How to update or replace an audience list

If you need to update or replace contacts in an audience list with new data, you don't need to explicitly delete the old audience. Instead, follow these steps to ensure a clean transition to your new audience:

Steps to replace an audience in a play:

1. Unenroll contacts from your current sequence if it's running

2. Upload your new CSV file with the correct contact information. During upload, you have the option to enrich for phone numbers - select this option if you need to gather missing phone number data for your contacts. Note that CSV uploads now create 'lists' rather than 'audiences' - you can either enroll contacts directly from the list (mass select and click 'add to sequence') or create an audience from the list to use in a play. If using the play‑based approach with a new audience name, Unify will override the contact information if it’s been updated and use the most recent CSV.

   Important: After upload, wait for all contacts to fully process before proceeding. Refresh the audience page and verify the contact count matches your expected number before creating or publishing any plays.

   Important CRM Sync Limitation: While Unify will update contact information internally, it cannot overwrite existing fields in your CRM (like HubSpot) after the initial write. CRM fields are only updated during the first sync. If you need to sync updated field values (like ownership changes) back to your CRM, you’ll need to export the contacts and re‑import them into Unify to override the existing data.

3. Duplicate your existing play

4. Update the duplicated play to use your new audience

5. Publish the new play to enroll the corrected contacts

6. Verify persona routing settings - Ensure that all personas in your new audience are properly configured for enrollment: - Navigate to the play's sequence enrollment node and confirm routing exists for all relevant personas - Add an "Everyone else" option to catch any unmatched personas - For specialized plays (like New Hire sequences), check that persona tracking is enabled in the relevant settings

Alternative: Direct Enrollment from Lists

For simpler workflows, you can enroll contacts directly from uploaded lists:

1. Upload your CSV file in the People tab - this creates a new list

2. Navigate to the newly created list

3. Mass select all contacts you want to enroll

4. Click "add to sequence" in the bottom right

5. Select your target sequence

Creating Filtered Audiences from Uploaded Lists

If you need to create filtered sub‑audiences from an uploaded CSV list (for example, to segment a master list by role, region, or other criteria), follow these steps:

1. Upload your CSV file in the People tab – this creates a new list

2. Navigate to the Audiences section

3. Click "Create audience"

4. Add a condition using "exists in list"

5. Select your uploaded list from the dropdown

6. Add any additional filters to segment the audience (e.g., by role, company, region)

7. Publish the audience

Using Lists as Play Triggers

1. Upload your CSV file in the People tab - this creates a new list

2. Navigate to your existing play

3. Click "Change trigger" on the play

4. Select "Record matches criteria"

5. Add a condition and scroll to the bottom to select "exists in lists" (not "exists in" - make sure to choose the "lists" option specifically)

6. Select your uploaded list from the dropdown

7. Publish the play to enroll contacts from the list

This method bypasses the need to create plays and audiences, but note that you'll still need to verify enrollment restrictions and persona routing as described in the troubleshooting sections below.

Exclusion Toggle Configuration

Exclusions include a “Remove from active sequences” toggle. When enabled, contacts that meet the exclusion criteria are automatically removed from any sequences they are currently enrolled in (e.g., when a deal is created, all contacts from that company are dropped out of active sequences). When disabled, the exclusion only blocks new enrollments and does not affect contacts already in a sequence.

When troubleshooting enrollment issues, you can check if a specific contact is blocked by an exclusion by navigating to their person record in Unify and reviewing the “Exclusions” section. This will display all active exclusions affecting that contact.

Domain Matching for CRM-Based Exclusions: When using CRM-based exclusions (such as HubSpot lifecycle stage), verify that the primary domain in your CRM matches the domain being excluded in Unify. Exclusions may fail to apply if there's a domain mismatch — for example, if the primary domain in HubSpot is "example-old.com" but Unify is excluding based on "example-new.com". Check the company's primary domain field in both systems to ensure they align.

Important Timing Detail: After removing or un‑marking an exclusion, there is a delay before the contact becomes eligible for enrollment—wait approximately 30 minutes before attempting to re‑enroll the affected contact.

Diagnostic technique: To identify which contacts are blocked by exclusions, navigate to the play and toggle individual exclusions on/off to see which contacts are impacted by each rule. Product limitation: There is currently no easy self‑serve way to see exactly why a specific contact didn’t go through a play. The best available options are checking individual person profiles (Exclusions tab) or reviewing all active exclusions in Settings > Organization > Exclusions to cross‑reference which ones might be catching contacts.

