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Exclude your test activity from reports

Keep your tests out of reports. You can hide a visitor's past and future activity or stop collecting new activity from a staging site or IPv4 address.

Available on the Pro plan.

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Keep your own visits out of reports while the forms, widgets, and flows you're testing continue to run. Hide a person to remove their past and future activity from reports immediately. Use a collection rule to stop reporting future traffic from a staging domain or network after you publish.

You'll need project access. Hiding a person needs visitor-profile access, which comes with plans that include People pages. Hostname and IP rules need access to project settings and permission to publish. Check the exact visitor, hostname, or network you want to exclude. A shared office IP can include people other than you.

Hide your test visitor

  1. Open People.
  2. Find your test contact by email. For an anonymous visitor, compare the recent pages and visit time.
  3. Choose that visitor's Exclude from analytics action.
  4. Check the visitor in the confirmation, then choose Exclude.

Their past and future activity disappears from reports immediately, without publishing. RightMessage keeps collecting the activity. This doesn't delete the contact from your email platform.

Exclude your own browser

The quickest way to keep yourself out of A/B tests and stats is to exclude each browser you use. It works on every plan and doesn't need publishing.

  1. Open Project settings (the gear at the bottom of the sidebar), then Website & install.
  2. Under This browser, choose Exclude this browser. It opens your primary domain with #rm_exclude=1 at the end of the address.
  3. For another browser or device, choose the copy button beside it and open the link there.
This browser section of Website & install with the Exclude this browser button and the copy-link controlOriginal
This browser section of Website & install with the Exclude this browser button and the copy-link control

A short notice on your site confirms the change. That browser stops counting in tests and stats on this site for about 400 days, or until you clear its cookies. It still sees your personalization, and A/B tests show it Control. To count it again, open your website with #rm_exclude=0 at the end of the address.

Opening the debugger excludes that browser too. If the button is unavailable and the setting says "Add your website's domain first.", add your domain under Domains on the same page.

Hide a test email from settings

If you already know the email you want to hide, you can add it in settings instead.

  1. Open Project settings > Privacy & data.
  2. Under Hide people from analytics, enter your synthetic test email, such as jordan@example.com.
  3. Choose Hide person.

The person is hidden from reports right away, past and future, without publishing. They're listed in the section. If your plan doesn't include it, the section names the plan you'll need.

If the list can't load, choose the retry option in the section before checking it again.

Stop collecting new test traffic

Use a collection rule when you want to exclude future traffic from a staging site or IPv4 address. Existing history stays unchanged.

  1. Open Project settings > Privacy & data.
  2. Under Stop collecting, enter the staging hostname, IPv4 address, or IPv4 CIDR range you want to exclude.
  3. Choose Add rule. Add a separate rule for each additional target.
  4. Review and publish your project changes. The section shows Goes live once you next publish until you do.
Privacy & data Stop collecting section with a staging.example.com hostname rule waiting to publishOriginal
Privacy & data Stop collecting section with a staging.example.com hostname rule waiting to publish

Use your real staging hostname or network. The field accepts values such as staging.example.com, 203.0.113.42, and 203.0.113.0/24. Anything else, including an email address or IPv6, shows "That isn't a hostname or IP address."

After publication, matching future traffic is excluded from RightMessage reporting and connected analytics providers. Forms, redirects, widgets, and flows still run. Unrelated analytics scripts installed separately on your site aren't affected.

What still happens for excluded traffic

An excluded browser, or traffic matched by a Stop collecting rule, still gets everything a visitor sees and does. Only the measurement is dropped. These still happen:

  • Email notification steps send.
  • Your email platform gets tags, fields, list subscriptions, and form submissions.
  • Webhooks fire, redirects run, and personalization shows.

None of it shows up in your reports. It won't appear in People, Responses, a flow's Metrics or Activity, question results, or A/B test results, and nothing goes to connected analytics providers. Excluded browsers also always see Control in A/B tests.

Hiding a person works differently: their activity is still collected, just hidden from reports.

The dashboard reminds you of this where your tests would show up. An ⓘ next to the count in People and in the header of a flow's responses table opens Not counted here, which lists what's left out and links to Privacy & data. A flow's Metrics and Activity tabs say so under the date range.

Check whether this browser is excluded

The exclusion is stored in a cookie on your website, so check it there:

  1. Open Project settings > Website & install.
  2. Under This browser, choose Check this browser. It opens your primary domain with #rm_exclude=check at the end of the address.

A short notice on your site says whether this browser is excluded. Checking doesn't change anything. If no notice appears, your site is still running an older tag: publish your project once, then check again.

In the debugger, a Not counted label in the header means your visits there aren't counted. Hover it to see why: an excluded browser, a Stop collecting rule, or a page that turns analytics off.

To test something you want to see in your reports, use a private window, or first open your website with #rm_exclude=0 at the end of the address.

Undo an exclusion

For a hidden person, open Privacy & data, find them under Hide people from analytics, and choose Unhide. Their collected activity becomes visible again immediately.

For a collection rule, remove it under Stop collecting and publish. Future matching traffic can be recorded again. Events that weren't collected can't be recreated by removing the rule.

Check that you've excluded the right traffic

Run your test again. Check the report date range and filters, then confirm that your test activity is excluded while an unrelated synthetic visitor still appears.

Use the debugger to check targeting and identity. Hiding a person from reports doesn't clear their remembered answers or reset their browser.

Once only the intended test traffic is excluded, you can keep testing without mixing those visits into your reports.

Still need a hand?

Tell us what you’re trying to do and where you’re getting stuck.

support@rightmessage.com