Journeys provide a blueprint for delivering automated messages to individual contacts.
You can build a journey using the following widgets:
- Journey Triggers: These define the conditions under which a contact enters a journey. Each trigger serves a distinct purpose and can help you build creative journeys that engage contacts and streamline your email marketing efforts. Click here to learn more.
- Journey Actions: These specify what happens to a contact within the journey, such as sending an email, updating the contact's profile, applying a tag, or changing a list's subscription status. Click here to learn more.
- Journey Filters: These add branching logic, routing contacts down different paths based on segment membership. Filters can also be used for split testing, including A/B tests and percentage splits. Click here to learn more.
- Journey Delays: These introduce pauses within the journey, either for a set duration or until a specific date and time. They're commonly used in onboarding sequences, where emails are spaced out with breaks in between. Click here to learn more.
- Journey End: This widget marks the termination point of a journey. Every branch in a journey must conclude with an “End” widget. Click here to learn more.
Note: Actions, filters, and delays each have two connection points, one for input and one for output.
Managing Journeys
New journeys can be created, and existing ones managed, from the journeys index page. To reach this page, head over to the navigation panel, click on Marketing > Automation, and select Journeys.
Below is a screenshot of the journeys index page:
The index page offers several actions for managing your journeys, accessible via the Actions column (three-dot menu) and the adjacent Refresh icon for each journey row:
- Edit Journey Builder: Opens the journey's canvas view, allowing you to modify the actual sequence of triggers, actions, filters, and delays that make up the journey. This can also be accessed by clicking the journey's name on the index page.
- Edit Journey Settings: Opens the journey’s settings page, allowing you to update the journey's name or adjust the "Enabled" and "Retrigger" settings.
- Duplicate Journey: Opens a duplicate journey dialog box, letting you create a new journey based on an existing one.
- View Contacts: Displays the contacts within the journey, each of which may hold one of the following statuses:
- Active: Currently progressing through the journey.
- Finished: Has completed all widgets in the journey.
- Paused: Temporarily halted, either through a journey API call or manually via the contact's profile page.
- Unsubscribed: Opted out by clicking the journey unsubscribe link in a campaign email.
- Export Journey: Exports the journey's contacts to a CSV file, available for download from the Notifications panel.
- Delete Journey: Removes the journey.
- Reset Spam Count: Resets the journey's recorded spam complaint count. This option is greyed out/disabled unless the journey has an active spam count to reset.
- Refresh Journey: Refreshes the journey row's data, updating figures such as Contacts, Active Contacts, and Updated At timestamps to reflect the latest state.
Additionally, each journey row includes an Enable/Disable toggle under the Journey Status column, which turns the journey on or off depending on whether it should be active. Journeys still in draft mode display a Draft label instead of a toggle, indicating the journey has not yet been published or activated.
Creating Journeys
Follow the steps shown below to create a new journey:
1. From the Journeys index page, click on the New Journey button.
2. The Journey Selection page gets displayed. Here, you have three options to create a journey. They are as follows:
- Journey Templates: Set up automated email campaigns via pre-designed templates that significantly reduce decision-making workload and help achieve specific business outcomes. Click here to learn more.
- Create from scratch: Manually build a journey workflow by utilizing the widgets and elements at your disposal. Read the steps below to learn more.
3. If you’ve chosen the Create from scratch option, you will be redirected to the Journey Settings page. Enter a name for your journey in the Journey Name field. Optionally, enter an end date and time for the journey in the End Date and End Time fields, respectively. If you specify a date and time here, the journey becomes inactive on the specified date and time.
4. Optionally, select the Enable Journey checkbox to activate the journey immediately upon creation, and select the Retrigger Journey checkbox to allow contacts who have already completed the journey to re-enter it if they meet the trigger criteria again. Click on Create to proceed ahead.
Note: For a retrigger to work, a contact must complete their journey. If the contact is still in the middle of the journey and hasn’t completed it yet, but you want them to restart from the beginning, use the Journeys API to reset the route.
5. Once the journey is created, you're redirected to the journey canvas. This is where you design the actual flow of your journey using triggers, actions, filters, delays, and an end widget. The left panel lists all available widgets, organized under the Triggers, Actions, Filters, Delay, and End sections, while the right side is the canvas where you assemble your journey.
6. From the left-hand panel, select the desired journey components, such as triggers, actions, filters, or delays, and drag them directly onto the canvas area. Arrange them visually to reflect the intended sequence of your automated workflow.
7. Connect the components to build the execution path. Click and hold the connector port at the bottom or side of a preceding widget (e.g., a trigger), then drag the connector line and drop it onto the input port of the succeeding widget (e.g., an action or delay).
8. Click on each widget placed on the canvas to open its specific configuration menu. Define the required operational parameters for every component. If your journey incorporates branching logic or decision steps, configure the rules explicitly to bifurcate the contact path. For example, if a contact opens a specific email, then route them down the positive engagement branch; otherwise, route them down the follow-up or alternative branch. Some of its examples are shown below:
- For Triggers: Specify the exact criteria or conditions under which a contact qualifies to enter the journey (e.g., subscribing to a specific list or completing a custom event).
- For Actions: Select the corresponding asset or process to execute, such as choosing an email template to send, applying a specific contact tag, or moving the contact to another list.
- For Delays: Set the required wait time duration (in hours, days, or weeks) before the contact advances to the next step in the flow.
9. Click the Save button in the lower-right side of the canvas to commit your structural and configuration changes. Review the complete workflow layout to ensure all connection lines are intact and no configuration warnings are displayed.
Note: If you need to wipe the canvas clean to start over, click Clear and confirm the action in the prompt dialog.
10. Once the configuration is fully saved and validated, the journey gets activated by default. You can enable or disable the journey’s status via the index page, allowing eligible contacts to begin entering the workflow immediately based on your active triggers.
