Journeys Best Practices and FAQ

Best practices

Enforce exclusivity in multi-branch splits

When you create a multi-branch split, do not create overlapping conditions that might lead a user to qualify for more than one step at a time.

For example:

• In the case where a multi-branch split is based on the conditions registration form submitted and webinar attended, a user may satisfy both conditions, and therefore is eligible for both paths.
• To set a priority, branch 2 should then be who performed registration form submitted and did not perform webinar attended to ensure mutual exclusivity

Add time windows whenever possible

Add time windows when defining conditions to enforce funnel constraints in a Journey, rather than using an unbounded event condition which operates on the entire history of the user profile. For example, to check if a user has completed an order since receiving an email triggered 7 days ago, use the condition “Order Completed at least 1 time within 7 days.”

Suppress targeting with journey lists

Unlike lists associated with Personas Audiences, users who are added to a journey list cannot be subsequently removed. Lists are typically associated with advertising campaigns, and you must take additional steps if you wish to ensure that users do not continue to be targeted with ads after they achieve some goal. A typical implementation pattern is:

1. Use a send to destination step to add users to the initial targeting list.
2. Create additional journey steps to model the conditions where a user should be removed from targeting. Create a second send to destination step for the removal list.
3. When configuring targeting conditions in the destination interface, use boolean logic to include only those users who are in the initial list AND NOT in the removal list.

Review your Journey in drafts first

Save your Journey in a draft state so that you can review before you publish it. Once you publish a Journey, you cannot edit select portions of a Journey and Journeys sends data to destinations.

Make a copy to edit published Journeys

Once you publish a Journey, you cannot add, delete, or edit the steps within the Journey. You can edit the Journey name, description, and destinations.

To edit the steps within a published Journey, make a copy of the Journey you wish to edit, make adjustments, delete the original Journey, and then publish the revised Journey.

When you do this, the key used for syncing to destinations will be different from the copied Journey. Make sure you change the reference key used in the downstream destinations accordingly.

Frequently asked questions

How often do Journeys run?

Journeys run in real-time, like real-time Audiences in Personas. This means that users will progress through Journeys as Segment receives new events.

What destinations does Journeys support?

Journeys supports all Personas destinations, including Destination Functions. Read more in Send data to destinations.

What are the reporting capabilities of Journeys?

When building a Journey, if you check Use historical data, you can see the estimated number of users in the initial cohort.

Once published, Journeys displays the number of users are in each step of the Journey at any given time.

How are users sent to downstream destinations?

The data type you send to a destination depends on whether the destination is an Event Destination or a List Destination.

Which roles can access Journeys?

For Personas Advanced customers, users with either the Personas User or Personas Admin roles can create, edit, and delete journeys. Users with the Personas Read-only role are restricted to view-only access.