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Overview

Exclusion Signals identify users with low or negative predicted incrementality. These users either do not convert at all or convert regardless of ad exposure — in both cases, excluding them from campaigns prevents spend on users where advertising has no measurable effect. This guide covers the setup of Exclusion Signals on TikTok, including configuration, testing, and scaling.

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Prerequisites

Technical requirements:
  • An active connection to your TikTok Ads account
  • Sufficient data history for signal generation (30 days minimum recommended)
  • Email addresses (email or email_sha256) written to user profiles via Innkeepr Identify — see below
Unlike Meta, TikTok audiences are matched exclusively by email address. Every user that should be excluded on TikTok must have an email or email_sha256 trait on their profile. Innkeepr matches users to TikTok accounts using this identifier — visitor-level data without an email cannot be uploaded or matched.Write the email to the profile with an Spec: Identify call, either as a plain email trait or as a SHA256-hashed email_sha256 trait. Both are accepted; if you hash client-side, use a lowercase, trimmed email and SHA256. Email handoff can also happen automatically via a shop system integration (e.g. Shopify).
Timeline at a glance:

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How Exclusion Signals Work

Innkeepr ranks users by predicted incremental lift for the objective you select — conversion probability, customer lifetime value, or average order value. Users at the bottom of that ranking show low or negative treatment effects: advertising has no measurable impact on whether they reach the objective. By excluding these users, the remaining budget is concentrated on users where advertising makes a difference. Exclusion Signals are applied as exclusions at the ad group level in TikTok Ads Manager. They do not change targeting — they remove specific users from the existing targeting pool.

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Setup Instructions

Step 1: Ensure Email Coverage Before creating Exclusion Signals, confirm that the users you want to exclude carry an email or email_sha256 trait. Recent purchasers and existing customers are the most important to exclude — make sure Identify calls with email fire on checkout, registration, and login so these users are matchable on TikTok. Step 2: Create Exclusion Signals Exclusion Signals are built from different user segments, each with its own lookback window. The segments identify groups of identified users where ad exposure is unlikely to have an incremental impact. There are different ways to configure Exclusion Signals, and not every setup works equally well across all accounts. The optimal configuration depends on factors such as conversion volume, product category, and overlap with your existing audiences. As of March 2026, we recommend the following segments as a starting point. Recommended segments: Because TikTok can only exclude email-matched users, the recommended setup centers on purchasers, split into recency tiers so you can tune how aggressively you suppress recent versus older buyers, plus one segment for identified non-purchasers that Innkeepr ranks as low-incrementality. Each segment is created in Innkeepr and uploaded to TikTok. Innkeepr sends the matched email identifiers to your connected TikTok account, and TikTok populates the audience once matching completes (typically 24–48 hours). Step 3: Set Up the Campaign Structure Test Exclusion Signals within a single campaign using separate ad groups. Both the control and the test ad group use the same base targeting and your existing default exclusions. The test ad group adds the Exclusion Signals on top. Campaign structure:
Keep all other variables identical across ad groups:
  • The same creatives (videos, copy) in every ad group
  • The same optimization event (e.g. Complete Payment, Add to Cart)
  • The same bid strategy
  • The same placements
  • The same base targeting — the only difference is the added Exclusion Signals
Step 4: Set Budget Allocation Start both ad groups with the same daily budget at the ad group level. Do not use Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) during the test phase — CBO shifts spend unpredictably between ad groups, which makes it difficult to compare performance. After one to two weeks, you can begin adjusting budgets based on observed performance (see Monitor & Optimize).

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Monitor & Optimize

Weeks 1–2: Observation phase
  • Do not adjust budgets, bids, or creatives during the initial learning phase
  • Check that both ad groups are spending their allocated budget and exiting the learning phase
  • Verify that conversions are tracked correctly across both ad groups
Weeks 2–4: Evaluation
  • Compare ROAS, new customer share, and AOV between the control and the test ad group
  • The impact of Exclusion Signals depends on the objective and the business model. Exclusion Signals can improve ROAS by removing low-incrementality spend, but they can also shift the new customer ratio — for example, excluding past purchasers concentrates budget on acquisition
  • If the test ad group reduces conversion volume significantly without improving any of these metrics, the exclusion segments may be too broad — consider adjusting the lookback windows
After week 4: Rollout Once you have identified the best-performing exclusion segments:
  • Apply the Exclusion Signals to your other active campaigns on TikTok
  • Combine multiple segments — you can apply all exclusion segments to the same ad group simultaneously
  • Monitor performance after rollout — allow one to two weeks for each campaign to stabilize
  • Exclusion Signals can be combined with Seed Signals in the same campaign — apply seed-based lookalikes as targeting and Exclusion Signals as exclusions on the same ad groups

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Best Practices

Maintain Email Coverage An exclusion is only as complete as your email coverage. Users you want to exclude but who have no email or email_sha256 trait cannot be matched on TikTok and will still be reachable by your ads. Keep Identify calls firing with email on checkout, registration, and login so recent purchasers and existing customers are reliably excluded. Creative isolation The test is only valid if the creatives are identical across all ad groups. If you want to test new creatives or add additional creatives during the test, add them to all ad groups at the same time. Never add creatives to only some ad groups — this makes performance differences between ad groups unattributable. Combining with Seed Signals Exclusion Signals and Seed Signals serve complementary purposes: Seed Signals direct spend toward high-incrementality users, while Exclusion Signals remove low-incrementality users from the targeting pool. Using both at the same time is the recommended configuration once each has been validated individually. Lookback window tuning The recommended lookback windows (0–90 days and 90–360 days for purchasers; 30–180 days for identified users) are starting points. Adjust them based on your account:
  • Shorter lookback windows produce smaller, more conservative Exclusion Signals
  • Longer lookback windows exclude more users but may include users whose behavior is no longer relevant
  • Set the purchaser lookback window to match your new-customer definition — this determines how long a past buyer stays excluded from acquisition campaigns

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Troubleshooting

Exclusion Signals are not populating Exclusion Signals reduce conversion volume without improving efficiency No measurable difference between test and control Performance drops after sales phases Performance drops can coincide with sales events such as Black Friday or seasonal promotions. During and after these phases, traffic composition and conversion patterns shift temporarily. Innkeepr typically detects these phases automatically and adjusts the underlying models accordingly. If a performance drop persists for more than one to two weeks after a sales event has ended, reach out to the Innkeepr team to verify that the model has recalibrated correctly.
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