Flows

Flows Beta lets you draw an automation on a visual canvas and have each contact follow their own path through it. A contact enters a flow when something happens, such as a checkout that wasn't completed or a new sign-up. From there the flow waits for the right moment, sends a message, checks what the contact did and routes them accordingly, until they reach the goal, leave on an exit event or come to the end. Because the flow decides for each person, two customers who enter at the same time can receive different messages at different times, or none at all.

Flows sits in the side menu under Marketing › Flows, marked Beta.

How a flow works

A flow has the shape of a tree drawn from top to bottom. Each part has a name that the rest of these pages use:

• Trigger — the card at the top. It sets the event that brings a contact into the flow (for example Checkout started), who may enter and how often. Each time the event happens for a contact who qualifies, that contact enters. Who is let in, and when, is explained in The trigger.
• Step — each card below the trigger. A step sends a message, waits, splits the flow, updates the contact, records the goal or ends the flow; the panel groups them as Send, Wait, Split the flow, Update the contact, Goal and End the flow. The full catalogue is in Building a flow.
• Branch — one of the paths that leave a step with several outputs: a split by tag, segment, consent or any other condition, an A/B split, or a wait that ends differently depending on what the contact did. Each contact takes exactly one branch, and when that branch runs out of steps the contact carries on with whatever sits below the split. Nobody draws the paths back together: they rejoin on their own.
• Run — one pass of one contact through the flow, from the moment they enter until their path ends. A contact who enters again later starts a new run, so the same person can have several runs of the same flow, within the re-entry limits you set on the trigger.

A run normally ends in one of three ways. The contact reaches the end of their path, which the canvas marks as Flow completed. An exit event happens, such as the order that makes a reminder pointless, and the run stops wherever the contact is, even in the middle of a wait. Or the contact reaches an Exit flow step that you placed on purpose. Along the way, the flow can record that the contact met its goal: that is what the flow's goal rate measures. All of this, and the less common ways a run ends, is explained in Goals and exits.

Here is an abandoned-cart flow. A shopper who starts a checkout and doesn't finish it receives a reminder at the best moment for them; if they don't tap the link within a day, a coupon follows a day later. The order is set as an exit event and as the flow's goal, so whoever buys stops receiving messages.

flowchart TD
    T["Trigger: Checkout started"] --> D["Smart delay: best moment, 5 min to 8 h"]
    D -->|Wait complete| S1["Send SMS: reminder with the cart link"]
    D -->|Unable to wait| F["Flow completed"]
    S1 --> W["Wait for activity: up to 1 day"]
    W -->|Tapped a specific element: the link| F
    W -->|No interaction| FD["Fixed delay: 1 day"]
    FD --> S2["Send SMS: 10% coupon"]
    S2 --> F
    X["Exit event: Order created, used as the goal"] -.->|at any point| E["The run ends, no more messages"]
    class F success
    class E success

Four shoppers abandon a checkout on the same afternoon, and each one goes a different way:

• Laura places the order ten minutes later, while the Smart delay is still waiting for her best moment. The order is an exit event, so her run ends there and she receives nothing.
• David receives the reminder in the evening and taps the link. He takes the Tapped a specific element branch, which has no steps, so his run reaches Flow completed.
• Marta receives the reminder and doesn't tap it. After a day without interaction she waits one more day and receives the coupon.
• Javier receives the reminder and buys the next morning, while the flow is waiting to see whether he taps. The order cuts his run: no coupon.

Which of these purchases count towards the flow's goal is explained in Goals and exits, and how to follow each person's path, step by step, in Monitoring a flow.

A contact who doesn't qualify when the event happens (outside the audience, over a re-entry limit, or someone who had already bought by the time they were due to enter) simply doesn't enter that time. The flow's Activity lists them with the reason, as described in Monitoring a flow.

Draft and published version

The changes you make and save on the canvas form the flow's draft, in the Build tab. Apart from a one-contact test, nobody runs a draft: contacts run the published version, shown in the Live tab. Publishing the draft to everyone turns it into the new Live version, and from then on new entrants follow it, while contacts already inside finish the version they entered on. This is what lets you edit a flow that is running without touching the people in it; the detail is in Testing, publishing and versions.

There is no charge for the flow itself or for each run: waits, branches, contact updates and goals cost nothing. Each message a flow sends is billed like any other SMS or RCS message, as explained in Sending messages.

What you can build

A few of the journeys flows are made for, each with the page that explains the piece that makes it work:

• Welcome new contacts — greet each contact once, at a good moment after they join your audience. Available as a ready-made flow in Flow templates.
• Abandoned cart or checkout — remind the shopper at their best moment and stop as soon as they buy. The stopping part is in Goals and exits.
• Thank you for your order and Ask for a review — a message right after the order, or a few days after delivery at a good time for each customer. The timing options are in Waits.
• Win back customers — write to customers some time after their last order, with each new order restarting the count. See Goals and exits.
• A different message per country or for your VIPs — split by a contact field or a tag and send each group its own text. See Branches.
• Opt-in by reply — ask after delivery whether the customer wants offers by SMS, and when they reply yes, subscribe them and add them to a list. See Updating the contact.

To start, select New flow in Marketing › Flows. You can start from a blank canvas, as described in Building a flow, or from a template built around the events your project receives, as described in Flow templates. Either way, the result is a draft: nothing is sent until someone publishes it.

Publishing your first flow

A short checklist for each side of publishing; each point links to the page with the detail.

Before you publish

• Who enters, and how often — check the trigger's audience and re-entry limits: The trigger.
• Who receives each message — check the consent policy of every message step: Sending messages.
• What stops a reminder — add the exit event, usually the purchase, that ends the run when the customer has already done what you wanted: Goals and exits.
• A test with one contact — run the saved draft for a single contact before publishing it to everyone: Testing, publishing and versions.

After you publish

• Who entered and who didn't — the flow's Activity lists each entry, and each contact who didn't enter with the reason: Monitoring a flow.
• What pausing does — Pause enrollment (the same action as Disable in the flows list) stops new entries, not the contacts already inside: Managing flows.
• What a fix reaches — publishing a corrected draft changes the path for new entrants; contacts already inside finish the version they entered on: Testing, publishing and versions.
• Stopping a version that is sending something wrong — pause enrollment, then cancel the executions of every version that still has people inside; publishing a fix doesn't stop them: Managing flows.
• How it's performing — goal rate, conversions, revenue and cost: Flow analytics.

Explore Flows

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