When Real-Time Isn’t the Right Time: Making the Move to Scheduled Journeys
You might have noticed that SAS Customer Intelligence 360 recently introduced Scheduled Journeys. If you haven’t heard about them yet, this is the perfect time to catch up - and trust us, you’ll want to.
What Are Scheduled Journeys?
A Scheduled Journey is a set of orchestrated marketing messages for a specific audience through different touchpoints, represented as a path of nodes. With Scheduled Journeys, you can create personalized experiences for your customers and optimize your marketing efforts.
These journeys can guide customers from initial awareness through multiple touchpoints all the way to conversion-and beyond. You can even leverage journey analytics to fine-tune engagement at different stages, ensuring that the right messages land at just the right time.
In short: Scheduled Journeys offer you a structured approach to delivering marketing communications.
What Are Real-time Journeys (previously known as Activities)?
An Activity-now referred to as a Real-Time Journey-is a coordinated series of tasks, primarily triggered by customer interactions, designed to achieve specific marketing goals in the moment.
A Real-time Journey uses a combination of tasks (actions like sending a message through a specific channel) and events (such as customer behaviors) to chart customer paths. These paths include conditions like primary metrics and evaluation periods.
For example:
You might set up a triggered push notification task to present a "Hotel Offer" link to your customer. Then, you could trigger an email task to automatically send a discount offer to all users who click on that link.
Real-time Journeys are all about reacting in the moment based on customer actions.
Scheduled Journeys vs Real Time Journeys
Put simply, Scheduled Journeys and Real-Time Journeys are designed for different styles of customer engagement, and it all starts with how they are triggered.
- Scheduled Journeys always begin with an Audience and can only contain bulk tasks-such as a Bulk Email Task or a Bulk Custom Task. This is a core principle of Scheduled Journeys, with no exceptions. They are built to communicate with a group of customers in a coordinated, time-based manner.
- Real-Time Journeys, on the other hand, are driven by events and triggered tasks-like triggered push notification, triggered email, or triggered custom task. These journeys are all about reacting to individual customer's actions the moment that they happen.
There’s one interesting exception: a Real-Time Journey could also start with a Direct Marketing task (which is a type of bulk task). This was especially common when Real-Time Journeys were still primarily referred to as Activities in CI360.
In short:
- If you're looking to respond to customer actions instantly, Real-Time Journeys are your go-to.
- If you want to plan communications to an audience in a coordinated, scheduled way, Scheduled Journeys are the way to go.
When to Consider Moving from a Real-Time Journey to a Scheduled Journey
Now that you know the basics, let’s dive into common scenarios where switching from a Real-Time Journey to a Scheduled Journey makes perfect sense.
[Real-time journey]
[Scheduled journey]
Scenario 1: Is Your Real-Time Journey Starting with a Bulk Task (like a Direct Marketing Task)?
Scheduled Journeys are a new feature in CI360. Until now, many consultants and customers had no choice but to use Real-Time Journeys (or Activities) even when the journey started with a bulk action-like a Direct Marketing (DM) task.
For example, you might have a Real-Time Journey that starts with a DM Task and then immediately follows with a simple Triggered Custom Task to push customer attributes to an external system (to send an SMS, WhatsApp message, etc.).
Technically, it worked-and honestly, it was the only practical option back then.
However, it was never the intended use case for Real-Time Journeys. They were designed for real-time, event-driven interactions, not batch-oriented campaigns.
Now that Scheduled Journeys are available, there's no good reason to continue using Real-Time Journeys to mimic batch behavior.
Instead, you can (and should!) use Scheduled Journeys to:
- Start with an Audience (replacing your DM Task)
- Follow up with bulk tasks
This not only keeps your design true to the purpose of each journey type but also makes your journeys more efficient, easier to manage, and future-proof.
I took Direct Marketing Task as an example, but it could very well be any other bulk tasks like email, social media etc., the principle remains the same.
