Platform · Journey Builder
Journey Builder: see every customer journey before it starts
With the Journey Builder of the PBM Campaign Platform, you build campaigns as a visible path: send, wait, branch, goal. Email, letter, insert, SMS, landing page, customer portal and app – in one journey, not in seven tools.
- Entry Segment: expiry ≤ 90 days
- Gate Consent per channel
- Channel branch
- Email Announcement
- Letter Announcement
- Wait for event LP login · 7 days
The problem
Why do campaigns that work on paper fizzle out?
Because there are too many gaps between concept and send. The target group is in Excel, the email in the newsletter tool, the letter at the lettershop. Nobody sees a customer’s whole path.
“Anyone who doesn’t respond never hears from us again.”
Wait for event and reminder are fixed steps in the journey.
“Customers without email consent simply drop out.”
The channel fallback sends them a letter.
“Two departments write to the same customer in the same week.”
Prioritisation decides which campaign takes precedence.
Basics
What is a Journey Builder?
A Journey Builder is a visual workspace on which you model a customer’s path through a campaign as a sequence of steps: send, wait, branch, goal. Unlike a mailing list, a journey responds to the behaviour of each individual customer.
In the Journey Builder of the PBM Campaign Platform, you drag nodes onto a canvas and connect them. Seven step types are enough for most campaigns:
Seven step types in the Journey Builder
| Step type | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Send | sends via email, letter, landing page or SMS | Announcement by email |
| Wait | pauses for a fixed time | 3 days |
| Wait for event | waits for a behaviour, with a deadline | Login on the landing page within 7 days |
| Condition | branches according to a rule | Lead score ≥ 60 |
| Task | notifies a person instead of the customer | Notify adviser |
| Goal | measures a micro or macro goal | Appointment booked |
| Exit | ends the journey with a reason | completed |
Before entry
What does the platform check before a customer enters a journey?
Four things. Only when a contact has passed all four gates does their journey begin. This ensures nobody ends up in a campaign twice, wrongly or without consent.
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Routing: Which journey fits? The dynamic segment assigns the contact to exactly one journey.
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Integrity & consent: Is the data complete? For which channels is there consent?
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Re-entry: Has the contact already been in this journey? Is a blocking period still running?
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Prioritisation: Are they currently in a campaign that is more important?
And what happens if Marlene Hoffmann has no email consent? Gate 2 doesn’t stop her. It sends her down a different path – more on this in the example below.
- 01 Routing checked
- 02 Integrity & consent checked
- 03 Re-entry checked
- 04 Prioritisation checked
Email: no consent
Letter
Fixed-term deposit expires 31 March
Campaign patterns
Which campaign patterns does the Journey Builder support?
Five basic patterns – from a one-off mailing to a fixed customer base to a campaign that never ends. All use dynamic segments: anyone who meets the condition today starts today.
One-off campaign
A fixed customer base is addressed once. Example: all customers whose fixed-term deposit expires in the first quarter.
Ongoing campaign, event-based
An event from your core system starts the journey immediately. Example: a claim comes in via API – the service journey begins.
Ongoing campaign, periodic
New contacts are added every month. Example: all contracts ending in 60 days.
Self-service registration
Customers sign up themselves on a landing page. The registration starts the journey.
Multi-landing page
Each email in the journey leads to its own landing page – for example information, calculator, appointment booking.
Example · Regionalbank Musterstadt eG
What does a journey look like in practice?
Example: Regionalbank Musterstadt eG addresses customers whose investment expires in the next 90 days. One of them is Marlene Hoffmann, 58. Her fixed-term deposit of €68,400 ends on 31 March.
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Entry: The segment “Expiry in no more than 90 days” captures Ms Hoffmann on the day she meets the condition.
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Gates: Email consent is missing; a letter is permitted. The channel switch chooses the letter.
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Letter: Ms Hoffmann receives a personal letter from her adviser Christina Reuter – with an access code for her landing page.
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Wait for event: The journey waits up to seven days for her login.
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Reminder: Without a login, a reminder letter follows. With a login, she sees her personal overview.
