Moderation Rules: Control What Gets Hidden or Flagged

Moderation rules let you define exactly what happens to each type of comment — without writing a single line of code. You describe the comment you want to catch, choose what should happen to it, and Exerta handles the rest. Each rule is made up of conditions and an action, runs in priority order, and starts working the moment you save it.

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Rule anatomy

Every moderation rule has three parts:

1. Conditions — what triggers the rule. You can match on:
   • Content — keywords or phrases in the comment text (e.g., “buy followers”, a competitor brand name, or a URL)
   • Author — who wrote it (e.g., first-time commenter, repeat poster, or a specific account)
   • Placement — where it appeared (e.g., a specific campaign, ad set, page, or organic post)
2. Action — what happens when all conditions are met:
   • Hide — the comment is hidden from public view instantly
   • Flag for review — the comment is surfaced in your moderation queue for a human to review
   • Escalate to DM — the agent sends the commenter a private message and alerts your support team
   • Custom Reply — the agent posts a specific reply you’ve written for this rule
3. Priority — rules run in the order you set. The first matching rule wins, so put your most specific or most critical rules at the top.

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Creating a rule

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Combining conditions

You can stack multiple conditions inside a single rule using AND logic — all conditions must be true for the rule to fire. This keeps your rules precise enough that you never accidentally hide a real customer’s comment. For example, you might hide a comment only if it contains a link AND is from an account with fewer than 10 followers. Or flag a comment only if it mentions a competitor AND comes from a first-time commenter on a specific campaign. The more conditions you add, the more targeted — and safe — the rule becomes.

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Per-rule analytics

Every rule tracks its own performance so you know exactly what it’s catching: Use this data to spot over-triggering rules (high match count, few real issues) and tighten their conditions, or to find under-performing rules that might need broader keywords.

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Pausing and testing

You can pause any rule with a single click — it stops running immediately, and none of the other rules are affected. To resume, click the toggle again. Before activating a new rule, use Preview mode to test it against your most recent comments. Preview shows you which real comments would have been caught, so you can fine-tune conditions before anything goes live.