria.
Solution: Before attempting to enroll contacts in new sequences, manually unenroll them from any paused sequences to remove the enrollment block.
When using the play‑based enrollment workaround mentioned in the exclusions article, enable the re‑enrollment setting in your play to allow previously blocked contacts to enter sequences. This is essential for contacts who were blocked due to previous sequence enrollment, not just exclusion criteria.
Additional step: Clone and re‑run your play (rather than re‑run) to ensure previously blocked contacts are properly processed for enrollment.
Play re‑run cooldown limitation: the cooldown period cannot be set to 0 days; the minimum is 1 day. To run a Play immediately on the same audience, duplicate the Play and execute the copy instead of re‑running the original.
Bulk unenrollment procedure: When contacts are enrolled incorrectly (such as from overly broad play conditions), use this process to bulk remove them.
1. Navigate to the Sequences tab and open the affected sequence(s)
2. Click the Enrollments tab
3. Use search and filters (by persona, company, or other shared traits) to identify the affected contacts
4. Select the contacts you want to remove
5. Click Unenroll at the bottom‑right to bulk remove them
This procedure is particularly useful when switching messaging strategies or correcting targeting mistakes that bypass exclusion settings.
Account for CRM sync timing race conditions – Contacts may be enrolled despite meeting exclusion criteria if a play trigger fires before CRM data syncs to Unify. Both CRM sync and play triggers run on ~15‑minute cycles, but CRM data must be ingested into Unify before the play evaluates exclusions. If a qualifying event (e.g., opportunity creation or meeting booking) occurs close to when a play fires, the exclusion data may not be available at evaluation time.
Workaround: For high‑priority plays where this timing is critical, add a short delay node (15‑30 minutes) at the start of your sequence to give CRM data more time to sync before contacts receive outreach. This is especially important for plays targeting recent trial sign‑ups or form submissions where exclusion‑triggering events may occur shortly after enrollment criteria are met.
Note: Real‑time CRM sync is not currently available. The polling‑based sync architecture means this edge case cannot be fully prevented without implementing delay nodes.
One Active Sequence Per Contact – Contacts can only be enrolled in one active sequence at a time; if they are already in a sequence they are blocked from enrolling in another until they are manually unenrolled.
Check for active sequence enrollments – When enrollment fails without matching exclusion criteria, verify the contact isn’t already enrolled in another active sequence via Explore > People > Sequences tab, and unenroll if necessary.
Enhanced failure diagnosis – The “already enrolled” reason in the “Not Enrolled” breakdown indicates the contact is blocked because they are active in another sequence, not because of exclusion rules.

When contacts are unenrolled (manually or through proactive unenrollment), any queued messages scheduled to send are canceled and will not be delivered.

Pausing a sequence or play also prevents any queued emails in that sequence from sending.

Additional Ways Contacts Are Automatically Removed from Sequences

Beyond exclusions, contacts are automatically removed from sequences when:

Email opt‑out - When contacts click the email opt‑out link, they are unenrolled from all active sequences.
Mailbox ownership changes - When the sender's mailbox ownership changes for the mailbox used to enroll the contact.

Advanced Exclusion Diagnostics

Identify which contacts were excluded and why - To see which prospects weren't enrolled and the specific reasons:

Via Play metrics: Open the Play you ran → go to Metrics → click the Sequence node (or the “Not Enrolled” count) to view the list of contacts and failure reasons.
Via Sequence enrollments: Open the sequence → click the Enrollments tab → check the “Not Enrolled” breakdown for per‑contact failure reasons showing the specific rule or limit that blocked each contact.
For a specific contact, open their record → Activity tab → check the Play/Sequence entries for the enrollment attempt and the reason.
To identify which specific exclusion is blocking a contact, create an audience based on the contact's email and toggle exclusions off/on to see which one the contact falls into.

Check the individual person's profile in Unify → navigate to the Exclusions tab to see which specific exclusions apply to them (note: this requires checking each person individually).

Note: A clearer exclusion filtering system showing specific exclusion reasons per contact is currently in development.

Critical Global Exclusion Override Limitation

Global exclusions always apply regardless of audience‑level exclusion settings. Even if you disable exclusions at the audience or sequence level, contacts matching global exclusion criteria will still be blocked from enrollment (including via the browser extension). To enroll contacts that match global exclusions, you must temporarily disable the specific global exclusion in Settings > Organization > Exclusions and wait approximately 30 minutes for changes to take effect.

Re‑enrollment Rule Troubleshooting

Check re‑enrollment visibility - To verify if contacts are being excluded due to sequence re‑enrollment rules:

For Play‑based enrollments: Check the contact's Activity tab or the Play's Logs tab. You will see the Play run with a status of “not enrolled” and a failure reason such as “already enrolled” or “recently enrolled”.
For manual enrollments: Re‑enrollment exclusions are not visible in the UI. You will only see the contact's previous enrollment history.
If a Play is configured to never allow re‑runs (in Play settings), contacts won't appear in activity logs for subsequent sync attempts — you’ll only see their original enrollment.

