Configuring Wait Steps
Duration
Set how long to wait:Available Units
How Waits Work
When a contact reaches a wait step, Trackly records when the wait expires, holds the contact until then, and advances them automatically.Wait times are accurate to within a few seconds — a “wait 1 hour” may fire up to 5 seconds late.
Safety Limits
To prevent runaway journeys, the following limits are enforced:- 1,000 max step executions per enrollment — if a contact exceeds this, the enrollment is terminated
- 30-day max enrollment duration — enrollments older than 30 days are automatically expired
Best Practices
Spacing Recommendations
Avoid Over-Messaging
Too many messages too quickly leads to opt-outs:Consider Subscriber Fatigue
After 5-7 messages, engagement typically drops. Either:- End the journey
- Increase wait times significantly
- Transition to regular campaigns
Wait Until Step
Thewait_until step type is different from a regular wait. Instead of pausing for a duration, it holds the contact until a specific time of day:
Wait Until times are evaluated in UTC. The backend does not currently convert to the contact’s local timezone for Wait Until evaluation. Plan your times accordingly.
wait_until when you want messages to arrive at a consistent time of day regardless of when the contact entered the journey or completed the previous step.
Time-of-Day Considerations
Regular wait steps don’t account for time of day. A message sent at 3 AM may not be ideal. Current behavior: Wait steps pause for a duration from whenever the previous step completed. Tip: Use await_until step to ensure messages are delivered at an appropriate time of day (e.g., wait until 9:00 AM before sending).
Wait + Campaign Interaction
Contacts in journeys may also receive scheduled campaigns. Use frequency capping to prevent overlap:Editing Wait Duration
You can change wait duration on active journeys. The new duration applies only to contacts who enter the wait step after the edit — contacts already waiting keep their original resume time.Examples
Short Welcome (Aggressive)
Standard Welcome
Slow Nurture
Monitoring Wait Steps
Wait steps don’t have their own dashboard metrics. Per-step metrics appear on Send Message steps only; use the journey’s Enrollment Stats (Total Enrolled, Active, Completed) to track overall progress.Troubleshooting
Contacts stuck in wait
Contacts stuck in wait
If a contact is stuck past its wait time by more than a minute, open a support ticket.
Waits not accurate
Waits not accurate
Waits are accurate to within a few seconds.
Want time-of-day control
Want time-of-day control
Use the
wait_until step type to hold contacts until a specific HH:MM time before proceeding.Next Steps
Journey Examples
Common patterns
Building Journeys
Full setup guide