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Handover: When her lead score reaches 60 points, Ms Reuter receives a task: call Ms Hoffmann.
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Goal: A booked appointment is the primary goal. Once it is reached, the journey ends with “converted”.
- Entry Segment: expiry ≤ 90 days
- Gate Consent per channel
- Channel branch
- Email Announcement
- Letter Announcement
- Wait for event LP login · 7 days
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No
- Reminder Reminder email
- Reminder Reminder letter
- Exit completed
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Yes
- Landing page Personal overview
- Condition Lead score ≥ 60
- Task Notify adviser C. Reuter
- Goal · Macro Appointment booked
Properties
Wait for event: LP login (7 days)
- Duration
- 7 days · working days
- Reminder
- max. 2
- On timeout
- Reminder email / reminder letter
Measurable
How can you tell whether a journey is working?
By goals and exit reasons. Every journey has micro and macro goals, and every exit has exactly one reason. This turns “it didn’t work” into a statement you can analyse.
- Micro goals mark milestones, such as “landing page visited”. They do not end the journey.
- The primary macro goal ends the journey with the reason “converted”.
- The conversion is attributed to the last send before the actual conclusion – even if the notification from the core system arrives days later.
Exit reasons
- completed
- converted
- Goal reached
- Left segment
- Access lapsed
- displaced
- Error
Advisers
What role does the adviser play in the journey?
They are the sender and the recipient of tasks. The journey writes in the name of the responsible adviser – and hands over to them as soon as a customer is ready for a conversation.
- The responsible adviser is recorded at entry. If they leave, a defined substitution rule applies.
- If no adviser can be determined, nothing is sent – rather than sending with an empty sender.
- A task step reports warm contacts directly to the adviser.
- Advisers can remove individual customers of their own from a running campaign – permanently for that campaign.
Control
Who decides when a journey starts?
You do – with clear statuses and, if required, according to the four-eyes principle. Every campaign passes through fixed stages: Draft → Approved → Active ⇄ Paused → Ended → Archived.
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Approval
Roles, permissions & approvalsThe four-eyes principle at launch can be set for the whole installation, per list or per campaign.
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Prioritisation
Contact frequency managementIf two campaigns want the same customer, the one with higher priority wins. The other pauses until it ends.
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Withdrawal
If a customer withdraws their consent, all running journeys stop immediately. No other switch can override this.
Where does the Journey Builder fit for you?
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Journeys for banks
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Journeys for insurers
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Use case: reinvestment
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Use case: new customer onboarding
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Open the Trust Centre
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Basics article: personalisation
What becomes individual in each step: Personalisation →
Frequently asked questions about the Journey Builder
Do I need programming skills for the Journey Builder?
No. Journeys are created on a visual canvas from nodes and connections. You formulate conditions as rules on your contacts’ attributes, such as “lead score at least 60”. If you wish, the AI suggests the rule expression from a plain-language sentence and translates it back for checking.
Can a journey combine email and letter?
Yes. A journey can contain email, letter, insert, SMS, landing page, customer portal and app. A send step can carry a fallback chain: if email consent or the address is missing, a letter goes out automatically. Reminders are separate steps, such as a reminder letter after seven days without a response.
What happens when a customer withdraws their consent?
Withdrawal takes precedence over all other rules. The PBM Campaign Platform immediately stops all of the customer’s running journeys and blocks re-entry until consent is given again. No prioritisation and no other setting can override this.
Can the same customer enter a journey more than once?
You decide this per journey. The third check before entry verifies whether the contact has already been in this journey and whether a blocking period is running. This lets you start journeys that run only once per customer, or allow re-entry after a defined pause.
How does an event from our core system start a journey?
Via the REST API. Your core system reports an event, such as a claim or an approaching contract expiry. The platform picks up the contact, checks it at the four gates and starts the matching journey immediately. Such ongoing campaigns run continuously.
What happens if two campaigns want to address the same customer?
The campaign with higher priority wins. The lower-priority campaign pauses for this customer until the more important one ends. In addition, contact frequency management limits how many contacts a customer receives across all campaigns and channels within a given period.