Scenario 2: Your Campaign Strategy
In the past, you might have turned to a Real-Time Journey because there were no other good options in CI360, even though your marketing strategy was centered around well-timed bulk messages.
For example, you might have set up a Real-Time Journey that starts with an External Event as a trigger, but these external events were injected into CI360 using the Bulk External Event Injection APIs. This meant that your Real-Time Journey was being used to mimic batch behavior, often with some clever workarounds.
While this setup may have worked, it was never the ideal use case for a Real-Time Journey. The Real-Time Journey is designed for immediate, event-based interactions-not for handling bulk messaging in a structured and scheduled manner.
With Scheduled Journeys now available, you can better align your marketing strategy with the right tools. Instead of using a Real-Time Journey to simulate batch behavior, you can now:
- Leverage the scheduled nature of CI360 to send well-timed bulk messages.
- Design campaigns with predictable timing, avoiding the complexity of trying to force real-time interactions into a batch campaign.
- Improve the performance, reporting, and efficiency of your campaigns by aligning them with Scheduled Journeys-designed specifically for this kind of work.
In other words, if your strategy is built around well-timed, coordinated campaigns targeting specific audience groups, Scheduled Journeys are the way to go.
What Could Interfere with the Move from Real-Time Journeys to Scheduled Journeys?
While moving from Real-Time Journeys to Scheduled Journeys offers many benefits, there are a few factors that could interfere with the transition.
Ability to Use Audience
A Scheduled Journey in CI360 requires the ability to create and utilize an Audience. If your current setup does not allow for audience creation- either due to license restrictions or infrastructure limitations - this could pose a significant barrier.
For example, if your license doesn’t support the creation of dynamic audiences, or if your infrastructure isn’t configured to generate or manage the necessary audience data, you won’t be able to leverage Scheduled Journeys effectively.
Before making the switch, it’s important to confirm that your CI360 platform is fully equipped to support Audience creation. Without it, moving from Real-Time to Scheduled Journeys may not be possible, or at least not as seamless as you’d like.
Usage of Specific Tasks (e.g., Web or Mobile Spot Personalization)
In Real-Time Journeys, you have the flexibility to use Tasks like Web Spot, Mobile Spot, In-App messages, and other similar tasks. These types of tasks allow for real-time, personalized interactions based on immediate customer behavior. However, it's important to note that these specific tasks are not supported in Scheduled Journeys - at least not yet.
If your current Real-Time Journey relies heavily on tasks like Web Spot or Mobile Spot to engage users dynamically as they interact with your website or app, moving to a Scheduled Journey may not be the best option . Scheduled Journeys are better suited for bulk, time-based outbound communications, and do not offer the same level of immediate personalization as Real-Time Journeys.
Before making the transition, evaluate whether your campaigns depend on these kinds of real-time personalization tasks. If they do, you might want to reconsider switching to Scheduled Journeys or explore alternative ways to achieve comparable results within the Scheduled Journey framework.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while both Real-Time Journeys and Scheduled Journeys in SAS CI360 have their unique advantages, making the move from one to the other requires careful consideration.
Scheduled Journeys offer a streamlined approach for campaigns that follow a well-timed, bulk messaging strategy, making them ideal for audiences that can be grouped and targeted over time. If your campaigns are based on batch behaviors or need a more structured and predictable delivery, Scheduled Journeys are the right tool to use.
However, the decision to switch isn’t always straightforward. Certain limitations, such as your ability to create audiences or reliance on specific real-time triggered tasks, can interfere with the transition. If your journey strategy includes highly personalized, real-time tasks like Web Spot or In-App messaging, then sticking with Real-Time Journeys might still be the best choice.
In the end, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but understanding the distinctions between Real-Time and Scheduled Journeys can help you make an informed, strategic decision. We recommend evaluating your marketing goals, audience requirements, and the technical capabilities of your CI360 setup to decide if the switch is right for you.
