TIP: Journeys can be used for so many things, from sending contacts on rich engaging journeys, keeping your sales team in the loop with CRM updates, profiling data and creating dynamic audience segments. It helps to have mapped your journey out on paper first.
To start go to the Journey Manager section in the left menu:
Once you arrive at the page you will see all of your existing journeys. You can search for a journey using the search bar. Or filter for journey statuses using the 'sort by' function. The 'New Journey' button is used to create a new journey.
TIP: You can duplicate your journeys if you have a similar flow in mind to save you some time!
Each journey will be shown with a summary like the version below. Showing the Title, Created and Modified dates and the journey Running Status.
Lets start by clicking 'New Journey'. This will trigger a pop up so you can decide upon your journey settings.
In the Journey Name input, please specify a name to help you understand what the journey does.
TIP: Develop a naming convention to help you categorise your journeys. Start with the audience segment and then its job. I.e. New Customers - Welcome - Emails+SMS.
NOTE: The journey does not need to be unique, however if 2 journeys have the same name it may make it harder for you to edit the correct one.
Once you have provided a name, next move to the Enrolment Settings, this is determining how often a user can be picked to go on the same journey.
The First option will Add the contacts the first time they meet the start audience criteria. Meaning that users will only ever be able to run through the journey once using their email address as the unique identifier.
The Second option will add the users each time they meet the start audience condition. This means a user may run through the same journey many times, as long as they meet the minimum time lapse since they were last added to the journey, or last completed the journey.
NOTE: This is designed to work in tandem with the Start audience condition, for example, if you have a single journey for all new customers but want to send different messages for different types of products purchased, you can set a filter within the start audience to allow the contacts back into the journey but make a decision as to which route they go down. Preventing them from getting the same message again.
Once you are happy hit Save.
The page will open with a blank journey canvas ready to start.
Your first step will be to create a Start Audience:
NOTE: All journeys must have a Start Audience and End condition defined to be activated.
Drag the Start Audience block anywhere on to your canvas:
TIP: Top left is easiest for big journeys.
As soon as you drop the Start Audience, the Start Audience editor will appear.
You can rename the Start Audience component by typing a new name in. To save it, click anywhere off the text bar.
If you have asked your Force24 account manager for help defining a start audience, they will have created a query for you and saved it in the Saved Queries drop down.
Once you select a saved query, you will be presented with new options to the right of the drop down.
Append will add the saved query to whatever query you have already built on the query canvas.
Clear and Set will remove any queries you have built and replace with the saved query.
Update query will save any changes you have made to the 'saved' query and overwrite with the amendments.
Rename will allow you to rename the selected query.
Delete will delete the query from your saved library.
You can build whatever queries you like using the query canvas
Please make sure you understand the principals of "AND" "OR" and "NOT" before building your own start audience.
Once you have built your query, you can test your results quickly by pressing the rotating arrows icon in the bottom left of the pop up.'
This will show how many contacts meet the criteria you have set on the query. If you change the query you can refresh the count by clicking the icon again. Total Contacts represents the number of Active contacts in your account.
Once you are happy with your start audience you can click Save.
You will then see your start audience on the canvas.
You may now drag any component you wish on to the canvas from the Components list.
Send Email
Drag and drop your send email component on to the canvass. As soon as you let go the Email Stage pop up will appear.
TIP: Its a good idea to first off rename your email stage - this will make it easier later on when reporting.
You may select the template you wish to send from the Template selection on the right. Once you have selected one your selection will populate above.
You may specify a subject line, within your subject line you may use place holders to insert dynamic values like Name or Company name.
Standard Personalisation Fields
[CustomerId], [ContactId], [Salutation], [FirstName], [LastName], [MiddleName], [ContactName], [AddressLine1], [AddressLine2], [AddressLine3], [AddressCity], [AddressCounty], [AddressPostCode], [JobTitle], [CompanyName], [ContactEmail], [Aux1], [Aux2], [Aux3], [Aux4], [Aux5], [Aux6], [Aux7], [Aux8], [Aux9], [Aux10]
You may also add place holders specifically for your data set using contact extension fields.