Important: Sequence re‑enrollment rules can be set in two places: global sequence settings and individual Play settings. If a Play is configured to disallow re‑runs, contacts won't trigger the Play again regardless of global re‑enrollment settings.

Adjusting re‑enrollment wait periods - If contacts are blocked from enrollment due to recent sequence participation, you can modify the wait period by navigating to Settings > Sequences > Re‑enrollment Rules and adjusting the current wait period (e.g., from 100 days to a shorter duration) to allow earlier enrollment.

Understanding dual re‑enrollment controls - Re‑enrollment is governed by two settings in the ruleset: the wait period and the “Allow re‑enrollment into the same sequence” toggle. Both must be configured appropriately; setting the wait period to 0 days alone is insufficient if the same‑sequence toggle is disabled. Adjust these settings in Settings → Features → Sequences → Rulesets, noting that admin permissions are required.

CRM Integration Caveat for Exclusions

Important Technical Limitation: When using CRM-based exclusions (such as "last activity date"), be aware that Unify's email activity writeback can trigger CRM automations that update these fields, potentially causing contacts to be excluded unexpectedly. This can happen even when your CRM field mapping is set to "read only" in Unify.

Why This Happens

Unify writes email activity data back to your CRM, which can trigger CRM workflows or automations that update activity-related fields. These field updates can then cause contacts to meet exclusion criteria, even though the field mapping appears as "read only" in Unify's settings.

Troubleshooting Steps

If you notice contacts being excluded after receiving Unify outreach:

Check CRM automations - Review if your CRM has workflows updating activity fields based on email activity
Review field mappings - Consider adjusting your CRM field mappings to prevent unintended updates
Adjust exclusion criteria - Modify exclusion logic to account for activity writeback timing
Monitor exclusion timing - CRM automations triggered by Unify's activity writeback may cause exclusion criteria to be met sooner than the standard 15-minute sync cycle

This caveat is particularly important for exclusions based on "last contacted date," "last activity date," or similar CRM fields that could be automatically updated by your CRM's email activity processing.

Common Use Cases

Typical exclusion scenarios include:

Current customers (using CRM status) - use company-level exclusions to exclude all contacts at customer companies, or people-level exclusions if you only need to exclude specific contacts
Active opportunities
Competitors (recommended to use company-level exclusions for reliability)
Prospects who have scheduled meetings (using deal stage criteria)
Recently contacted prospects
Companies below/above certain employee counts

Company-Level Exclusion Configuration Best Practices

CRM Workflow Configuration for Company-Level Exclusions

For company-level exclusions to work effectively with CRM-based criteria (like deal stage or lifecycle stage), ensure your CRM workflow updates the status of ALL contacts at a company when a qualifying event occurs, not just the individual who triggered it.

Common Problem: If only the meeting booker's status changes to “opportunity” while other team members remain as “leads,” exclusions based on opportunity status won’t prevent outreach to the remaining contacts at that company.

Solution: Configure your CRM automation to update the lifecycle stage or relevant field for all contacts associated with a company when:

A meeting is scheduled
A deal is created
Any qualifying exclusion event occurs

This ensures that company-level exclusions function as intended and prevent outreach to all team members at companies that should be excluded.

Exclusions apply globally across all audiences by default. You can disable specific exclusions at the audience level if needed.

Understanding Exclusion Hierarchy and Precedence in Unify

Exclusion Hierarchy and Precedence Rules

Understanding the exclusion hierarchy is crucial for ensuring your exclusions work as expected:

Sequence-level exclusions (configured in the "Sequences" toggle when editing an exclusion) - These always take precedence and cannot be overridden
Universal exclusions - Applied by default to all audiences, but can be toggled off at the audience level
Audience-level exclusion settings - Can override universal exclusions for specific audiences

Functional Differences Between Exclusion Levels

Understanding where you configure exclusions affects how contacts are processed:

Audience-level exclusions - Pre‑filter contacts before they enter the play. Contacts matching these exclusions are completely removed from the entry audience and never enter the play at all.
Sequence/play-level exclusions - Allow contacts to enter sequences even if they match exclusion criteria, but prevent email sends. This is useful when you want to include certain contacts in sequences for tracking, reporting, or non‑email actions, but don’t want to send them emails.

Use case example: You might want to include current customers in a sequence to track their engagement with content or trigger non‑email workflows, but prevent actual email outreach. In this case, configure the customer exclusion at the sequence level rather than the audience level.

