Exclusion Rules let you define account-wide rules that automatically prevent all Experiences from displaying on specific pages, keeping your product's critical flows clear and your team moving faster.
Exclusion Rules eliminate repetitive work, can prevent costly mistakes (typos, forgotten exclusions on critical pages), and ensure Experiences never conflict with key product moments.
Availability & Usage
🔐 Available on Enterprise plans
📍 Applies to Tours, Tooltips, Embeddables, Microsurveys, Launchers, Segments
⚙️ Set from the Dashboard
What are Exclusion Rules?
Exclusion Rules are account-level controls that block all Chameleon Experiences from appearing on specific pages or for certain users. There are two types:
Type | What it blocks | How you define it |
Global URL Exclusions | Experiences on specific pages | URL patterns (contains, starts with, exact match, etc.) |
Global Segment Exclusions | Experiences for specific users | Any existing Segment |
These cannot be overridden by individual URL Rules added to Experiences, ensuring control across your entire account.
ℹ Adding Exclusion Rules will block Experiences from showing, but Chameleon still tracks users who visit those pages as MTUs. If you want to avoid tracking MTUs on specific domains (e.g., staging environments), configure those domains separately in your Environments. Learn more here.
Individual URL Rules (set per Experience in the Builder under Display Rules) and audience targeting control what should show. Exclusion Rules control what should never show. Set your Rules once, and they automatically apply to every Experience without requiring individual configuration.
👉 Combine individual URL Rules with global Exclusion Rules to control how you deliver in-app guidance. See more tips and best practices below.
How to use Exclusion Rules
Visit Governance → Exclusion Rules in Your Chameleon Dashboard.
How to add Global URL Exclusions
Click Add URL Exclusion to create a new rule
Select your match type from the dropdown (contains, does not contain, starts with, exact match, etc.)
Enter the URL pattern or value you want to exclude
Click Add Rule to save and apply across all Experiences
ℹ If an Experience is affected by an Exclusion Rule, it will not show when previewing via the Builder on URLs that match your Exclusion Rule.
How to add Global Segment Exclusions
Click the Add Segment Exclusion on the same page
Select the Segment you want to exclude from the dropdown
Confirm the selection and the Rule applies immediately
Any user who matches the URL pattern or Segment you set in the Rule will automatically stop seeing Chameleon Experiences, regardless of what's configured on individual Steps.
Common use cases
Protecting onboarding flows
Set an exclusion rule to prevent Tours or Surveys from interrupting new users during the critical first-time flows.
Preventing modal conflicts
If your product uses payment modals, you can create an exclusion rule for URLs that contain that parameter. This avoids competing overlays that can frustrate users.
Excluding internal team members
Add a Segment containing your internal users to keep your team from seeing campaigns and keep their interactions out of your Experience analytics.
Excluding users who've opted-out
Keeps opted-out users from seeing anything, without adding a condition to every Experience you build. Target users by a user property or if you've used a Chameleon Experience to capture it, via Chameleon Experience filters.
Sensitive workflows
Block Experiences on URLs containing /billing, /payment, or /account-settings to ensure users can complete critical account management tasks without interruptions.
Working with Exclusions vs Experience-level targeting
How they work together:
Exclusion Rules are evaluated first: If a page matches a URL Exclusion, or a user matches a Segment Exclusion, no Experiences will display.
Experience configurations are evaluated second: If no Exclusion Rule blocks the display, then each Experience's Targeting and Display Rules determine if it should appear.
Example workflow:
Your team wants to show a Tour on /dashboard, never show any Experiences on /dashboard/checkout, and wants to exclude users who opt-out from all Experiences.
Set URL Exclusion Rule: URL contains
/dashboard/checkout→ blocks all Experiences on that pageSet Segment Exclusion: Add your "Users who opt-out" Segment → excluded users never see any Experience
Set URL Rule on Tour: URL contains
/dashboard→ Tour targets dashboard pages
Result: Tour shows on /dashboard, is automatically blocked on /dashboard/checkout, and users who opt-out never see it, regardless of page
URL Exclusions vs URL Rules
Set Exclusion Rules for pages where Experiences should never appear under any circumstances, such as:
Critical user flows (checkout, payment, onboarding setup)
Sensitive areas (billing, account deletion, admin panels)
Product modals or overlays (identified by URL parameters like
?modal=payment)Internal tools or staging environments (URLs containing
/internal/or/admin/)
Use individual URL Rules for positive targeting, where specific Experiences should show:
Feature adoption Tours targeted to specific pages (
/new-feature)Modals that appear when certain elements exist (
.help-icon)Surveys triggered on particular user segments viewing specific URLs
Launchers that show based on page context
Segment Exclusions vs excluding Segments in targeting
When you publish an Experience in Chameleon, you can combine multiple Segments to show it to users in Segment A, and exclude users in Segment B. That targeting determines who should see that specific Experience and enables precise targeting for your campaigns.
Exclusion Rules run before any Experience-level evaluation. If a user matches a Segment Exclusion, they won't see an Experience even if they match a different target audience.
ℹ Chameleon re-evaluates Segment membership on each page load, so users who leave the Segment will start seeing Experiences again automatically.
Tips for using Exclusion Rules
Start with Exclusions for the obvious
Set up Exclusion Rules for universally protected pages and Segments for users who should never see in-app content before building individual Experiences. This creates your "safety net" layer.
Add exclusions as you discover patterns
If you notice multiple Experiences need the same "does not contain" rule, promote that to a URL Exclusion Rule. If you keep manually excluding a user group from individual Experiences, create a Segment Exclusion instead.
Document your Exclusions
Keep a list of active Exclusion Rules and why they exist. When onboarding new team members or auditing Experience performance, knowing "nothing shows on /admin/* by design" or why an audience is globally excluded, prevents confusion.