Get started with journeys jo-general-principle
Adobe Journey Optimizer empowers you to create personalized, multistep customer journeys that adapt in real-time to your audience’s behavior and needs. Using an intuitive drag-and-drop canvas, you can orchestrate messages and actions across multiple channels, leveraging contextual data and audience targeting for maximum impact.
This guide provides a clear roadmap to help you understand journey fundamentals, choose the right journey type for your use case, and confidently design journeys that deliver meaningful, timely customer experiences.
What are journeys?
Journeys are automated, multistep customer experiences that orchestrate personalized interactions across channels in response to customer behavior, business events, or scheduled campaigns.
Use Journey Optimizer to:
- Build real-time orchestration use cases using contextual data stored in events or data sources
- Design multistep advanced scenarios that respond dynamically to customer behavior and business events
- Deliver 1:1 personalized experiences at scale across email, push, SMS, in-app, web, and more
➡️ Ready to start building? Create your first journey in 5 minutes.
Journeys vs Campaigns: When to use each journeys-vs-campaigns-intro
Adobe Journey Optimizer offers three approaches to reach customers: Journeys (1:1 real-time orchestration), Campaigns (simple batch or API-triggered delivery), and Orchestrated Campaigns (batch canvas workflows with multi-entity data).
Quick decision:
- Use Journeys for multi-step, behavior-driven experiences where each customer progresses at their own pace
- Use Action/API Campaigns for simple, scheduled or triggered message delivery to audiences
- Use Orchestrated Campaigns for complex batch workflows requiring multi-entity segmentation and exact pre-send counts
Choose your journey type journey-types
Adobe Journey Optimizer supports four journey types, each designed for different entry mechanisms and business scenarios:
- Unitary journeys: Real-time, event-triggered experiences (order confirmations, welcome emails)
- Read Audience journeys: Scheduled batch communications to audience segments (newsletters, promotional campaigns)
- Audience Qualification journeys: Real-time responses to audience membership changes (VIP upgrades, re-engagement)
- Business event journeys: Business conditions affecting multiple customers (inventory alerts, flash sales)
Build with the journey designer journey-designer
The journey designer is your visual canvas for creating customer experiences. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can orchestrate every step of your journey without writing code.
What you can do in the designer:
Define entry points
Choose how customers enter: through an event, audience segment, or audience qualification.
Send messages
Use built-in channel actions for email, push, SMS/MMS, in-app, web, and more—all designed in Journey Optimizer.
Add logic & conditions
Branch your journey based on profile attributes, audience membership, or real-time events.
Leverage data
Use contextual data from events, Adobe Experience Platform, or third-party API services.
Connect external systems
Create custom actions to integrate third-party systems for sending messages or triggering workflows.
Add orchestration activities
Use wait times, jumps, profile updates, and audience management to create sophisticated flows.
➡️ Hands-on learning: Watch the journey designer video or explore end-to-end use cases
Your journey creation workflow workflow
Building successful journeys follows a clear, repeatable process. Here’s your step-by-step workflow:
1. Plan → 2. Design → 3. Test → 4. Publish → 5. Monitor → 6. Optimize
1. Plan your journey plan
Before opening the designer, clarify your objectives:
- What’s the goal? (e.g., onboard new customers, re-engage inactive users)
- Who’s the audience? (specific segment, event-driven individuals)
- Which journey type fits? (See journey types above)
- What channels will you use? (email, push, SMS, etc.)
