Knowledge Base

Marketing Cloud

Introduction to Journeys

You can use the following widgets to create a Journey:

Journey Triggers: Use the Journey Trigger widget to define the rules by which a contact enters a Journey. Every trigger has a different function and can be used to design a creative Journey that will engage your contacts and automate your email marketing process. Learn More
Journey Actions: Use a Journey Action widget to define what should be done for the contact inside the Journey. An email message can be sent, the contact’s profile can be updated, a contact tag can be assigned, or the subscription status of a list can be changed. Learn More
Journey Filters: Use a Journey Filter widget to add branching logic to the Journey. You can have the contact flow into different branches depending on which segment it belongs to. You can also use filters to do split testing with A|B testing or Percentage Splits. Learn More
Journey Delays: Use a Journey Delay widget to inject pauses into the Journey. You can pause for a certain period or until a specific date and time. The most common use of Delays is for an onboarding series in which you want to send a series of emails to the contact, but put a pause in between each email. Learn More
Journey End: Use the Journey End widget to terminate a Journey. Every connected branch within a Journey must terminate with an End widget. Learn More

Note: All actions, filters, and delays have two nodes each to accept input and give an output.

Managing Journeys

You can create a new Journey and manage your existing Journeys on the Journeys index page. To access the page, in Navigation, go to AUTOMATION and then select Journey.

The following is a screenshot of the Journeys index page:

The actions on the index page provide you with the means to manage your Journeys.

Export: Exports the contacts that are part of the Journey. The contacts are exported to a CSV file, which can then be downloaded from the Notifications panel.
Enable/Disable: Enable or disable the Journey depending on whether you want the Journey to be live or not.
View Contacts: Shows the contacts that are part of the Journey. A contact within a Journey can have one of the following statuses:
- Active – The contact is still active within the Journey.
- Finished – The contact has flowed through all the widgets and completed the Journey.
- Paused – The contact’s Journey has been paused either via a Journey API method call or manually from the Contact’s profile page.
- Unsubscribed – The contact clicked the Journey unsubscribe link included in a campaign that was sent from the Journey.
Edit: Opens the Edit Journey dialog box, where you can edit the name or make changes to your selection for the "Enabled" and "Retrigger" Journey checkboxes. If you want to make changes to the Journey sequence, click the journey name on the index page, and you will be directed to the canvas page of the Journey.
Delete: Deletes the Journey.
Duplicate: Opens the New Journey dialog box, where you can create a Journey from an existing Journey.

Creating Journeys

In Navigation, go to AUTOMATION and then select Journey.
On the Journeys index page, click New Journey. The New Journey dialog box opens.
On the New Journey dialog box, enter a name for the Journey.
Optionally, enter a date and time at which you want the Journey to be automatically disabled.
This field is useful for Journeys created for time-bound activity, such as offering a limited-time promotion.
The Enabled checkbox lets you specify whether you want your Journey to be live upon saving. The checkbox is selected by default.
Select the Retrigger Journey checkbox if you want all contacts to re-enter the Journey depending upon the trigger(s) that you use. If left deselected, a contact enters a Journey only once.
📋 Note: For a retrigger to work, a contact must complete its Journey. If contact is still in the middle of the Journey and hasn’t completed it yet, but you want the contact to re-start the Journey from the beginning, use the Journeys API to initiate the reset.
Click Save. You are directed to the canvas page where you can use the Journey widgets to define your Journey.
On the left side of the canvas, you can see all the widget elements – Triggers, Actions, Filters, Delays, and End.
You can simply click a widget element and it appears on the canvas. Then, double-click the widget to fill in the details. You can drag the widget anywhere along the dimension of the canvas.

The following screenshot shows a New Subscription trigger widget:

📋 Note:
- Remember to connect your widgets indicating the Journey flow.
- The connection of all widgets must terminate with an End widget.
- In a widget dialog box, the Detach button disconnects the node connected to the next widget element. And, the Remove button removes the widget from the Journey builder page.
Once you have set up your Journey, click Save.
📋 Note: You will not be able to save your Journey until all widgets have been filled in and have been all connected.