What are the journey settings in journey builder

• Created : Jun, 30, 2020
• Last Updated : Apr, 18, 2024

What are the settings of a journey while creating a unique user journey :

NotifyVisitors dashboard enables you to create a unique user journey using different conditions, actions, and triggers. But there are certain settings pertaining to the user journey which you must imply while creating a journey which plays an important role as much as the other fractions. Let us dive deeper into the settings of a journey.

1.Set runtime: The very first setting while creating a journey is to set the running time of the journey. Define the running time of a user journey. Specify the start date and end date of a journey. Specify the time and save it.

 Basic: Select the checkbox option to allow the users to re-enter the journey.

How can you allow the users to re-enter the journey :

• You might be aware of the fact that users can only be qualified only for once to enter the journey. But the basic setting enables you to optionally re-enter the users when they have exited from the journey but only if they are matching with the criteria that you have specified.
• Remember that they will only be qualified to re-enter the journey if they have exited from the journey and later they match the specific criteria. Or, if they have been forced to exit out of the journey and later they match the entry condition criteria.

For example - If a user has added a product to the cart and does not make a purchase. You will wait for, let's say, 1 day to observe the user's behavior. After 1 day if he doesn’t purchase, you will send him a discount offer on the product to nudge him to purchase. Once he purchases the product, he will be exited from the journey as per the default set-up of the journey.

On the contrary, if the user re-purchase a product subsequently after the first purchase and you want to engage him with the discount offers. Then, you can choose to select the above option to allow the users to RE-ENTER THE JOURNEY.

2. Entry triggers:  The entry triggers are the entry points and conditions which set the context of the journey experience. These triggers enable you to differentiate the audience on the basis of :

• Events: You can define your target audience on the basis of the event performed by the users.
• Segments: You can create segments and include or exclude users from them on the basis of the rules you have set for segmentation.
• Attribute change: Define the audience on the basis of the change in users’ profile attributes.
• Website traffic: Define the audience on the basis of their visit to your website via a source, medium, or a website.

It means that whenever a user's actions, preferences, locations match the trigger’s condition, they will enter the journey. Further, you can render a great user experience on the basis of your pre-defined rules

3.Exit triggers: The exit triggers are the conditions that help you identify that the users’ preferences have changed and the journey is no longer valid for the users.

Note: Make sure you are not sending out of context messages to the users while configuring the exit triggers for the user journeys.

Let’s understand with a use case on how to use the exit trigger to end the journey of the users who have completed the end goal.

For example, You have defined “purchase” as the end goal of the journey. But you suddenly discovered a rise in the cart abandonment rates in the past few weeks. Therefore, you can map out a journey to the checkout lifecycle.

Now analyze the core problem here which is the users adding the product to the cart but did not make any purchase. Therefore you can drive out more conversions from the users by providing them catchy discount offers on the product. Your target audience would be the users who add products to the cart. Define your end goal as “Purchase”. How can you drive users to purchase your product? You can lure them by creating a “Fear of urgency” amongst them which means offering a product at a catchy discount for a limited period of time.

How can you engage users with catchy discounts :

• First of all, see the user’s behavior. If they have added the product and are not making the purchase within the time period of one or 2 days, then send them a reminder.
• Wait for 2 or 3 days, if they are still not performing any action on the cart then give them offers or catchy discounts.
• Now, analyze the purchase behavior, if they are still not responding, then create a sense of urgency.
• Send them the campaign on whichever channel they are accessible.

Note: The “ added to the cart” or “purchase” will be tracked as the custom events in the above use case. Therefore, you can immediately remove the users from the journey who make a purchase or perform the end goal. Now they will be segregated from the users who will be receiving further messages so that they turn into conversions. You configure the exit trigger to prevent the users from getting the out of context messages if they have already made a purchase.

How do the exit triggers work in NotifyVisitors Dashboard :

You can end the journey of the users by using or configuring the multiple exit triggers in the following case :

• When users perform a specific event.

Let’s know the above trigger in detail :

• Users perform an event :

Under this exit trigger, you can end the journey of all the users who perform a specific event which nudges them to perform the end goal of the journey. You can use this condition if your end goal is to nudge the users to perform an event such as sign-up or visiting any home page or opening an email.

How to set the following exit trigger :

• Click on add exit trigger.
• Select the event trigger type: When the user performs the event.
• Select event: Here we have selected the homepage visit
• Add event attributes: such as medium, source, and location of the users. Here we have selected the event attribute as the city.

By configuring this exit trigger, you can end the journey of the users who have visited the home page and who belong to the city. i.e. Delhi.

     Note: You can add multiple event attributes by clicking on the add attributes.

4. Stop flow: The said feature in the journey builder will enable you to stop the journey of those users who perform the event before the defined time trigger.

For example- If users perform an event of ADD TO CART on your site and leave your site without taking the necessary action. You will create a journey for the dropped users and therefore you schedule them a message reminding of the product they added to the cart, by specifying a time trigger of 4 hrs. If the user performs a similar event again before the specified time of 4 hrs, then new notifications will be scheduled for him and not the earlier scheduled ones.

Difference between exit trigger and stop flow :

The basic difference between the two of them is :

 In the exit trigger, those users will exit the journey, whose preferences change against the goal conversions defined by you, while the stop flow will stop or end the user's journey who performs the event before the scheduled time.

5.Goal conversions:  Define the conversion event of the journey. i.e. your predefined goals. End the journey of the users who have completed the pre-defined goal.

For example: Referring to the above use case where the users were abandoning the cart. Your end goal was to nudge the users to complete the purchase. Therefore, if the users complete your desired goal. You can end their journey and reactivate for the rest of the users.

How to set up the Goal conversions in the NotifyVisitors dashboard :

• Select the event.
• Add event attributes. i.e. medium, source, content, etc in context to the event.
• Add rules to the events.
• Define the conversion deadline: Define a specific time frame till when the conversions will be tracked for an event. That means you can specify a deadline for tracking conversions on any event after which the tracking will be stopped for the event. You can define it in terms of hours or days.

Note: It is mandatory to specify the conversion deadline

6. Publish a journey: Once you have created a journey, you can activate it. Remember, it will only go live, the moment it is published.

Points to remember before publishing the journey :

• Remember to configure all your steps.
• At least one of your triggers must be active.
• All blocks must be connected to at least one other block.

Implications of Publishing :

• Once you publish your journey, you cannot edit it. Only certain steps are readable such as the content of the campaigns.
• You can view the stats of the journey only after it’s published.
• You can track any of the users with its user id.

7. Pause journey: The said feature will enable you to pause a journey and therefore, the campaigns which you scheduled before pausing the journey will not be sent to the users.

Note: No new users will enter the journey or  messages will be sent to the users

8.Save journey:  Apart from publishing the journey, you can save it for future references.

The above settings are a crucial and integral part of creating a journey in the NotifyVisitors dashboard. Keep them in mind while building a unique user experience for the users.