Include & Exclude Products

Include and Exclude let you pin or block specific products on a per-answer basis — without relying on vote counts. When a shopper selects an answer that has includes or excludes set, those rules are applied after all votes are counted, overriding the scoring entirely.

Why use this instead of votes

Vote assignment is great for ranking — more relevant answers push more relevant products to the top. But sometimes you need a guarantee, not a ranking signal:

• A certain answer makes one specific product the must-have recommendation — you want it first, always
• A certain answer makes a product completely unsuitable — you want it gone, no matter how many votes it earned elsewhere

That's where Include and Exclude come in. They are absolute — no amount of votes from other answers can override them.

How it works

Include pins a product to the top of results when the answer is selected. Included products appear above all vote-ranked products. If multiple answers each include different products (and the shopper selects all of them), all included products are pinned to the top together, sorted alphabetically by product ID.

Exclude removes a product from results entirely when the answer is selected. The product is gone — even if it earned votes from every other answer.

Exclude always wins over include. If one answer includes a product and another answer excludes the same product, and the shopper selects both answers, the product is excluded.

Filters still take precedence. If a filter question has already disqualified a product (because the shopper's answer put it out of scope), Include cannot bring it back. Eligibility is checked first; Include and Exclude apply only within the eligible pool.

Setting up includes and excludes

Open any answer in the quiz builder by clicking its chevron to expand it. At the top of the vote assignment area you'll see Include / Exclude products.

1. Type a product name in the search box
2. Click Include to pin that product to the top when this answer is selected, or Exclude to block it
3. The product appears immediately in the active summary above the search box — green chip for included, struck-through grey for excluded
4. Click the × on any chip to remove the rule

Include and Exclude are mutually exclusive per product — setting one clears the other automatically.

Seeing it on the answer row

Once an answer has includes or excludes set, the collapsed answer row shows a summary badge:

• +2 pins (green) — 2 products are pinned to the top for this answer
• −1 excluded (grey) — 1 product is blocked for this answer

This makes it easy to audit rules across all your answers at a glance without expanding each one.

Include vs Exclude vs other tools

Tool	Mechanism	Overridable
Vote assignment	Increases score	Yes — other answers can outscore it
Negative votes	Decreases score	Yes — enough positive votes elsewhere can overcome it
Include	Pins to top, ignores score	No — always first unless excluded by another answer
Exclude	Removes from eligible pool	No — always removed unless filter already removed it
Filter questions	Disqualifies before scoring	No — absolute

Use vote assignment when ranking matters and the product should compete fairly. Use negative votes when you want to suppress a product but allow it to potentially survive with enough positive signal. Use Include when a product must appear first for a specific answer combination. Use Exclude when a product must never appear for a specific answer combination.

Common patterns

"If you answered X, you must see Product A first" Open the answer for X, search for Product A, click Include. Done — Product A will be the first recommendation whenever a shopper selects that answer, regardless of votes.

"If you have a sensitive scalp, hide our strongest formula" Open the "sensitive scalp" answer, search for the product, click Exclude. Any shopper who selects that answer will never see that product in their results.

"Free gift with this selection" Include a free gift product on a qualifying answer so it always surfaces at the top. Pair it with vote assignment on the same answer so the rest of the results still rank naturally below it.