Updating and enrolling new audiences in a play

If you want to add new companies and contacts to an existing play and have them enrolled in the attached sequence, you can do so without creating a new play each time. This process is particularly useful when working with multiple one-time uploads of company data.

Steps to Add New Companies and Enroll Them in a Sequence

1. Upload your new company data by navigating to the Companies tab and clicking the Upload CSV button in the top right corner. Your uploaded data will appear as a List (not directly as an audience). Note that CSV processing may take several minutes, and your list may appear empty initially. Wait 5-10 minutes and refresh the page if your list shows zero contacts.

2. Navigate to the existing play that contains the sequence you want to use.

3. Edit the play settings.

4. Important: Ensure your play uses the "Record matches criteria" trigger, not "Record is manually added." The manual trigger only fires when you manually add individual company records and will not process CSV uploads.

5. Note: Plays using "Record matches criteria" triggers will not appear in the desktop integration's "Trigger Play" feature, which only displays plays with Manual triggers. If you need both automatic enrollment from CSV uploads and the ability to manually trigger a play from the desktop integration, create separate plays for each purpose.

6. Update the audience field using "record matches criteria" to select your newly created List.

7. Save and republish the play.

Controlling Email Timing for Time-Bound Campaigns

When running event-based or time-sensitive campaigns, you may need to control when emails send and limit how many contacts are enrolled before a deadline.

Using Custom Send Schedules:

• Configure a custom sequence send schedule to control allowed days, time windows, time zone, and add skip dates

• Emails due outside allowed windows will wait until the next available window

• This ensures emails only go out during your specified timeframe

Stopping Emails After a Deadline:

• Pause the play and sequences at the end of your campaign window to prevent new enrollments and stop email sends

• Resume later if needed for follow‑up campaigns

Managing Large Lists with Tight Deadlines:

When you have thousands of companies but need to reach contacts before an event, consider these strategies:

• Batch the launch: Run the play on a subset first (e.g., a few hundred companies), then add more in waves to prevent long backlogs from per‑mailbox daily send caps

• Segment the list: Create sub‑audiences from your list (e.g., by region, tier, or priority) and target only the highest‑priority segment first using "exists in list" filters

• Reduce per‑company enrollments: Set lower limits in the play (e.g., max prospects per company or max sequence enrollments per company) so fewer contacts are added per account

• Increase throughput: Route sends across multiple mailboxes in the sequence to spread the daily cap and reduce backlog

• Reassign queued enrollments to a different mailbox: navigate to Email Backlog → Reassign Sequence enrollments → click Reassign Enrollments for the target sequence → select new mailbox(es) → save. Limitations: only applies to contacts in queued status; contacts beyond step 1 cannot be reassigned; to change mailboxes for in‑progress contacts, un‑enroll and re‑enroll in a new sequence.

Alternative Direct Enrollment Method:

Instead of updating the play's audience field, you can enroll contacts directly from your uploaded List:

1. Navigate to your List in the People tab

2. Mass select all the leads you want to enroll

3. Click "Add to sequence" in the bottom right corner

Enrolling HubSpot Contacts Using the Browser Extension

For users working directly in HubSpot, the Unify browser extension provides a streamlined enrollment method without requiring CSV exports:

Single Contact Enrollment:

1. Open a contact record in HubSpot

2. Use the Unify browser extension on the HubSpot contact page

3. Select the sequence you want to enroll the contact in

4. Choose the specific mailbox to send from (e.g., kyle@gooddaysoftware.com)

5. Complete the enrollment

Bulk Enrollment from HubSpot:

1. Build a HubSpot list or view containing the contacts you want to enroll

2. Use HubSpot's bulk actions where available to select multiple contacts

3. Apply the Unify browser extension enrollment process to the selected contacts

This method is particularly useful when:

• You're already working in HubSpot and want to enroll contacts without switching workflows

• You need to enroll a smaller batch of contacts quickly

• You want to assign enrollments to a specific team member's mailbox

• You prefer to manage your contact lists directly in HubSpot rather than exporting to CSV

Understanding the Lists-Based Workflow

As of recent product updates, CSV uploads now create Lists as an intermediate step rather than directly creating audiences. The steps above reflect this current workflow.

CSV Upload Requirements for Successful Audience Creation

When uploading CSV files to create audiences for play enrollment, specific formatting requirements must be met to avoid blank audiences and enrollment failures.

