This Help system uses the terms configuration and authoring to describe the two methods of editing a journey.
Configuration refers to the process of associating supporting assets (such as Campaigns or Segments) to steps in the journey flow. For example, if you have a Send Email step in the flow, you must configure the step by selecting the Messaging Campaign associated with this step. Configuration is required for all journeys, even if you're using a standard journey.
Authoring refers to the process of editing the flow of events in the journey, such as adding or removing steps, drawing connection lines between steps, and so forth. If you're using an "out of the box" standard journey, you may not need to do any authoring; you can simply configure the steps in the standard journey and publish it. However, you need to author the journey if you want to make any changes to the steps that comprise the journey, or if you're building a new journey from scratch.
This Help topic focuses on how to configure a standard journey. For more information on authoring, please see Self Service Journeys.
This section describes the EDP assets needed for the Winback journey that you are responsible for creating. Other EDP assets (such as Activity Types and Triggers) will be setup for you by your Services team.
The default Winback journey uses two Segments -- Winback Entry and Has Mobile App.
The Winback Entry Segment selects consumers who meet your definition of "disengaged," so they can be added to the journey. The Segment feature in EDP allows you to define "disengaged" using a variety of consumer behaviors, such as link clicks, emails opens, log-ins, purchases, and so forth. For example, you could define the Segment logic to select consumers who haven't clicked a link within any Campaign sent in the last six months.
Note: The Winback Entry Segment does not need to be associated to a Decision step in the journey, as it technically occurs "outside" the journey.
The Has Mobile App Segment selects the consumers who have installed your branded app on their mobile device. A common configuration for this Segment is to use a "has app installed" Attribute to store whether a consumer has installed the app, then to query that Attribute in the Segment and select consumers where "has app installed" is "true." Those consumers selected by this Segment will receive the third and fourth communications in the journey via Push Notification; other consumers not selected by the Segment will receive these communications via Email instead.
To view your Segments, select Audiences > Segments from the EDP navigation menu.
Note: This topic does not go into details on how to build Segments. For information on building Segments in EDP, please see the EDP Online Help or speak to your Technical Services team.
After you create and publish the Segment, you must associate it with the Decision step in the journey itself. A Decision step allows you to apply a logical condition to the journey to split consumers into a "yes" path and a "no" path. For more details on this process, see "Journey Configuration" below.
If a consumer progresses through the Winback journey without confirming their desire to opt-in with your brand, the journey will set a flag in a People Attribute indicating that they have lapsed.
To view the Attributes defined within your database, select Definitions > People Attributes from the EDP navigation menu.
Your Technical Services team will set up a default "lapsed" system Attribute used to store this flag. If you intend to use this default system Attribute in the journey, no further configuration is necessary. If you intend to use another custom Attribute to store the lapsed status, you must associate this custom Attribute with an Action step in the journey itself. For more details on this process, see "Journey Configuration" below.
The Winback journey communicates with consumers by means of Email and Push Notification Campaigns created and deployed from Cheetah Messaging.
Note: This document does not go into details on how to create Campaigns. For more details on this process, please see the Cheetah Messaging Online Help system, or speak with your Technical Services team.
When creating the Email Campaigns, they should be built with the following configurations:
Use EDP or a Messaging table as the data source for the Campaign.
Campaign Type is Event-triggered.
Using EDP as the data source provides additional functionality, such as integrated access to EDP Segments and Loyalty objects, at-send-time decisioning and optimization, and support for Machine Learning models.
When creating the Push Notification Campaigns, they should be built with the following configurations:
Use a Messaging table as the data source for the Campaign. Please note that the platform does not yet support Push Campaigns that use EDP as their data source.
Campaign Type is Event-triggered.
You can mix data sources within the journey. For example, you could use Email Campaigns that use EDP as their data source, and Push Campaigns that use a Messaging table as their data source.
The rest of the Campaign configuration follows a normal Campaign setup -- select your Sender Profile, enter the message content, optionally send proofs, then launch the Campaign.
After you create and launch the Campaigns for this journey, you must associate each of them with an Action step in the journey itself. For more details on this process, see "Journey Configuration" below.
Once you have built all of the necessary supporting assets, the final step in the journey setup is to create the journey, and assign the supporting assets to the appropriate steps within the journey. The standard Winback journey is available in the Journey Library; this journey serves as a template that you can configure as needed.
Create a New Standard Journey When creating a new journey, the platform allows you to either use an existing standard journey as the starting point, or you can create a new journey from scratch. To create a new journey based on one of the standard journey types:
Note: While you can create multiple instances of each of the standard journeys, only one instance can be published at a time. This restriction will be eliminated in a future release of Journey Designer. |
Within Journey Designer, an Action step refers to a process that the platform executes. The standard Winback journey comprises three Send Email and two Send Notification Action steps, all of which must be associated with a corresponding Cheetah Messaging Campaign. Lastly, the journey uses a Mark User as Lapsed Action step, which must be associated with the corresponding Attribute in the EDP database.
Assign a Campaign to an Action Step To associate a Campaign with an Action step:
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Assign "Lapsed" Attribute Note: The following steps are needed only if you intend to use something other than the default "lapsed" Attribute. If a journey fails to engage the consumer, then the platform sets a "lapsed" Attribute within the EDP database to "true." This flag can then be used when building Segments or when targeting Campaigns, to exclude consumers who aren't currently interested. To identify this Attribute:
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Remove an Action Step Instead of the default Action step, you can optionally remove an unneeded Action step. To remove an Action step:
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Replace an Action Step Existing Action steps in a journey can be replaced with alternatives in order to meet your business objectives. To swap an existing Action step with a different Action step type:
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A Decision step allows you to apply a logical condition to the journey to split consumers into two paths. In the context of the Winback journey, the platform uses the Has Mobile App Segment to split consumers into a Push Notification path or an Email path. Once your Segment is built, you must associate it to the Decision step in the journey.
Assign a Segment to a Decision Step To configure a Decision step:
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Note: Unlike most Segments used in Journey Designer, the Winback Entry Segment does not need to be associated to a Decision step in the journey, as it technically occurs "outside" the journey.
Within Journey Designer, a Wait step is used to allow an appropriate period of time to elapse before executing the next step in the journey. All of the Send Email and Send Notification Action steps within the default Winback journey are followed by a Wait step. After this wait time has elapsed, Journey Designer progresses the consumer to the next step. The duration of each of these wait times can be configured to meet your business requirements.
Define Wait Duration To configure a Wait step:
Note: Optionally, you can disable a Wait step if you want the journey to immediately move to the next step; simply set the wait time duration to zero.
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The final step in the journey configuration process is to save and publish the journey.
Save a Journey To save your journey, either:
When you save your journey, the platform validates that the journey flow is valid. If your journey encounters any of the following errors, a message is displayed indicating the nature of the issue. Correct the issue, and retry the save process.
Note: You can't publish a journey until you have successfully saved it.
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Publish a Journey When you publish a new journey, the platform changes its status from "Draft" to "Running." The journey is then considered live and in use, and the platform can begin adding consumers to it. To publish a journey:
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Publish Changes to a Journey Whenever you make changes to a live journey, you must re-publish the journey in order to apply the changes. When you re-publish a journey, all new consumers added to the journey from that point forward will use the new configuration. For consumers currently in the journey, only consumers that have not yet reached the modified step (or steps) will be affected by the new configuration. To publish changes:
Optionally, you can also discard the changes to roll-back to the "last published" iteration of the journey. To discard changes:
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