2. Design in the canvas design
Use the journey designer to build your flow:
- Set entry conditions - Define how profiles enter (event, audience, qualification)
- Add orchestration logic - Include wait times, conditions, and decision points
- Configure messages - Design your communications or leverage existing templates
- Set up actions - Configure built-in or custom actions to execute
- Define exit criteria - Specify when and how profiles complete the journey
Learn to use the journey designer →
3. Test before going live test
Always test your journey to catch issues before customers experience them:
- Use test mode to simulate the journey with test profiles
- Use dry run to preview journey execution without affecting real data or sending messages
- Verify all conditions, messages, and actions work as expected
- Check timing, data flows, and personalization
4. Publish your journey publish
Once testing is complete, publish to make your journey live:
- Review final settings and properties
- Publish to activate for real customers
- Note: Live journeys can be stopped but not edited (you must create a new version)
5. Monitor performance monitor
Track how your journey performs in the real world:
- View journey reports and analytics
- Monitor entry, completion, and error rates
- Set up alerts for critical issues
Monitor and report → | Set up alerts →
6. Optimize and iterate optimize
Use insights to improve:
- Analyze engagement metrics and conversion rates
- Test send-time optimization
- Create new journey versions with improvements
- Use AI-powered recommendations
Optimize your journeys → | Send-time optimization →
➡️ Ready to start? Create your first journey now →
Real-world use cases use-cases
Learn from practical examples that demonstrate how to apply journey concepts to solve common marketing challenges:
Welcome new subscribers
When a customer subscribes to your service, trigger a welcome journey that encourages them to complete onboarding steps.
Send-time optimization
Use AI to deliver emails when each customer is most likely to engage, maximizing open and click rates.
Ramp up deliveries
Gradually increase message volume to warm up your sending reputation and avoid deliverability issues.
Target by weekday
Send different content based on the day of the week customers enter your journey for better relevance.
Multi-channel campaigns
Orchestrate seamless experiences across email, push, SMS, and web channels in a single journey.
All use cases
Explore the complete library of journey use cases with step-by-step implementations.
Explore journey capabilities capabilities
As you get more comfortable with journey building, explore these powerful capabilities to create sophisticated customer experiences:
Advanced Expressions
Build dynamic conditions and personalization using the expression editor for data manipulation and complex logic.
Time zone management
Handle global audiences with automatic time zone adjustments and optimal send times.
Test mode & dry run
Validate journeys with test profiles before going live, and preview execution without affecting real data.
Copy to sandbox
Duplicate journeys across sandboxes to streamline testing and deployment workflows.
Tags & organization
Use tags to categorize and filter journeys for better management at scale.
Throughput control
Limit message throughput to manage sending reputation and avoid overwhelming systems.
Learn by watching video
Get a visual introduction to journey components and learn the basics of building journeys in the canvas:
➡️ Want more videos? Explore journey video tutorials
Common questions common-questions
Adobe Journey Optimizer offers three approaches:
-
Journeys: 1:1 real-time orchestration where each profile travels through steps at their own pace. Best for behavior-driven, multi-step experiences with conditional logic (e.g., onboarding, cart abandonment).
-
Campaigns (Action & API-triggered): Simple message delivery to audiences, executing simultaneously to all profiles either on schedule or via API trigger. Best for promotional campaigns, newsletters, transactional messages.
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Orchestrated Campaigns: Multi-step batch workflows with complex segmentation using relational data (profiles + products/stores/bookings). All profiles processed together with exact pre-send counts. Best for seasonal promotions, product launches, campaigns requiring multi-entity data.
Key difference: Journeys maintain individual customer state for real-time actions; Action/API Campaigns deliver simple messages in batch; Orchestrated Campaigns provide batch workflow canvas with multi-entity segmentation capabilities.
➡️ More questions? View complete Journey FAQ with 40+ detailed answers
Need help? help
Quick links for common tasks
- Create your first journey - Step-by-step guide for beginners
- Journey FAQ - Common questions answered
- Troubleshooting - Diagnose and fix issues
- Error codes reference - Understand error messages
- Guardrails & limitations - Technical boundaries and best practices
Get notified about issues
Set up journey alerts to receive real-time notifications when journeys encounter errors or unusual patterns.
Additional resources
- Journey management hub - Tools for filtering, optimization, and profile management
- Journey activities reference - Complete guide to all activity types
- Troubleshooting execution issues - Debug journey execution problems
- Troubleshooting inbound activities - Fix entry and qualification issues
Ready to build your first journey? Get started now →