Header Requirements:

• Use exactly "Company Name" and "Domain" as headers

• Avoid variations like "Domain Name", "URL", or "Website"

• Header names are case‑sensitive and must match exactly

• All contacts and companies must have email addresses. Unify de‑duplicates records based on email domain, so any records without email addresses will not be ingested.

Domain Format Requirements:

• Use bare domains only (e.g., example.com)

• Remove protocols (http://, https://)

• Remove www. prefixes

• Remove any paths or parameters (e.g., example.com/about becomes example.com)

Unify identifies companies by their domain. If a domain already exists in Unify, the record will be updated rather than creating a new company, which can result in an audience size smaller than the number of rows in your CSV file.

Choosing the Right Upload Path

Select the appropriate CSV upload location based on the type of data you are importing.

Correcting Company Data After CSV Upload

Company domains cannot be edited directly within Unify after upload. To correct errors, re‑upload a single‑row CSV file containing the corrected company information using the same “Company Name” and “Domain” headers, formatted as a bare domain without protocols or www.

• Prepare a CSV with one row that includes the corrected “Company Name” and “Domain”.

• Upload the CSV to the Companies tab; Unify will deduplicate by domain and update the existing company record.

Note: If the company originally came from your CRM (HubSpot/Salesforce), update the domain in your CRM and allow 15‑30 minutes for it to sync back to Unify.

• Companies tab upload: Use when your CSV contains only company‑level information and does not include individual contact email addresses.

• People tab upload: Use when your CSV includes contact‑level details such as email addresses.

Contact-Specific CSV Import Requirements and Troubleshooting

Contact Import Minimum Requirements

Essential Fields for Contact Success:

• Contacts must include at minimum First Name and Email to be imported successfully.

• This is separate from the “Company Name” and “Domain” requirements for company uploads.

• Rows missing either First Name or Email will be excluded from the import.

Email Enrichment Impact on Import Success

Enrichment Setting Effects:

• If email enrichment is enabled during upload, contacts without enrichable emails will not be added.

• This can significantly reduce import counts beyond standard deduplication.

• Consider disabling enrichment if you want to import all contacts regardless of enrichment status.

Contact-Specific Diagnostic Steps

1. Verify contact-specific required fields – Ensure all contact rows include both First Name and Email.

2. Check enrichment settings – If enabled, contacts without enrichable emails will be excluded.

3. Count unique emails in your source – Compare unique email addresses in your CSV to estimate expected import size after deduplication.

Working with Contact‑Level Data (People Tab Upload)

1. Navigate to the People tab and click the Upload CSV button.

2. After the audience is created, review and toggle exclusions to control which contacts are included.

3. Use the Prospect + Sequence from audience play template; you may remove the prospect node if contact information is already present.

Creating Reusable Master Audiences from Uploaded Lists

Build a dynamic master audience and then derive filtered sub‑audiences for targeted outreach.

1. Upload your CSV in the People tab (creates a List). Include a column named “Status” with a shared value (e.g., MASTER_Q1_2026) and map it to the Unify Status field.

2. Navigate to the Audiences section and create a new audience. In the audience builder, under the Companies section, click Add condition > select Exists in List > then choose your uploaded List from the dropdown. (Note: This option requires going one level deeper than the quick filters shown initially.)

3. Publish the audience; this becomes a dynamic master audience.

4. To create sub‑audiences, copy the master audience and add additional filters (role, region, company size, etc.), then publish each.

Sequence Safety: When Emails Actually Start

Important: Adding contacts to an audience does not automatically trigger emails or sequence tasks. Sequences only begin when a play with an Audience trigger and Sequence Enrollment action is active.

• Use a Manual trigger while preparing data.

• Temporarily pause the play until you are ready to enroll.

• Upload and configure audiences first, then activate the play when you want the sequence to start.

• Pause the play or sequence at any time to stop new enrollments and prevent additional emails from sending.

Troubleshooting Blank Audiences

• Verify header names match exactly: "Company Name" and "Domain"

• Check domain format – ensure no protocols, www, or paths

• Wait 5‑10 minutes for processing, then refresh

• Remember the workflow now uses Lists as an intermediate step

• Check for field mapping errors – If only a small number of records upload successfully (e.g., 12 out of 1162), review the automatic field mapping during upload. Automapping may incorrectly map columns to fields expecting different data types (such as mapping a text column like "LinkedIn Profile URL" to a URL field). Verify that each mapped field receives data in the expected format, or manually adjust the mapping before completing the upload.