Diagnostic technique: To identify which contacts are blocked by exclusions, navigate to the play and toggle individual exclusions on/off to see which contacts are impacted by each rule. Product limitation: There is currently no easy self‑serve way to see exactly why a specific contact didn’t go through a play. The best available options are checking individual person profiles (Exclusions tab) or reviewing all active exclusions in Settings > Organization > Exclusions to cross‑reference which ones might be catching contacts.

Enhanced Diagnostic Tools for Enrollment Issues

The most efficient way to diagnose enrollment issues is through the sequence's Enrollments tab, which provides a "Not Enrolled" breakdown showing aggregate counts and specific reasons why contacts were blocked (e.g., "already in another sequence," "recently enrolled," "excluded by global rule").

Queued Contacts with Exclusions: Contacts matching exclusion criteria may still appear with "queued" status in the sequence UI. This is expected behavior — exclusions are evaluated at send time, not at queue time.

Troubleshooting Hidden Exclusions: If a contact shows "Excluded" from all sequences during manual enrollment but their Exclusions tab is empty, check ruleset-level exclusions in Settings → Organization → Sequences → Rulesets. Ruleset-level exclusions can block enrollment even when they don't appear on the contact's profile. Overriding Ruleset Exclusions for Specific Contacts: To exempt specific contacts from a ruleset exclusion, you can add a filter to the exclusion rule (e.g., "email is not [contact@example.com]") to exclude them from that exclusion.

Troubleshooting Mid-Sequence Contact Removal

If contacts are stopping mid‑sequence unexpectedly, verify whether any active exclusions have the “Remove from active sequences” toggle turned on. Disabling the toggle for those exclusions will prevent contacts from being removed mid‑flow.

Strategic Exclusion Planning

When setting up exclusions, decide whether you want them to:

• Only prevent future enrollments (toggle off)

• Actively remove contacts from ongoing sequences when criteria are met (toggle on)

This distinction is crucial for planning your exclusion strategy and understanding sequence completion rates.

Best Practices

When updating audience lists:

• Always use a new list or audience name for updated contact lists (CSV uploads create lists by default)

• Verify your new CSV data before uploading

• Enable phone number enrichment during upload - If your audience is missing phone numbers, select the enrichment option when uploading your CSV to automatically gather this data

• Account for CRM sync limitations - Remember that field updates in Unify won't automatically sync to existing CRM records. Plan accordingly if you need updated information to reflect in both systems

• Wait for complete CSV processing before publishing plays - Even if the UI shows upload completion, refresh the audience page and confirm the contact count matches your expectations before proceeding to avoid incomplete enrollments

• Verify persona configuration - After uploading a new audience, confirm that all personas are properly set up for routing to prevent enrollment issues

• Check enrollment restrictions before publishing - Some contacts may not enroll due to: - Recent enrollment rules (default 75‑day restriction between sequences) - Opt‑out status - Existing exclusion rules - Note that global exclusions (found in Settings > Features > Exclusions) can prevent enrollment even if exclusions are disabled at the audience level. If contacts aren't enrolling as expected, verify that global exclusion rules don't have sequence exclusions enabled that would block enrollment.

  - Already being enrolled in another sequence (contacts remain enrolled even in paused sequences and must be manually removed to allow re‑enrollment). If you need to re‑enroll contacts sooner than the default restriction period allows, adjust your organization's re‑enrollment period settings to a shorter timeframe.

• Double-check the audience selection when publishing the new play

• Enable the “Allow re‑enrollment into the same sequence” toggle in Settings → Organization → Sequences → Rulesets; this must be on for contacts to re‑enroll into the exact same sequence, even if the waiting period is set to 0 days. Admin permissions are required.

Phone Enrichment Enhancements

Phone enrichment is available not only during CSV uploads but also for Salesforce‑triggered audiences by enabling it in the Play’s prospecting node.

For phone number enrichment, Unify can write the enriched phone back to Salesforce only when the target phone field is empty; existing phone values will not be overwritten.

Retroactive Phone Enrichment Workflows

If you need to enrich contacts that are already in an existing audience, export those contacts to CSV, re‑upload with “Enrich phone numbers” enabled, and enroll the updated contacts.

For contacts already enrolled in a sequence, enrichment changes won’t retroactively update them. Use Audience Builder to create an audience of those contacts, export, re‑upload with enrichment enabled, and re‑enroll them (ensure re‑enrollment is allowed in Settings → Organization → Sequences → Rulesets).

1. Export contacts from the existing audience.

2. Re‑upload the CSV with phone enrichment turned on.

3. Enroll the newly enriched contacts in the desired sequence (ensure re‑enrollment is allowed in Settings → Organization → Sequences → Rulesets).

