Excluding URLs
Prevent visitors browsing a certain page from seeing your campaign.
Excluding URLs is an OptiMonk targeting configuration that prevents a campaign from appearing on specific pages of your website — letting you run a campaign broadly across your site while carving out precise exceptions. It is the negative application of OptiMonk's Current Page / URL rule: instead of specifying where a campaign should appear, you specify where it should not. Common use cases include suppressing a lead-capture popup on the checkout page (where interrupting a visitor mid-purchase is actively harmful), hiding a discount offer on the order confirmation page (where the purchase is already complete), preventing a newsletter campaign from appearing on a landing page that already has its own opt-in form, or excluding a product-specific recommendation from category pages where it is not contextually relevant. Excluding URLs uses the same matching operators as page inclusion targeting — contains, starts with, ends with, exactly matches, and regular expressions — giving you the flexibility to exclude a single specific URL, an entire section of your site, or any set of pages that share a URL pattern. Multiple exclusions can be combined in the same campaign, and URL exclusions stack with all other targeting conditions using AND logic.
Key benefits
- Protect the checkout experience from campaign interruptions. The cart and checkout flow is the most conversion-sensitive section of any ecommerce store — an unexpected popup at this stage creates friction that can reverse a purchase decision that was already made. Excluding checkout URLs from all campaigns is one of the highest-impact single targeting decisions available: it removes a known point of purchase friction without affecting campaign reach anywhere else on the site.
- Run broad campaigns safely without worrying about edge cases. Rather than building a narrowly scoped inclusion list that covers every page you want the campaign to appear on, you can use a broad inclusion rule (or no URL rule at all) and handle the exceptions with exclusions. This is often faster to set up and easier to maintain: as you add new pages to your site, the campaign naturally extends to them, with only the explicitly excluded pages remaining protected.
- Layer exclusions with other targeting conditions for surgical precision. URL exclusions do not operate in isolation — they combine with country targeting, cart rules, visitor history conditions, and any other targeting rules using AND logic. This means you can define complex audience + page combinations precisely: show the campaign to returning visitors from Germany, on all pages except the checkout — using a single campaign rather than multiple with different scope.
How it works
In your OptiMonk dashboard, select the campaign you want to configure and click Edit settings. Under "Select who should see the popup," click Add new rule and select Current Page / URL from the condition list.
In the Current Page / URL rule configuration, switch the mode from include to exclude. Select the URL matching operator that fits the page or pages you want to suppress — "exactly matches" for a single specific URL (such as your checkout page), "contains" for a section of your site (such as /checkout/ or /cart/), "starts with" for an entire subdirectory, or "matches RegEx" for complex multi-pattern exclusions. Enter the URL value or pattern.
If you need to exclude multiple distinct pages or URL patterns, add further Current Page / URL conditions — each set to exclude — within the same campaign. Each additional exclusion narrows the set of pages where the campaign can appear. Once saved, OptiMonk evaluates the visitor's current page URL at display time and suppresses the campaign silently on any page matching an exclusion rule, while showing it normally on all other pages that meet the campaign's remaining conditions.
Frequently asked questions
What is URL Exclusion in OptiMonk?+
URL Exclusion is the use of OptiMonk's Current Page / URL rule in exclude mode — specifying pages where a campaign should NOT appear, rather than pages where it should. It allows you to run a campaign across your entire site while protecting specific pages from being interrupted, such as the checkout flow, order confirmation page, or any other page where the campaign's message would be unhelpful or disruptive. The same URL operators available for inclusion (contains, starts with, ends with, exactly matches, RegEx) are available for exclusion.
Which pages should I typically exclude from campaigns?+
The most universally applicable exclusions are checkout and cart pages, where popups create friction at the point of highest purchase intent. Order confirmation and thank-you pages are also commonly excluded, since the visitor has already converted and promotional offers are irrelevant. Additional exclusions depend on your site structure: dedicated landing pages with their own opt-in forms should generally be excluded from sitewide lead-capture popups, and any page with a very different purpose or audience from the campaign's intended context is a candidate for exclusion.
Can I exclude multiple pages or URL patterns in one campaign?+
Yes. You can add multiple Current Page / URL conditions in exclude mode within the same campaign — each targeting a different URL, path segment, or pattern. All exclusion conditions are evaluated independently: if a visitor's current page matches any of the defined exclusion rules, the campaign is suppressed for that page, regardless of whether other conditions are met. There is no limit on the number of URL exclusion conditions you can add to a campaign.
What is the difference between excluding a URL and not adding it to an inclusion list?+
An inclusion rule restricts the campaign to only appear on pages that match a specific pattern — every page not on the list is excluded by default. A URL exclusion rule, by contrast, allows the campaign to appear anywhere except the specified pages — all other pages are included by default. The choice between the two approaches depends on how many pages you want the campaign to cover: if it should appear everywhere except a few specific pages, exclusion is simpler to set up and maintain; if it should appear only in a narrow set of specific locations, inclusion is more precise.
Can I combine URL exclusions with other targeting conditions?+
Yes. URL exclusion rules combine with all other targeting conditions — country, cart rules, visitor history, cookie targeting, custom attributes — using AND logic. This means a URL exclusion does not override other conditions: a campaign configured to show only to new visitors and to exclude the checkout page will only appear to new visitors who are not on the checkout page. Both conditions must be satisfied simultaneously, giving you full composability between page-level exclusions and audience-level targeting.
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