Setup Audience Testing

1. Navigate to the Audience Builder

2. Create a new audience or open an existing one

3. Add a condition for the specific contact or company you want to check by using the 'company name' filter

4. At the bottom of the audience builder, locate the exclusion rules section

5. Toggle individual exclusion rules on and off to observe when the contact disappears from the audience

Usage

When you find that a contact has been excluded but you're unsure which rule caused the exclusion, you can use this testing method to identify the specific exclusion rule. By systematically enabling and disabling individual exclusion rules while monitoring the audience results, you can determine which rule is affecting the contact.

Note: Companies will only appear in exclusion rule lists if they already exist in your CRM or have been deanonymized via web intent. If you're testing an exclusion rule for a company that hasn't been added to your CRM yet, it won't show up in the exclusion list during testing. However, the exclusion rule will still apply to that company if it gets added to your CRM or appears via web intent in the future.

Important: Exclusion lists work at both company and people levels. When you create an exclusion list at the company level, all contacts within those companies are automatically excluded from sequences. Exclusion lists are global by default, meaning they apply to all audiences unless you specifically turn them off for individual audiences. This means when testing which exclusion rule affected a contact, you're identifying which global rule is causing the exclusion across your entire system. If your testing reveals that a contact is being excluded but you cannot identify why based on the visible company record, check for duplicate or de‑duplicated records in your CRM. However, Unify identifies companies primarily by domain, so acquired or merged companies may remain as separate entities in Unify even if they're linked in your CRM. This means exclusion rules applied to the parent company won't automatically apply to the acquired company's record if it still uses its original domain. To resolve this, update the acquired company's Salesforce record to match the exclusion criteria (e.g., update the Relationship field to 'Current Customer'). Changes typically sync to Unify within ~15 minutes. If any linked record matches the exclusion criteria, the entire company will be excluded from the audience.

When the contact disappears from the audience after enabling a specific exclusion rule, that indicates which rule is causing the exclusion.

Troubleshooting contacts that aren't excluded: If a contact appears in your audience when you expected them to be excluded, verify that the fields used in your exclusion rule criteria are actually populated on the company record in your CRM. For example, if your exclusion rule filters for “ARR - Enterprise” equals a certain value, but that field is empty or null on the company record in Salesforce, the exclusion rule will not apply even if the company should logically match the criteria. Check the company record in both your CRM and Unify to confirm all fields referenced in your exclusion rules contain the expected values. Changes to field values in your CRM typically sync to Unify within ~15-30 minutes.

This method allows you to audit and verify your exclusion rules effectively.

Check the Exclusions Tab (Recommended)

The fastest way to identify which exclusion rule is affecting a contact is to check the Exclusions tab directly on their record:

1. Navigate to the person's record in Unify

2. Open the Exclusions tab

3. Review the list of active exclusion rules that are blocking this contact from enrollment

This tab shows exactly which rule(s) are preventing the contact from being added to sequences, eliminating the need for manual testing.

Note: If exclusions are set at the sequence level, they take precedence over organization‑level settings. In this case, you’ll need to adjust the sequence‑level exclusions or use a different sequence without that exclusion.

Additional Troubleshooting for Multi‑CRM Environments

When investigating exclusions that aren’t immediately apparent, check for opportunities from other integrated CRMs (such as HubSpot) that may be associated with the company. Scroll down on the account record to view all active opportunities across connected systems, as these can trigger exclusion rules even if they’re not immediately visible in your primary CRM. This is particularly important when exclusion rules are based on opportunity stages or deal values that may exist in secondary CRM systems but aren’t synced to your primary CRM view.