How do I use Action Exclusivity to prevent overlapping experiences and control priority?

What Does Action Exclusivity Do (and Not Do)?

What It Does

Action Exclusivity lets you prioritize actions (for example, "Show template" actions) so that when multiple eligible actions compete in the same pageview, Piano can:

• Execute the highest-priority action first.

• Optionally stop other actions from rendering (depending on the exclusion rule you choose).

This is most commonly used to:

• Prevent overlapping pop-ups/modals.

• Ensure the "most important" offer wins when audiences and effective pages overlap.

• Stop duplicate exposure when two experiences target the same users/pages.

What It Does Not Do

Action Exclusivity is action-level, not "experience-level." You are not prioritizing entire experiences in the abstract; you are prioritizing the specific actions that would run on a pageview.

As a best practice, you should still avoid unnecessary overlap through:

• Clear audience segmentation

• Effective Pages targeting (including URL inclusions/exclusions)

• Consistent trigger conditions

How Do Priority and Blocking Work?

In the Action Exclusivity Manager, actions are ordered from higher to lower priority. When more than one eligible action could run:

1. Piano evaluates eligible actions.

2. The highest-priority eligible action runs.

3. Based on that action's exclusivity settings, lower-priority actions may be blocked.

How Do I Set Up Action Exclusivity?

1. Identify overlap

   • Confirm that experiences/actions can target the same page (Effective Pages or Segment Pages) and the same users (segmentation), or that their triggers can occur on the same pageview (timers, scroll depth, etc.).

2. Ensure actions are included in the Exclusivity Manager

   • Exclusivity rules only apply to actions that are actually added to the manager.

   • If you have actions that show after a delay (timer/scroll), make sure those actions are also included, otherwise they may bypass expectations.

3. Order actions by business priority

   • Put the action that must win conflicts (for example, your primary paywall modal) above secondary actions (for example, ribbons/banners).

4. Choose the right exclusion behavior

   • If you want one action to fully suppress others, use an exclusion rule such as "Stop all templates from appearing on the same page".

   • If you want multiple templates to coexist, avoid broad "stop all templates" style blocking and restrict exclusivity to only what's necessary.

5. Test on isolated URLs

   • When validating a new exclusivity setup, temporarily target a specific URL (or a small URL set) to verify behavior without interference from unrelated experiences.

What Are the Common Configuration Patterns?

Inline Paywall + Modal: How Do I Ensure the Correct One Wins?

If you have an inline and a modal experience that can both trigger:

• Add both "Show template" actions to the Action Exclusivity Manager.

• Put the inline template higher if it should block the modal.

• If the modal should be allowed only sometimes (for example, later), ensure the modal's trigger logic (scroll/timer) doesn't allow it to appear after the inline template is already present, unless that's intended.

Multiple Banners/Ribbons with Overlapping Audiences

Overlaps often happen when conditions can be true at the same time (for example, "first-time visitor" and "no referrer," or multiple tag-based conditions).

You can solve this by:

• Refining targeting so conditions don't match simultaneously (for example, exclude "first-time visitor" from one experience), and/or

• Using Action Exclusivity to ensure only the higher-priority banner action executes.

How Do I Schedule a Special Offer vs. an Always-On Offer?

If a special offer is scheduled and conflicts with an evergreen offer:

• Put the special offer's "Show template" action above the evergreen action in exclusivity order.

• Optionally (and often more cleanly), schedule the evergreen experience/template to be off during the special offer window to reduce reliance on exclusivity.

How Do I Handle UTM-Based Offers with Strict vs. Broad Targeting?

When multiple offers could match (for example, a broad default offer and a stricter UTM campaign offer):

• Place the stricter, campaign-specific action higher in exclusivity order so it wins when its UTM conditions are met.

What Should I Know About A/B Testing and Exclusivity?

• Only one version of a single experience can be active at a time. If you need two versions live simultaneously, they must be in different active experiences.

• For A/B tests, avoid placing test variants so they directly compete at the same exclusivity position.

• Once a user is assigned to a test group, they should only trigger actions within that group; exclusivity should be arranged so it doesn't accidentally suppress the variants you intend to measure.

How Can I Reduce Conflicts Before Using Exclusivity?

Action Exclusivity is easiest to manage when you minimize accidental overlaps:

• Avoid hardcoding long lists of URLs in many experiences, this becomes difficult to maintain.

• Prefer tags or controlled URL rules to target pages.

• Use URL exclusions (including wildcard rules) to keep experiences from competing on pages where they should never overlap.

If two experiences intentionally run on the same URL but should render in different placements, confirm that:

• Templates target the correct container selectors/IDs.

• Exclusivity rules are not configured to stop templates that should be allowed to coexist in separate containers.

Why Isn't My Template Appearing? (Troubleshooting Checklist)

1. Is the user eligible?

   • Logged-out users commonly fall into the "Everyone Else" segment (since custom fields may not be available). Verify segmentation for both logged-in and logged-out states.

2. Is another action suppressing it via exclusivity?

   • Check the Action Exclusivity Manager ordering.

   • Check whether a higher-priority action uses a broad exclusion rule (for example, stopping all templates).

3. Are trigger conditions aligned?

   • Scroll depth / timer triggers can cause a lower-priority action to appear later unless exclusivity blocks it.

   • If you want mutual exclusivity, make trigger logic consistent across competing actions.

4. Were actions recently modified?

   • If you delete and re-add a "Show template" card/action, it may not inherit previous exclusivity configuration. Re-check that the new action is included and ordered correctly.

5. Is caching affecting your test?

   • Test in an incognito/private session and/or clear cookies/cache; especially for internal users who frequently use the Piano dashboard.

What Are the Best Practices for Action Exclusivity?

• Use segmentation and Pages rules as your primary method to prevent overlap.

• Use Action Exclusivity to define a clear "winner" only where overlap is expected or unavoidable.

• Keep exclusivity lists organized by business importance, and revisit them whenever you add/modify experiences.

• Test changes on a limited set of URLs before rolling out broadly.

Last updated: June 25, 2026