Build an automatic journey
Design a sequence of waits, checks and actions that runs for each contact who meets a trigger, then activate and monitor it.
A journey is an automatic follow-up. When a contact meets the trigger (for example "Lead created"), they are enrolled and move through your steps one by one. Open Marketing > Journeys.
Create a journey
- Select New Journey.
- Enter a Name and an optional Description.
- Select Create and open the builder.
A new journey is a draft. It never runs and enrolls nobody until you activate it.
Triggers: what starts a journey
- Lead created, Lead qualified, Customer created
- Contact carries a tag (you choose the tag)
- Included in a campaign (you choose the campaign)
- Invoice created, Invoice paid in full
- Invoice overdue (optionally after a number of days)
- Change order accepted
- Opportunity stage changed (you choose the stage)
Some triggers watch for a one-time event. Others (tag, campaign, overdue invoice) check an ongoing condition, and each contact is enrolled at most once.
The visual builder
Add a step by dragging it from Add a step onto the canvas, or select it with the keyboard. Connect the steps in order. The available steps are:
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Entry Trigger | What starts the journey. There is exactly one |
| Wait / Delay | Pauses for minutes, hours or days |
| Condition / Split | Checks something about the contact, then goes Yes or No. Checks include lead status, marketing consent, suppression, a tag, and having an email address |
| Marketing Email | Prepares a marketing email. Consent and suppression are checked every time |
| Add / Remove Tag | Adds or removes a tag |
| Assign Owner | Assigns a lead to a team member (leads only) |
| In-App Notification | Notifies staff. It is not sent to the contact |
| Update CRM Field | Sets lead status, lead score or source |
| Timeline Note | Writes a note on the contact's activity timeline |
| Exit / Goal | Ends the journey early. The Goal at the bottom is the normal ending |
Create Task is shown but disabled, because tasks are not available yet.
When ready:
- Select Save Draft to keep unfinished work.
- Select Validate. Problems are listed so you can fix them.
- Select Activate and confirm.
To change a live journey, edit it as a new version. The old version finishes the contacts already inside it.
Monitor and control
Open a journey to see its trigger, steps and At a glance counts. Use:
- Pause journey / Resume journey.
- Run now to process waiting steps immediately.
- Delete. Contacts part-way through will no longer advance.
- Enroll a contact to add someone by hand (not possible while it is a draft).
The enrollments table can be filtered by status: Active, Paused, Advancing, Needs review, Completed, Exited or Failed. For one enrollment you can choose Advance now, Skip wait, Pause, Resume or Exit.
Good to know
- Journeys are processed on a regular schedule, not instantly. A wait is honoured at the first check after it ends. The journeys page shows the current schedule.
- Needs review means a step was interrupted and its result is unknown. It is not repeated and is never counted as done.
- As with campaigns, no email is delivered until an email service is connected. See Marketing overview and dashboard.