Our frequently asked questions about customer journeys, segments and deliverability in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (Marketing)
When do customer journeys start sending emails?
Often users set up customer journeys (outbound marketing) and nothing happens. A customer journey starts sending emails when:
The start time has passed
It’s easy to miss this setting in the General tab of the customer journey page. Also be careful as the default start time is 2 hours in the future. Also make sure the timezone settings are correct.
The contact enters your audience segment
Every customer journey starts with an audience segment. When a contact’s details change so they meet the criteria for the segment, they will move through the customer journey. If the contact is in the segment as the customer journey goes live, they’ll receive the email as soon as the customer journey starts. If they enter the segment at a later time, they will start the journey soon after.
If a contact appears in multiple segments in a customer journey, will they receive multiple emails?
No, a contact will only travel through a customer journey once. The remains the case even if they match the criteria for a new segment in the journey.
The only exception to this is recurring journeys, which allow contacts to move through a customer journey repeated times
Also the new Journeys feature in Real-time marketing offer more options for repeating customer flows.
How do I resend an email to a contact whose email address bounced
If you’ve sent an email out using a customer journey and a contact’s email address bounces because the address is wrong, you’ll want to resend the email to the correct address. If you later find a better address and update the contact record, the email will not automatically be resent.
To send the email again, you’ll have to create a new manual segment for the fixed email addresses, and a new customer journey to send the email.
How do I send emails to accounts?
Dynamics Marketing does not support sending emails directly to accounts, so you’ll have to create a segment which contains contacts, not accounts.
You have two options
Send emails to everyone at an account
Set up your segment like this
Send emails only to the primary contact at the account
Set up your segment like this
How do I remove contacts from a Customer Journey?
Once contacts have been added to a journey they remain in that journey. This is regardless of whether their data changes their criteria for inclusion on the journey.
For example: You have a segment which triggers a customer journey. The segment’s criteria is “if the contact is not a customer”. The customer journey sends out regular emails. If at some point a contact becomes a customer, they will continue to receive emails, even if their data changes the criteria.
So, the best way to remove a contact from a customer journey is to add them to a suppression segment.
In the example above, you would create a dynamic segment with the criteria “if the contact is a customer”. This would then stop anyone who becomes a customer at any point in the journey from continuing.
We recommend setting up a suppression segment for all customer journeys as a default. It’s very low effort and makes removing people lots easier
How can I track the progress of a customer journey?
- Access the Customer Journeys area in Dynamics 365 Marketing.
- Locate the specific customer journey you want to track and open it.
- In the customer journey editor, navigate to the Reporting tab.
- Here, you can find valuable information about the journey’s progress.
- The “Overview” section provides a summary of the number of contacts who entered and completed the journey.
Use this data to assess how contacts are moving through the journey.
Regularly monitor the progress to ensure contacts are progressing through the journey as expected.
By tracking the progress, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your customer journey strategy and make any necessary adjustments.
By following these steps, you can easily track the progress of your customer journeys within Dynamics 365 Marketing, allowing you to stay informed about how contacts are advancing through the journey and ensuring it is successfully reaching your target audience.
How can I test and preview customer journeys before launching them?
- Set up a test segment in Dynamics 365 Marketing that includes a small group of contacts or a test contact you can use to simulate the journey.
- Make a copy of the customer journey you want to test to ensure that any changes you make during testing do not affect the original journey.
- Customize the duplicated journey as needed, making sure that it reflects the changes you want to test.
- Modify the triggers and delays within the duplicated journey to speed up the testing process. For example, reduce the waiting times between steps to accelerate the journey.
- Temporarily remove any real-time actions or delays that might occur during the testing phase. This helps speed up the testing process and allows you to focus on evaluating the core steps and actions within the journey.
- Activate the duplicated journey specifically created for testing purposes. Make sure that the original journey remains deactivated to prevent any unintended effects on your live audience.
- Check the progress of the test journey. See how the contacts move through the journey and check that the desired actions and emails are triggered correctly.
- Iterate the testing process by deactivating the test journey, making further adjustments as needed, and reactivating it for additional testing rounds until you are satisfied with the results.
What happens if a contact’s details change during a customer journey?
If a contact’s details change while they are already on a customer journey in Dynamics 365 Marketing, the following takes place:
- The contact’s progress continues based on the criteria and conditions set within the customer journey.
- If the changes in the contact’s details cause them to meet the criteria for a different segment within the journey, they may move into that segment.
- The contact will receive any emails or actions associated with the segment they are currently in.
- However, the contact’s journey will not be affected by changes in their details once they have entered the journey. This means that even if their data changes and no longer meets the criteria for the segment, they will still progress through the journey as per the original conditions.
- To remove a contact from a customer journey based on changes in their details, it is recommended to add them to a suppression segment. This segment should have criteria that exclude contacts who no longer meet the desired conditions.
- Creating a suppression segment ensures that anyone who becomes ineligible based on updated information will no longer continue receiving emails or actions from the journey.