You may change the From Name, this is the name that is displayed in the email browser as being the contact that send it.
Reply address', this is the address that our system will forward all legitimate replies to. This address will not be seen by the recipients.
Send Server, this selection will be either based on the brand you are sending on behalf of or the profile of the server for cold data. Your Force24 account manager can help you here if you are not sure.
Audience type, this will be either Transactional or Marketing, the Transactional status should only be used if you are sending emails as part of a buying process. This status will ignore the recipients subscription preferences. So if your journey is a delivery notification journey you can still send an email to a user that has opted out of your marketing campaigns.
Once you are happy and all sections are complete you will be able to click Save.
Send SMS
Drag and drop your send SMS component on to the canvass. As soon as you let go the SMS Stage pop up will appear.
Its a good idea to first off rename your SMS stage - this will make it easier later on when reporting.
You will need to enter a From Name, this is the name that will appear in the users mobile device rather than a phone number. It is worth bearing in mind that there is a character limit of 11.
NOTE: You can not enable the REPLY function if you elect to send from a NAME, instead it will send from the designated number.
You can begin to type your SMS message using the token replacement fields available.
Standard Personalisation Fields
[CustomerId], [ContactId], [Salutation], [FirstName], [LastName], [MiddleName], [ContactName], [AddressLine1], [AddressLine2], [AddressLine3], [AddressCity], [AddressCounty], [AddressPostCode], [JobTitle], [CompanyName], [ContactEmail], [Aux1], [Aux2], [Aux3], [Aux4], [Aux5], [Aux6], [Aux7], [Aux8], [Aux9], [Aux10]
To enter a URL that you wish to track use the [url=] function
URL placeholders [url=http(s)://someurl.co.uk] as in [url=http://force24.co.uk].
This will be displayed in the message as http://sm5.co/xX2Xx where the xX2Xx will be replaced by a random tracing code. This allows is to embed long links into an SMS and still set the tracking cookie.
Opt out
You may place an opt out link in your SMS by using the placeholder [OptOut] or <OptOut>. This will provide an sm5.co shortened link to the users contact preference centre. Please also remember to prefix this placeholder with some copy to denote what the link is for.
E.G. "Stop [OptOut]" will become "Stop http://sm5.co/xxxxx" or "opt out [OptOut]" will become opt out http://sm5.co/xxxxx
The preview function will replace the valid place holders with a preview of the data. This will help you make sure you have it correct.
Once again you will need to select an Audience type:
Audience type, this will be either Transactional or Marketing, the Transactional status should only be used if you are sending SMS as part of a buying process. This status will ignore the recipients subscription preferences. So if your journey is a delivery notification journey you can still send an SMS to a user that has opted out of your marketing campaigns.
Split
If you would like to split test your audience you can create new branches using the split function.
Drag and drop your split component on to the canvass. As soon as you let go the Split Stage pop up will appear.
Its a good idea to first off rename your Split stage - this will make it easier later on when reporting.
You may split your journey into as many branches as you wish by selecting the Add button. Once you have created all the branches you require, simply confirm the % of traffic you would like to send down each branch.
If you make a mistake with your % calculations the system will alert you and prevent you from Saving.
Once you are happy and all sections are complete you will be able to click Save.
Set Delay
If you would like to set a delay on your journey to allow time for the user to respond you can use the Set Delay component.
Drag and drop the Set Delay component on to the canvas. As soon as you let go the Set Delay pop up will appear.
You can then select the purpose of your delay component.
Delay For: The delay for selection allows you to choose to delay contacts for a set number of days, hours, or minutes.
Not Before: The Not before would allow you to select a Date and Time you would like to hold contacts until. (It is worth bearing in mind that if a contact meets the 'not before' after the date specified, they would run straight past and ignore this criteria.)
Send Windows: The send windows allow you to dictate the number of contacts you would like to push through per hour, the days of the week, and times of days that you would like the contacts to run through the journey at. This allows you to 'throttle' your email journey send.
Make Decision
The Make Decision component will allow you to make a decision and branch your journey to send users on different routes.
