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Welcome Journeys are automated multi-step sequences triggered when contacts join your lists. Onboard new subscribers with a series of timed messages.

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What is a Welcome Journey?

A Welcome Journey is an automated workflow that:
  • Triggers when a contact joins a list
  • Sends messages at defined intervals
  • Can branch based on contact behavior
  • Runs independently of scheduled campaigns

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Key Concepts

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Enrollment

When a contact meets trigger conditions, they’re enrolled in the journey:
  • Creates an enrollment that tracks their progress through the steps
  • One active enrollment per journey per list membership; a contact who completes a journey can enroll again

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Steps

Journeys consist of sequential steps:

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Triggers

Define when contacts enter the journey:
  • list — Contact is added to a specific list
  • custom_field — A custom field on the contact matches a condition
  • any — Any new contact (no additional conditions)

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Priority

Journeys have a priority field that determines execution order when multiple journeys could apply to the same contact. Higher numbers take precedence — a journey with priority 10 wins over priority 5.

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Safety Limits

Journeys enforce safety limits:
  • 1,000 max step executions per enrollment
  • 30-day max enrollment duration — enrollments older than 30 days are automatically expired

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TCPA Compliance

Journey messages respect TCPA quiet hours (8 AM - 9 PM local time) for US numbers. Messages scheduled outside the window are delayed to the next valid send time. Transactional messages can be exempt.

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Start Step

A journey starts at its start step. In the dashboard editor the start step is always the first step in the list — moving a different step to the top makes it the start step. Through the API, startStepId sets the entry point explicitly and is honored wherever that step sits in the list. When creating a journey, omitting startStepId defaults the entry point to the first step. When updating a journey, omitting startStepId leaves the current start step unchanged as long as it’s still among the submitted steps; if the update removes that step from the list, the request is rejected with an error instead of falling back to another step.

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Creating a Journey

  1. Go to Journeys
  2. Click Create Journey
  3. Configure trigger conditions
  4. Add steps
  5. Activate the journey

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Journey States

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Use Cases

Onboarding

Welcome new subscribers and introduce your brand

Education

Teach contacts about your products over time

Re-engagement

Win back contacts who haven’t purchased

Nurturing

Build relationship before asking for a sale

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Example: 3-Message Welcome

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Journey vs Campaign

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Best Practices

Begin with 2-3 steps. Add complexity as you learn what works.
Space messages appropriately. 1-3 days between sends is typical.
What action do you want? Click, purchase, engagement? Design toward it.
Review journey performance and optimize underperforming steps.

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Next Steps

Building Journeys

Step-by-step guide

Conditions

Add branching logic

Wait Steps

Configure timing

Examples

Common patterns