A Journey with separate Email Activities is the correct structure. Each email send activity within a Journey generates its own tracking data (opens, clicks, bounces), allowing for performance comparison of the individual variations while keeping them logically grouped under the overarching campaign for holistic reporting.

A Journey Builder canvas is designed for multi-step, conditional messaging. The ‘Wait Until’ activity can pause the contact’s path until a specific interaction (like an Open) is recorded. This creates a dynamic, behavior-based email series without the complexity of managing multiple independent automations.

A sudden increase in ‘Held’ statuses typically indicates a deliverability issue at the infrastructure level. While content and authentication are important, an IP being placed on a blocklist by an ISP or filtering service will cause emails to be held before they are even attempted for delivery, leading to an immediate drop in sent volume.

Filter activities are ideal for straightforward, rule-based segmentation using criteria available in the Filter interface (e.g., dates, standard fields, simple operators). They are easier to build and maintain for non-technical users when the logic doesn’t require the flexibility and power of SQL.

The Journey Builder Performance report allows you to define and track conversion goals (e.g., form submit, purchase). It moves beyond email metrics (opens/clicks) to show how many contacts in the journey completed a key business objective, directly linking marketing activity to business outcomes.

Triggered Send Definitions are the core feature for transactional and real-time messaging. They are invoked via an API call from an external system (like a website). This allows for sub-second sending upon trigger, making them ideal for password resets, order confirmations, or alerts.

The built-in ‘Unsubscribe’ link type in Content Builder’s Text Attribute is the compliant, out-of-the-box solution. When used, it automatically generates a link that, when clicked, processes a global unsubscribe, suppressing the subscriber from future commercial sends and logging the action, which is required by laws like CAN-SPAM and CASL.

A common oversight is not setting the ‘Update Type’ on the target data extension in the activity. If it’s set to ‘Update’ but the target is empty, or if ‘Append’ is selected but a primary key conflict occurs, records may not populate. Checking this configuration is a crucial first troubleshooting step after confirming the SQL syntax is valid.

To identify contacts without sends/opens in a period, you need to query the system data views (like _Job for sends and _Open for interactions). A SQL Query Activity is required to perform this complex join and date logic between the master contact list (All Subscribers) and the tracking views, which isn’t possible with a standard Filter.

A Journey with separate Email Activities is the correct structure. Each email send activity within a Journey generates its own tracking data (opens, clicks, bounces), allowing for performance comparison of the individual variations while keeping them logically grouped under the overarching campaign for holistic reporting.0