Overview
When using Dynamic AI Offers in OneClickUpsell (Pre-Purchase, Cart Drawer, or Post-Purchase), you can control which products the AI should never recommend.
Exclusion rules allow you to guide the AI so it only suggests products that fit your merchandising strategy, margins, and seasonal plans.
This gives you the flexibility of AI-powered recommendations while maintaining full control over what appears in your offers.
When Should You Use Exclusions?
Exclusions are useful when there are products you do not want promoted automatically.
Common examples include:
Clearance or discontinued products
Low-margin items
Seasonal products that are out of season
Products that don’t pair well with other items
Products already heavily discounted
Items reserved for specific campaigns or channels
If a product should not appear in AI-generated recommendations, it should be excluded.
How to Add Exclusions to an AI Offer
Exclusions are configured at the individual offer level. Follow these steps to add an exclusion:
Go to Upsell Funnels in OCU.
Locate the funnel containing your AI offer.
Find the AI offer (Pre-Purchase, Cart Drawer, or Post-Purchase).
Click the three-dot menu on the offer card.
Select “Exclude Product”
Choose your exclusion type from the dropdown.
Select the product(s) or criteria you want to exclude.
Click the Save button.
Your exclusions will take effect immediately.
Available Exclusion Types
You can exclude products in several ways depending on how broad or specific you want your rule to be.
Product / Variant: Exclude specific products or individual variants.
Best for: One-off items you never want recommended.
Collection: Exclude all products inside selected Shopify collections. If products are added to or removed from the collection in Shopify, the exclusion updates automatically.
Best for:Clearance collections
Seasonal collections
Campaign-based collections
Product Tag: Exclude all products with specific Shopify tags. As tags change in Shopify, exclusions update automatically.
Best for:
Clearance
Wholesale-only
Internal use
Special fulfillment types
Product Type: Exclude all products assigned to a specific Shopify product type.
Best for: Broad category-based exclusions (for example, “Gift Cards” or “Digital Products”).
Product Price: Exclude products within a specific price range. Price exclusions will display as “Price rule applied” instead of showing a product count.
Best for:
Preventing low-ticket items from being recommended
Preventing very high-ticket items from appearing as upsells
Combining Multiple Exclusion Types
You can apply multiple exclusion rules to the same offer. Exclusions use OR logic. That means a product will be excluded if it matches any of the rules you create.
Example: If you exclude...
Product A
Collection “Winter Sale”
Tag “Clearance”
The AI will never recommend:
Product A specifically
Any product in the “Winter Sale” collection
Any product tagged “Clearance”
The product only needs to match one rule to be excluded.
Managing and Editing Exclusions
After saving exclusion(s), you’ll see a summary showing:
Number of excluded products or variants
Number of excluded collections
Number of excluded product types
Number of excluded product tags
Any applied price rules
Click the expand arrow to view all configured rules:
You can edit or remove exclusions at any time by clicking the ✏️ or 🗑️ buttons respectively. Changes take effect immediately.
Important Notes
Exclusions are offer-specific.
Rules set on one offer do not affect other offers in your funnel.Each offer maintains its own exclusion list, including:
Pre-Purchase
Cart Drawer
Post-Purchase Upsell 1
Post-Purchase Upsell 2
Downsell
Collection, Tag, and Product Type exclusions automatically stay in sync with Shopify changes.
Price exclusions show as “Price rule applied” rather than a product count.
Best Practices
✅Start simple - Begin with product-level exclusions and expand to collections or tags only when necessary.
✅Use collections strategically - If you need to exclude many related products, create a dedicated Shopify collection and exclude that collection.
✅Review regularly - Update exclusions when products go out of season or campaigns change.
✅Test before going live - Place a test order after configuring exclusions to confirm the AI is recommending the right products.