Understanding Sequence Update Limitations When Replacing Audiences

When updating audience lists or email content, it's crucial to understand the technical limitations that explain why the standard replacement process requires unenrolling contacts:

Key Technical Limitation

Sequence edits only affect contacts in step 1 (queued status) — contacts who have progressed past step 1 will continue with the original sequence content, even after you publish updates. This technical limitation is why unenrolling all contacts before updating your audience is essential.

Additionally, email content cannot be edited for contacts already enrolled in a sequence. To update email copy for in‑progress contacts, you must un‑enroll them and enroll them in a new sequence with the updated content. Note that this will break email threading — contacts will not see the conversation history from the previous sequence.

Required Action When Publishing Sequence Changes

Always click "upgrade to latest version" when publishing sequence changes to ensure queued enrollments receive the updated version. This step is critical but easy to miss.

Alternatively, you can edit the sequence and use the “upgrade all enrollments (active and queued) to the new version” option, which preserves enrollment continuity and avoids re‑enrollment blockers.

Additional Technical Constraints

• Understand what cannot be changed mid‑sequence — For contacts already enrolled in a sequence, you cannot edit email content or change assigned inboxes after the first email is sent. Contacts queued but not yet sent can have inboxes reassigned using the Email Backlog feature.

  1. Navigate to Email Backlog

  2. Scroll to Reassign Sequence enrollments

  3. Click Reassign Enrollments for your target sequence

  4. Select the new mailbox(es) and save

  Important limitation: This reassignment only works for queued enrollments. Contacts whose first email has already been sent cannot have their outbox changed and would need to be unenrolled and re‑enrolled in a new sequence if an outbox change is required.

Advanced Sequence Enrollment Edge Cases

OOO Response Completion Issue

Automated out‑of‑office (OOO) responses can cause sequences to be marked as “complete,” which then prevents re‑enrollment of those contacts. This is often unexpected behavior since OOO messages aren’t genuine prospect engagement and may require manual intervention to re‑enroll affected contacts.

Re‑enrollment vs. Simultaneous Enrollment Settings

The re‑enrollment setting in Settings > Organization > Sequences > Rulesets controls the waiting period AFTER a sequence completes, not concurrent enrollments. Setting this to 0 days does not automatically allow simultaneous sequence enrollments. To enable true simultaneous enrollments in multiple sequences, you need to specifically adjust the “Allow enrollment into multiple Sequences” setting in the same location.

Important: When a contact is re‑enrolled after being unenrolled, they resume at the next step in the sequence rather than starting from step 1. To have them start over, enroll them in a new or duplicated sequence.

Manual Re‑enrollment Workaround

1. Navigate to the “People” tab and find the blocked contact.

2. Click the contact’s name to open their profile.

3. Select “Enroll” at the top right to manually add them to your desired sequence.

4. Note: Admin permissions may be required to modify organization‑level sequence settings.

CRM Integration Override Behavior

Even if you configure Unify to allow simultaneous enrollments, CRM‑based exclusions (like HubSpot’s “currently in sequence” status) may still prevent enrollment depending on your integration settings. Check your CRM’s sequence exclusion rules if contacts still won’t enroll after adjusting Unify settings.

Handling Contacts from Deleted Sequences

When you delete a sequence, contacts may remain enrolled in the system, preventing them from enrolling in new sequences. This is a distinct scenario from updating audience lists and requires specific handling.

Two Solutions for Re‑enrolling Contacts from Deleted Sequences:

1. Option A (via enrollment history): Create an audience using “Person Enrolled in [Old Sequence]” (Anytime) where Status = Canceled. Enable re‑enrollment rules in Settings > Organization > Sequences > Rulesets.

2. Option B (via CSV export): Export the affected contacts to CSV, upload as a new audience, and enable re‑enrollment rules as needed.

For both options: set the re‑enrollment wait period to 0 days in your organization settings if you need immediate re‑enrollment.

Critical Clarification: Pausing vs. Unenrolling

Important: Simply pausing a sequence does NOT automatically unenroll contacts. Contacts that remain enrolled (even in paused sequences) will be blocked from enrolling in future sequences. You must manually unenroll all contacts before they can participate in new sequences.

Manual Unenrollment Process:

• Go to the Sequences tab and open the relevant sequence(s).

• Open the Enrollments tab.

• Use search/filters (e.g., by persona, company, or other shared traits) to select the affected contacts.

• Click Unenroll at the bottom‑right to bulk remove them.