Journey Optimizer · versions and re-entrance
The ones already inside
The club welcome journey has been live for a few days. Legal asks to raise the discount from 10% to 15% and remove the third email. Marketing publishes a new version. Nobody asks what happens to the customers already inside, or to anyone who signs up again.
Example assumptions
Example journey, customers, days and discounts.
Four customers, 28 days
Who is in which version
Version 1: welcome, −10% after 7 days and a reminder after 14. Version 2: welcome and −15% after 7 days, with no reminder.
Versions and re-entrance
What happens to each of them
Publishing a new version does not move anyone. Whoever was already inside stays in theirs.
Architecture
Where it fits in the platform
Lifecycle of a profile inside a Journey Optimizer journey, in three lanes. The profile path, in five steps. One: it qualifies through an event or an audience. Two: it enters the published version, for example v1. Three: it waits in a Wait or a condition. Four: it receives channel actions, such as email, push or a custom action. Five: it reaches the end. Whoever entered v1 finishes in v1, because a profile cannot be in two versions of the same journey at once, and the new version only receives new entries. After the end: with re-entrance on, the profile waits the configured period, from 5 minutes to 90 days, and then qualifies again. Without re-entrance, a profile that has already been through does not enter again. Early exits: from the wait, the global timeout takes the profile out after 91 days. From the actions, stopping the journey takes it out immediately, along with everyone still inside. Closing the journey to new entrances, by contrast, lets those already inside finish.
The recommendation
Decide what happens to the ones already inside before publishing, not after
Publishing a new version does not move anyone. If the change has to reach everyone, it needs planning.
- 01
Classify the change
If it is an improvement, the new version is enough. If it is legal, pricing or a mistake, the previous version cannot keep sending: stop it or remove the people inside.
- 02
Re-entrance based on duration
A customer cannot be in the same journey twice at once, in any version. If she can come back, the re-entrance wait period has to fit how long the journey lasts.
- 03
Content that does not depend on the version
Discounts and conditions in fragments or in Decisioning, not written into each email. Changing them needs no new version and leaves nobody with old content.
- 04
Short journeys
Every customer leaves a journey after 91 days at most. A long journey piles up live versions and people stuck with old content.