Troubleshooting Audiences Showing 0 Results

If your audience filter returns 0 results when you expect to see companies or contacts:

• Check if exclusions are enabled – Exclusions can filter out all matching records even during the audience building phase. Toggle off exclusions temporarily to see if records appear.

• Verify the property value matches exactly (case-sensitive for some field types)

• For HubSpot properties, ensure you're using the internal name, not the label (see Property Options documentation)

• Allow 15-30 minutes for newly created fields or updated values to sync from your CRM

Troubleshooting Companies Appearing in Audiences Unexpectedly

If companies appear in your audience preview or get enrolled when they don't seem to match your criteria, the most common cause is duplicate or linked HubSpot company records under the same domain.

How Unify Evaluates Linked Records:

Unify groups company records that share the same domain. When evaluating audience criteria, Unify checks each linked record individually. If any one linked record matches your filters, the company appears in the audience—even if other linked records show different field values.

Diagnostic Steps:

• Open the company in Unify and navigate to the Linked Records tab to see if multiple HubSpot company records are linked under the same domain

• Check the field values (such as lifecycle stage, engagement status, or custom properties) on each linked record to identify which one is matching your criteria

• If you recently updated fields in HubSpot, allow 15‑30 minutes for sync before rechecking

Resolution Options:

• Merge or align duplicate company records in HubSpot so key fields are consistent across all records

• Update field values on the matching linked record to exclude it from your criteria

• Adjust your audience logic if you need more specific filtering that accounts for linked record scenarios

This is expected behavior—the audience is working correctly by evaluating all linked records.

What Happens When You Update the Audience

• The play will automatically enroll all companies from the new audience into the appropriate sequence.

• Companies from the previous audience that are already enrolled will continue their sequence as normal. Note that while companies can go through plays multiple times, individual prospects cannot be enrolled in more than one sequence simultaneously. If a prospect is already enrolled in a sequence, they will not be re‑enrolled even if they match the new audience criteria.

• There’s no need to duplicate the play unless you want to change other settings.

Force-Rerunning All Qualifying Records

If you need to reprocess every qualifying record in a play without duplicating the play, you have two primary options:

• Use a Manual trigger with “Run/Send to Play”: set the play trigger to Manual, then select the audience and choose “Run/Send to Play” to enroll the entire audience again.

• Enable scheduled reruns: turn on the play’s rerun setting, define a cadence (minimum 1 day). The play will automatically re‑run on the schedule, though it won’t execute immediately.

Estimating Impact When Modifying Play Enrollment Criteria

When updating enrollment criteria in existing plays (such as lowering thresholds or adjusting filters), system notifications may show the full audience size rather than just the net new records that will be enrolled. This can create confusion about the actual impact of your changes.

• Check the delta in your audience size before and after making the criteria change

• As long as re‑enrollment is toggled off in your play settings, the play will only run on net new companies entering the system, not on companies already processed

• The system notification may overstate the actual enrollment impact by showing total audience size instead of just the incremental additions

Sequence Modification Behavior After Enrollment

When you update audiences in existing plays, it's crucial to understand how sequence modifications affect already enrolled contacts:

• Queued contacts only: Sequence step modifications only affect contacts in step 1 (queued status).

• In‑progress contacts unchanged: Contacts already at step 2 or beyond continue with the original sequence content, even after updates.

• Content and settings changes: Changes to sequence content (email copy, subject lines, etc.) or play settings will only apply to newly enrolled contacts.

• Upgrade to latest version: Use this option when republishing to ensure queued enrollments receive updated sequence versions.

When contacts are re‑enrolled in the same sequence after adjusting the re‑enrollment timing to 0 days, they resume from their next step rather than starting from step 1. To have contacts start from step 1 again, create a new play with a duplicate of the sequence rather than re‑enrolling in the existing one.

Strategic Planning for Sequence Changes: Plan your sequence steps carefully since you cannot retroactively update contacts already in progress. Manual email steps with delays can be updated individually before sending, offering more control. If you need to modify sequences, do so before enrolling large audiences or accept that only new enrollments will receive changes.

