Journeys and steps

A campaign's journey is what it sends and when: a series of steps each enrolled person moves through. Open it on the campaign's Journey tab.

Step types#

Choose Add a step here between steps, or Add a step at the end. Each step can be named (Name this step), duplicated, removed or switched off — a switched-off step is walked straight past but keeps its content, which is useful while you test.

Email steps#

• Start from a message copies in one of your saved messages. Editing it in the step never changes the saved message.
• Write in Write mode for plain paragraphs — best for one-to-one outreach — or Design mode for a laid-out email with text, banner, image, button, divider and spacer blocks. Links are made clickable either way, so clicks are still tracked.
• Merge tags — insert the person's name, company and other fields with Insert a merge tag. Tags are filled in at send time for each person. Values are escaped, so an imported name can never turn into markup.
• Draft with Donna — say what the message is for, who it is going to and the tone; Donna writes a first version into the composer. Nothing is sent, and it is yours to change.
• Preview shows the message as it compiles, and Send a test sends it to you.

Test a second version (A/B)#

Choose Test a second version against this one, write Version B's subject and/or message, and set the share that gets version B. Metrics then show how each version performed.

While this step is running#

Choose what stops a person's journey at this step:

• Stop on reply (on by default) — the moment someone replies, Reach stops following up.
• Stop on open and stop on click — for campaigns where any engagement should hand over to a person.

Decision steps#

A decision compares something about each person and sends them down the yes or no path. It can ask, for example, whether their reply read a certain way, whether a field matches a value (job_title equals Director), what their eligibility is, or whether they are on a particular list.

A decision must say what it compares — Reach will not save one that has nothing to compare, and at send time an undecidable question takes the no path and records why. Decision targets are the steps themselves, not their position, so reordering the journey never rewires a decision.

Task steps#

A task step creates a real Unobits task: what needs doing, who does it (a named person, or whoever owns the workspace), when it is due, and anything they should know. The person's name, address and campaign are added underneath automatically. The owner is notified.

Timing and the sending window#

Waits count from when the previous step ran. Sends only go out inside the sending window (set per workspace and per mailbox) and within the sender's daily limit — a message due outside the window waits for it rather than being dropped. See Sending safety and limits.

Playbooks#

To reuse a journey, open the campaign's Setup and choose Save as playbook. New campaigns can start from a playbook in the wizard. A playbook is a copy: editing it later never changes a running campaign, and editing a campaign never rewrites the playbook.