Automated Moderation in Agorapulse allows you to create rules that automatically triage, route, label, hide, or assign incoming inbox items, reducing the time your team spends on repetitive manual actions. When configured correctly, these rules help filter out unwanted conversations so your team can focus on the conversations that matter most.
This article explains how to identify the right rules for your workflow, which conditions and actions are available, and how to apply them effectively.
In this article, we will cover the following:
Please note: Users on a Custom plan can create multiple rules and combine conditions for more precise targeting. While users on the Standard, Professional, or Advanced plan should prioritize the single highest-impact rule for their workflow. For more information on how many moderation rules are available on your plan, check out this article
Available conditions and actions
Each moderation rule requires at least one condition and at least one action. You can add up to 8 conditions and 6 actions per rule.
Please note: Not all conditions and actions are available on all social networks. For a full breakdown of what conditions and actions are available for each network, check out this article.
Conditions
Condition | How it works |
Text includes keywords | Triggers when the message includes any of the specified keywords. Separate multiple keywords with commas. |
Text contains only mentions | Triggers only when the entire comment consists of @-mentions with no other text. |
Text contains only emojis | Triggers only when the entire comment consists of emojis. |
Text contains a link | Triggers on any message that includes a URL. |
Text contains an email | Triggers on any message that includes an email address. |
Text word count | Triggers when the word count is less than, equal to, or greater than a specified number. |
Inbox item type | Filters by message type: ad comment, organic comment, private message, mention, etc. |
Post is labeled | Triggers based on a label applied to the parent post. Useful for campaign-based routing. |
Please note: Multiple conditions per rule are only available on the Custom plan.
Actions
Action | Notes |
Review | Marks the item as handled. |
Assign | Assigns the item to a specified teammate. |
Label | Applies a specified label to the item. |
Hide | Hides the item on the selected network and is not available on all networks. Hidden items are not automatically marked as reviewed. |
Delete | Permanently removes the item. Only available on select networks. |
Ban sender | Bans the user who sent the message. Only available on select networks. |
Identify what to automate
Before creating a rule, review what your team handles most often in the inbox. The most effective rules address recurring and predictable actions, not one-off situations.
You should ask yourself or your team: What repetitive actions did we perform most in the inbox last week?
Common examples include:
Hiding spam comments or promotional links
Assigning support questions to a specific teammate
Labeling competitor mentions for tracking
Flagging comments for review based on content type
Routing messages that mention a specific team member
Marking emoji-only or mention-only comments as reviewed
For Advanced and Custom plan users, you can export your inbox data to identify patterns in your actual message history. From your Inbox, open the All Items preset and export at least 200 items as a .csv file. Reviewing this data can reveal high-frequency message types that work best for automation. More information regarding exporting inbox items can be found here.
Please note: The inbox export option is not available on Standard or Professional plans.
Match your workflow to a use case
Using the drop-downs below, you can match your workflow description to a recommended rule approach.
Hide spam, bots, or promotional links
Hide spam, bots, or promotional links
Use case: Spam filtering
Suggested approach: Keyword rule → "follow me", "click here", "DM us", "giveaway" → Label item "Spam" + Hide item
Assigning questions to a teammate
Assigning questions to a teammate
Use case: Customer support routing
Suggested approach: Keyword rule → "how", "where", "help", "issue", "problem" → Label item "Support" + Assign item "teammate."
Route messages mentioning a specific person
Route messages mentioning a specific person
Use case: Team member tagging
Suggested approach: Keyword rule → "teammate name" or "handle" → Assign item "teammate."
Track what people say about competitors
Track what people say about competitors
Use case: Competitor monitoring
Suggested approach: Keyword rule → "Competitor's brand names" → Label item "Competitor."
Route comments based on campaign or post label
Route comments based on campaign or post label
Use case: Multi-team routing
Suggested approach: Post is labeled → "Campaign", "Editorial" → Label item "team's name."
Route messages in a specific language
Route messages in a specific language
Use case: Language-based routing
Suggested approach: Keyword rule → "language-specific terms" → Assign item "multilingual teammate".
Mark low-value comments as reviewed
Mark low-value comments as reviewed
Use case: Noise filtering
Suggested approach: Contains only emojis OR Contains only mentions → Review
Flagging positive or negative comments
Flagging positive or negative comments
Use case: Sentiment flagging
Suggested approach: Keyword rule → "love", "hate", "disappointed", "worst" → Label item (Positive/Negative) + Apply sentiment (Positive/Negative) + Assign item
Note: Once you have identified your conditions and actions, you will want to navigate to your Organization Settings and select Automated Rules to begin creating your rules. For the full setup walkthrough, check out this article.
What we recommend for effective rules
Be specific with keywords: Broad keywords like "help" may match too many messages. Where possible, use phrases or word combinations that reflect how your audience actually writes, for example, "cannot log in" rather than "login."
Label before you route: Applying a Label action before an Assign action gives your team a clearer context when they open the item. For example, label a message "Support" and then assign it, rather than assigning without a label.
Sentiment is not a condition trigger: Rules intended to capture positive or negative comments should use specific representative keywords instead, for example, "love," "amazing," "disappointed," or "worst."
Use the Review action carefully: The Review action marks an item as handled. Only use it as a standalone action for items where no reply, label, assignment, or hide is needed. Applying Review alongside other actions on items that still require a response can cause items to be missed.
Test with a single profile first: When creating a new rule, apply it to one social profile before expanding it to all profiles. This lets you confirm the rule triggers as expected before it runs across your full inbox.