Managing Mixed Sequence Versions: Monitor which contacts are receiving updated vs. original content. Consider creating separate plays if you need all contacts on the same sequence version. Document sequence changes to track which audiences received which versions.

Editing Sequence Content for Already‑Enrolled Contacts: If you need to update email copy or other sequence content for contacts already enrolled, you cannot edit the existing sequence. To accomplish this:

1. Create an audience of the people who have already been enrolled (use the audience builder to filter for enrolled contacts).

2. Un‑enroll those people from the current sequence.

3. Create a new sequence with your updated content.

4. Enroll the audience into the new sequence.

Important considerations: Contacts cannot be in two sequences at once, so un‑enrollment is required. In sequence settings, ensure you allow enrollment into a new sequence after 0 days. This workaround will break email threading – contacts will not see the new emails as part of the original thread.

Note: The ability to edit sequence content for already‑enrolled contacts is a known feature request currently being developed.

Troubleshooting Enrollment Failures When Updating Play Audiences

When updating audiences in existing plays, contacts may fail to enroll in sequences due to various blocking conditions. Here’s how to diagnose and resolve common enrollment issues:

Understanding Play Evaluation vs. Sequence Enrollment Discrepancies

When updating audiences in plays, users often expect the number of contacts evaluated by a play to match the number enrolled in sequences, but these numbers naturally differ due to various blocking conditions. The evaluation count reflects everyone the play considered, while the enrollment count is lower because of re‑enrollment timing rules, global exclusions, sequence conflicts, or other eligibility criteria. This discrepancy is normal behavior and does not indicate an error.

Enhanced Diagnostic Methods for Enrollment Failures

Check individual contact exclusion status – Navigate to an individual contact’s profile and review the Exclusions tab to see which exclusions apply. This is the most reliable way to diagnose why specific contacts didn’t enroll.

Check enrollment status for detailed failure reasons – View the sequence’s Enrollments tab and examine the “Not Enrolled” breakdown to see per‑contact failure reasons.

Allow time for evaluation to complete – After a bulk enrollment run, counters may lag. Wait 30‑60 minutes for the evaluation to finish before reviewing results.

Understanding Enrollment Blocks

Sequence Conflicts: Contacts can only be enrolled in one sequence at a time. If contacts are already in another sequence (even if paused), they will not be enrolled in the new sequence until they are manually removed from their current sequence.

Multiple Exclusion Levels: Enrollment may fail if exclusions are enabled at the audience level, in advanced settings, or if “allow re‑enrollment into the same sequence” is disabled in play settings.

Exclusion Behavior Toggle: Each exclusion has a toggle setting that controls whether it removes contacts already in sequences or only prevents new enrollments. When the toggle is enabled, contacts meeting the exclusion criteria will be removed from active sequences. When disabled, the exclusion only prevents new contacts from enrolling but allows currently enrolled contacts to complete their sequences.

Critical Distinction: Ruleset vs. Global Exclusion Levels

Disabling an exclusion toggle in a specific Ruleset does **not** prevent that exclusion from blocking enrollments if the global “Exclude from Sequences” toggle remains enabled. To fully remove an exclusion’s blocking effect, both the Ruleset‑level toggle (Settings > Organization > Sequences > Rulesets) **and** the global exclusion toggle (Settings > Organization > Exclusions) must be turned off.

When to Keep the Toggle Disabled: In some cases, you may want to intentionally keep the toggle disabled. For example, with "last sales activity" exclusions, it's common to block contacts with recent sales activity from entering sequences, but you don't want Unify's own sequence activities (emails, calls, etc.) to retroactively remove contacts from sequences. If the toggle were enabled, Unify would remove contacts as soon as it logs its first activity, making the sequence ineffective.

Re‑enrollment Timing Rules: Your organization’s sequence re‑enrollment settings determine how many days must pass before a contact can be enrolled in a sequence again. Contacts recently in the same sequence may be blocked by this rule.

Diagnostic Steps

1. Check the Metrics tab for enrollment failure reasons – The play’s Metrics tab shows why contacts didn’t enroll, including whether they’re blocked by re‑enrollment timing rules or already enrolled in the sequence.

