Best Times to Turn on Journeys

How do you know when is the best time to turn on that automated email journey? In most cases, you’ll want to turn it on as soon as it’s ready. We get excited about that part too! There are some cases where you’ll want to pay special attention to when you turn on that journey.

Let’s start with the trigger being used:

	Send to ongoing contacts only First, connect your CRM list to the email list used in your Journey. After the list has populated with existing contacts, turn on the journey. Send to existing & ongoing contacts Turn on the journey first. After the journey is on, connect the CRM list. For more information, see how to create an automation from existing contacts.
	Depends on the Segment Filters Think about the filters on your segment and who you want to receive this journey. Usually you have your filters set up in a way that you’d like to have the journey on as soon as it’s ready to go. Send to existing subscribers If you’d like to know how you can use segments to send emails to existing subscribers, check out how to trigger journeys using existing email lists .
	Depends on the Segment Filters Think about the filters on your segment and who you want to receive this journey. Also keep in mind what stage subscribers will exit the segment. Usually you have your filters set up in a way that you’d like to have the journey on as soon as it’s ready to go.
	Turn on Early Make sure your date journey is turned on before the date comes. Date-triggered journeys start at midnight on the date used to trigger it. Best practice: have the journey on 2 days before the earliest date
	Turn on Early Turn on the journey before the earliest date (ideally 2 days early). Nice thing about anniversary triggers is that they will be sent to the subscriber the following years if you missed your chance to turn on the journey early.

Turning off a journey has its tricks too. Learn more about how subscribers move through a journey that's been turned off.

Just looking to make a journey? Hop on back to the automated journey basics.