Advanced Welcome (EDP)
Overview
The Advanced Welcome journey serves as a more sophisticated version of the Onboarding journey. Like Onboarding, the goal of the Advanced Welcome journey is to welcome new consumers or members to your brand, and to entice them to perform some action that engages with your brand, such as a purchase for example.
Some marketers might still feel comfortable with a simple onboarding process consisting of a single Welcome email, but many marketers have recognized that they have to focus on improving user engagement in tandem with offering exclusive content intended to keep their customers engaged. The Advanced Welcome journey aims to promote interaction with your brand by targeting consumers that have just been acquired. Marketers can use this journey to obtain their consumers' consent to continue future correspondence in return for exclusive offers and content, which will in turn help drive future purchases and engagement.
This journey guides consumers through a double opt-in flow. A double opt-in comprises a two-stage process of enrolling a consumer in your marketing program. The first step requires the consumer to submit their contact information (usually an email address or mobile phone number). The platform will send a message to the consumer, requesting that they confirm their desire to opt-in to your marketing program. Upon submission of this confirmation, the consumer is considered to be fully opted-in. The use of a double opt-in flow is in line with Marigold's corporate vision of collecting zero-party data and respecting customers' privacy preferences.
The following diagram depicts the default flow for the Advanced Welcome journey.
All journeys have one or more exits, which are characterized as positive, negative, or neutral. These different outcomes are used for reporting purposes, so you can measure the effectiveness of the journey at accomplishing your desired goals. The Advanced Welcome journey has three different exits, which are described below in more detail.
The Advanced Welcome journey begins when a new consumer is added to your database via a Sign-up Activity, such as a web form submission or an API request sent from a third-party system. The platform first checks to see if the consumer has completed the double opt-in process. After a customer signs up, the platform deploys a message to the provided contact, asking the consumer to confirm their desire to opt-in or enroll. This message will contain a link or some other mechanism for allowing the consumer to confirm their opt-in. If the user submits this confirmation, they are considered to be fully opted-in, making them eligible to receive further messages within this journey, but also beyond this journey. This opt-in status will remain in effect until the consumer explicitly unsubscribes.
A Decision step in the Advanced Welcome journey splits consumers into two tracks -- those that have confirmed their opt-in, and those that haven't. Unconfirmed consumers will receive the "Confirm Opt-in" Email message, and then the platform waits. During this wait period (default of 14 days), if the consumer confirms their opt-in, the journey moves them to the "Second Opt-In Confirmed" track, which then proceeds to a "Welcome Email" Campaign. If the consumer has not confirmed by the end of the wait period, they are removed from the journey, and the journey ends. The platform characterizes this outcome as "negative," since the desired goal (completing the double opt-in) was not achieved.
Consumers who have confirmed their desire to opt-in will receive the "Welcome Email" message. This email is intended to encourage the consumer to interact with your brand or to make a purchase. The message doesn't necessarily have to include any special promotions or discounts, but could instead showcase the best of your products and services, which you believe might interest the consumer. Or, it could highlight your flagship products, or just the items on sale that day, or even any items the consumer may have browsed on your site before sign-up.
After the "Welcome Email" message, the platform waits to see if the consumer engages with your brand (such as by making a purchase, for example). If not, the journey grants the consumer an Offer to further incentivize them. Using a Decision step, the platform splits consumers into two tracks based on their channel preference -- Email or SMS Text. The Offer is presented to the consumer via the channel that they are most likely to respond to; if they have SMS as an option, the platform defaults to using the SMS channel on the assumption that SMS messages (in comparison to emails) are more readily consumed by users.
After the "Offer" message, the platform again waits to see if the consumer makes a purchase. After all of the messages and wait times have completed, and the consumer still hasn't made a purchase, the platform removes them from the journey, and records that no purchase was made. The platform characterizes this outcome as "neutral" since the main goal of the journey (get the consumer to double opt-in) was achieved, but the additional goal of further engagement with your brand was not.
If at any point the consumer makes a purchase, the platform will record that the goal was achieved, and then remove the consumer from the journey. The platform characterizes this outcome as "positive."
For additional details, please see:
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