2. Identify sequence conflicts – Check individual contact profiles to see which sequence they’re currently in. Note that pausing a sequence does not remove contacts from it – they must be explicitly removed to be available for enrollment in another sequence.

Resolution Methods

For Exclusion-Related Failures:

Critical Gap in Troubleshooting: Exclusions can be toggled off at the audience level while remaining enabled at the sequence level. Even if exclusions appear disabled in your audience settings, contacts may still be excluded when they reach the sequence node if the exclusion is enabled at the sequence level.

• Turn off exclusions at the audience level, or disable the toggle setting within specific exclusions to allow currently enrolled contacts to continue while preventing new enrollments

• Disable advanced settings exclusions (found in your exclusions settings)

• Enable “allow re‑enrollment into the same sequence” in the play settings

• Wait 30 minutes after toggling off any exclusions before re‑running the play

• Keep exclusions disabled until the entire sequence is complete, not just enrollment, to prevent blocking subsequent steps

For Re‑enrollment Timing Conflicts:

• Navigate to Settings > Organization > Sequences > Rulesets

• Update the re‑enrollment setting to 0 days

• Wait 30 minutes for the settings to take effect

• Duplicate the play and republish it

• After enrollment completes, restore your previous re‑enrollment day setting

For Immediate Re‑enrollment: Since the minimum rerun setting is 1 day (not 0 days), the easiest approach is to create a new play with the same audience and sequence settings.

For Sequence Conflicts: Manually remove contacts from their existing sequences if you want to enroll them in the new play.

Important: After disabling exclusions or changing re‑enrollment timing settings, wait 30 minutes to 1 hour before re‑running the play to allow settings to take effect.

Additional Troubleshooting: Sequence Enrollment Limits

Sequences have maximum enrollment thresholds that can prevent leads from being enrolled, even when following the correct audience update process. These limits apply globally across all sequences and may cause a “max enrollments reached” error.

The per‑company enrollment limit is shared across all plays in your organization. If other plays have already enrolled contacts from the same companies, those enrollments count toward the limit and may block additional enrollments in your current play.

The “max enrollments per company” limit is purely count‑based and does not consider CRM lifecycle stage, deal status, or active conversations. To prevent outreach to additional contacts when an active deal or conversation exists, create a company‑level exclusion driven by your CRM deal/opportunity fields (e.g., open opportunity, specific stages) and enable the exclusion’s “Exclude from Sequences” toggle, which blocks new enrollments and automatically unenrolls contacts when the condition becomes true. See the How to opt out contacts and accounts guide for details.

Resolving “Max Enrollments Reached” Errors

1. Check the Metrics tab for enrollment failure reasons – The play’s Metrics tab shows why contacts didn’t enroll, including whether they’re blocked by re‑enrollment timing rules or already enrolled in the sequence.

2. Identify sequence conflicts – Check individual contact profiles to see which sequence they’re currently in. Note that pausing a sequence does not remove contacts from it – they must be explicitly removed to be available for enrollment in another sequence.

Resolving “Step Blocked” Errors in Threaded Sequences

When emails in a sequence are configured as threaded replies, a “step blocked” error may occur if the first email (thread root) is skipped or fails to send. Subsequent emails cannot send without the initial thread email, even if all template variables are populated correctly.

Why this happens: the first email must establish the thread; if it is excluded, delayed, or otherwise blocked, the rest of the thread cannot be delivered.

Resolution options:

1. Skip remaining email tasks for the affected enrollment and move on to other contacts.

2. Unenroll and re‑enroll the contact so the sequence starts fresh from step 1 with the thread root email.

3. Send one‑off emails outside of the sequence if you need to reach the contact immediately.

Important: there is no way to retroactively fix this for existing enrollments; the contact must be re‑enrolled to establish a proper email thread.

Benefits of This Approach

• Saves time by eliminating the need to create a new play for each upload.

• Maintains consistency in your sequences across different uploads.

• Allows for easy management of multiple one-time audience uploads.

Important Limitations and Alternatives

Multiple CSV File Uploads

Currently, Unify does not support uploading multiple CSV files directly into a single audience. If you need to combine data from multiple CSV files, consider these alternatives:

• Dynamic Audience Approach: Create a dynamic audience filter using the "Status" field to group contacts or companies with the same status value across different CSV uploads

• Manual Consolidation: Combine your CSV files into a single file before uploading to create your one-time audience