Important: The “Sequences” toggle mentioned in rule #1 above is configured in two places, which can cause confusion:

Global level: Settings → Organization → Exclusions (affects all rulesets by default)
Ruleset level: Settings → Features → Sequences → Rulesets (can override global settings for specific rulesets)

When troubleshooting unexpected enrollments, check both locations. If an exclusion’s “Exclude from Sequences” toggle is ON at the global level but OFF in a specific ruleset, contacts in that ruleset can still be enrolled despite the global setting.

Critical Point: Universal exclusions do NOT automatically override audience-level settings. If a universal exclusion is toggled off at the audience level, it will not apply to that audience, even though it appears active in your global exclusion settings.

Common Troubleshooting Scenario

A frequent issue occurs when users create universal exclusions expecting them to work across all audiences, but discover contacts are still being enrolled because the exclusion was toggled off at specific audience levels. This can lead to unwanted outreach to customers or other excluded contacts.

Best Practices for Exclusion Management

Always verify that your universal exclusions are enabled at the audience level by checking the exclusion toggles when creating or editing audiences
When troubleshooting unexpected enrollments, check both universal exclusion settings AND audience-level exclusion toggles
For critical exclusions (like current customers), ensure they're enabled at both the universal and audience levels to prevent accidental outreach
Document which exclusions are intentionally disabled at specific audience levels to avoid confusion

Advanced Exclusion Refinement Strategies

Precision Targeting Techniques

Use CRM flags for more precise targeting – Add a custom field in your CRM (e.g., “Self‑serve / No contract” or “Contract Type”) and structure your exclusion to only exclude where that flag indicates a true contract customer. This prevents self‑serve accounts from being incorrectly flagged as contract customers.
Layer multiple criteria – Instead of using broad exclusions like “all customers,” combine multiple fields such as contract value, account type, and customer status to create more targeted exclusions that capture only the truly intended targets.
Account for edge cases in customer status – When excluding current customers, consider that some CRM systems may mark accounts as “customers” even for trial users or freemium accounts. Add additional criteria to distinguish between paying customers and trial/free users.

Testing and Validation

Before implementing broad exclusions, test them on a small sample to ensure they’re not catching unintended prospects. Review the excluded contacts list to verify that legitimate targets aren’t being blocked.

Parent/Subsidiary Company Exclusion Limitations

The Problem Company-level exclusions based on opportunities have a critical limitation: they only apply to contacts whose email domains match the company with the opportunity. This creates gaps in exclusion coverage for complex organizational structures.

When This Affects You

Parent companies with multiple subsidiaries using different domains
Holding companies where contacts use the parent domain but opportunities exist at subsidiary level
Acquisitions where email domains haven't been consolidated
International companies with country‑specific domains

Example Scenario

You have an opportunity with “ABC Subsidiary Inc.” but the key contacts use @abcparent.com email addresses. A company‑level exclusion based on the opportunity will not exclude the @abcparent.com contacts because their email domain doesn't match the company record with the opportunity.

Solutions

Deal-Based Exclusion Limitation and Workaround

Unify's native deal/opportunity‑based exclusions only work at the company level. To exclude only specific contacts associated with deals, create a contact‑level field in your CRM, populate it via a workflow, sync it to Unify, and create a people‑level exclusion based on that field.

Implementation Steps for Contact‑Level Deal Exclusions

Create a contact‑level field in your CRM (e.g., “Associated Deal Stage”).
Set up a CRM workflow to populate this field for contacts tied to deals in specific stages.
Sync this field to Unify through your CRM integration.
Create a people‑level exclusion in Unify based on this field.

When to Use This Workaround

You want to exclude only the specific contact who booked a meeting, not their entire team.
Targeting multiple personas at the same company and only want to exclude deal‑associated contacts.
Maintain outreach to other decision‑makers while respecting deal ownership.
Running account‑based campaigns where deal association varies by contact role.

1. Create Complementary Domain‑Based Exclusions

Identify parent company domains for your active opportunities
Create separate company‑level exclusions targeting these parent domains
Use criteria like “Company domain contains abcparent.com”

2. Use Contact‑Level Exclusions for Complex Structures

Create people‑level exclusions based on email domain patterns
Target specific contact roles at parent companies
Use email domain filters like “Email contains @parentcompany”

3. Regular Exclusion Audits

Review your active opportunities monthly
Identify any parent/subsidiary relationships
Create additional exclusions as needed
Test exclusion coverage before major campaigns

Best Practices

Map your prospect's organizational structure before setting exclusions
Document parent/subsidiary relationships in your CRM
Create exclusion naming conventions that identify relationship types
Test exclusions with small audiences before full deployment

Important Behavioral Clarification

The documentation mentions contacts are “filtered out” during manual enrollment, but the actual behavior is that contacts matching exclusion criteria are completely blocked from enrollment – they cannot be added at all, rather than being silently removed during the process.

Sync Timing

Exclusions based on CRM data typically update every 15 minutes. Changes to exclusion criteria may take a short time to propagate across all systems.