Drag and drop the Make Decision component on to the canvas. As soon as you let go the Make Decision pop up will appear.
Its a good idea to first off rename your Make Decision stage - this will make it easier later on when reporting.
Decisions are simple YES/NO outcomes. You can connect many decisions together to make more complex decisions. If the user meets the condition they will be sent to the YES branch but if they do not they will be sent to the NO branch.
You have a choice when making a decision, to perform the decision instantly or after a delay.
Instant - this will perform the search on the contact the instant it is passed to the Make Decision stage. This works well when you are branching on a fixed aspect of the contact, such as contacts based in a specific region or a customer status. It will not work well if you are waiting for a contact to perform an action like open an email.
Delayed - This works more like a time out, by specifying a delay time, the platform will constantly check from the time in which the contact is passed to the stage for the contact meeting the search criteria. If after the delay time the contact does not match the criteria it will send the user to the No branch. For example if your previous stage is an email and you would like to send users that click the email to another email stage saying "HI - thanks for clicking". The people that didn't click should be sent to an SMS stage. You would use the delayed decision, and set the delay time to be long enough for the users to receive the email and click it (say 3 days). The moment the user detects a click it will progress the user to the YES branch irrespective of the delay time, all users that did not click after the 3 days would be sent to the NO branch.
TIP: If you would like all users to be processed at exactly the same time you can combine the delay with a make decision with an instant query
If you have asked your Force24 account manager for help defining a Make Decision query on the query canvas, they can create a query for you and saved it in the Saved Queries drop down.
The parameters to select from are available in the query canvass dropdown:
The parameters are categorised:
Common - These are fields that apply to the contact, such as name address and activities the user may have performed
Journey Stage - This refers to the specifics around a contacts enrollment centered around a specific journey stage
Journey - This refers to activities and enrollments within journeys. This helps define journey priorities
Journey Stage activities - The actions the contact has taken specifically within a stage i.e. Opened a stage.
Action
The Action component will allow you to perform an action on a contact like "Add to a marketing list" or "Remove from a marketing list"
Drag and drop the Action component on to the canvas. As soon as you let go the Action pop up will appear.
Its a good idea to first off rename your Action stage - this will make it easier later on when reporting.
Add to Marketing List
When you select to Add to Marketing List, you will be presented with a new pop up allowing you to select a marketing list to add contacts to, if you wish to create a new list you can begin to type a new list name, if the name is unique and does not already appear in your marketing lists the system will create a new list for you.
Once you are happy click Confirm to save the Action stage.
Remove from Marketing List
When you select to Remove from Marketing List, you will be presented with a new pop up allowing you to select a marketing list to remove contacts from (you cant create a new list from here).
Once you are happy click Confirm to save the Action stage.
End Journey
NOTE: Its is a good idea to have an End Journey Stage for each branch you create. This will help with reporting later on.
Drag and drop the End Journey component on to the canvass. As soon as you let go the End Journey pop up will appear.
You can rename the End Journey component and click Save.
Delete a Stage
To delete a stage from the journey you can do so by selecting the cog icon in the top right corner of the stage icon, and then selecting 'delete'.
Validation
The journey builder has a validation section alerting you of problems in your journey.
If you click on the Validation Error it will highlight in Yellow the component causing an issue.
The component will also display an exclamation mark in the top right corner.
When you have corrected all validation errors the journey builder will confirm everything is OK.
Connecting the Journey Stages
In order for the journey to work you must connect up the stages to give the journey its order.
The direction of the arrows on the connecting lines denoted the direction of the journey.
Turn your Journey On
Once you have completed your journey and all validation errors are complete you may start your journey.
Click the "Back to Manger" button in the top right corner.
This will take you back to the journey summary page. Where you will be able to Start the Journey
You will be prompted to confirm your request.
Once confirmed a status bar will show you the progress of the journey starting.
You are given confirmation in the Running Status field on the journey.
Congratulations, your journey is now running!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us through the live chat function available bottom right in your Force24 Platform. Our team is ready to assist you and provide support whenever you need it.