Journey Design Guide

What Is a Journey?

A Journey is a collection of Stages that represent meaningful steps a contact moves through over time. Each stage is a checkpoint where you can trigger automations, send communications, create or fulfill rewards, and track progress.

Journeys let you move beyond single-event tracking (like "did they purchase?") to a full lifecycle view:

Track progress earlier — from lead to signup to trial to paid
Reward actions beyond purchases — reviews, demos, testimonials, referrals
See exactly where contacts are getting stuck or dropping off

Key Concepts

Journey — The overall lifecycle you're modeling (e.g., "B2B Referral Lifecycle" or "Customer Advocacy").

Journey Stage — A single step within that lifecycle (e.g., "Referred Lead Created" or "First Purchase Completed").

Stage Sequence — When creating a Journey, you choose whether stages must be completed in a fixed order (recommended for sales pipelines) or can be entered in any order (common for advocacy tasks).

Questions to Ask Before You Build

1. What systems already define your lifecycle?

Most teams already have lifecycle stages defined in tools like Salesforce or HubSpot (B2B), Shopify or Stripe (ecommerce), or ServiceTitan (service businesses). Your Ambassador Journey stages should closely match these so data flows cleanly and reporting stays consistent.

2. Which stages actually matter for referrals?

Not every internal stage needs to exist in Ambassador. Focus on the stages where:

A referral attribution should be created (usually the first stage where you capture the referred contact's email)
A communication should be sent to the advocate or referred contact
A reward should be created, approved, denied, or fulfilled
You want visibility or reporting on progress

3. When should rewards be issued?

Journeys let you delay rewards until revenue is confirmed, reward earlier actions like demos booked, and handle cancellations, returns, or clawbacks cleanly by denying pending rewards at a later stage.

Common Scenarios to Plan For

When referral attribution should be created (first stage where referred contact's email is captured)
When referral progress emails should go to the advocate
When an Order should be created or updated
When rewards should be created, approved/denied, and fulfilled
When reward progress emails should go to the referred contact
When a referred customer should be enrolled as an advocate or invited to join
When a webhook or email should go to your internal team or system
When engagement or reward reminder emails should be sent

Example Journeys

Example 1: B2B Referral Journey (Sales-Led)

Common systems: Salesforce, HubSpot | Stage sequence: Required

Referred Lead Created — Create the referral attribution as soon as the lead's email is captured.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
Demo Completed — For long sales cycles, consider a small reward here to keep the advocate engaged.
Opportunity Won — Create a pending reward; choose to fulfill immediately or schedule for later.
Customer Paid or Onboarded — Some teams approve/fulfill here to prevent misuse.
Churned (optional) — Automatically deny any pending rewards if the customer churns.

How contacts move: CRM → Ambassador via Data-Layer Sync (Salesforce Flows or HubSpot Deal Sync), or manual bulk import for historical data.

Example 2: B2C Referral Journey (Faster Conversion)

Common systems: Stripe, HubSpot | Stage sequence: Optional

Referred Lead Created — Send the advocate a communication to let them know someone they referred has started.
Account Created
First Purchase — Create a pending reward and notify the advocate.
Repeat Purchase — Create an additional pending reward.
Refund / Chargeback (optional) — If no refund occurs within a set period, approve and fulfill; if a refund occurs, deny the reward.

Example 3: E-commerce Referral Journey

Common systems: Shopify, Stripe | Stage sequence: Required

Contact Referred — Capture the referred lead when they use the Ambassador Referred Widget (e.g., to receive a coupon code).
Checkout Started
Order Completed — Create a pending reward.
Order Fulfilled
Return Window Closed — Approve and fulfill rewards once the return window has passed.

This structure separates purchase from fulfillment, prevents early reward issuance, and aligns cleanly with Shopify order and fulfillment events.

Example 4: Advocacy / Loyalty Task Journey

Use case: Case study completion | Stage sequence: Optional

Interest Form Submitted — Send a thank-you email and let the advocate know when your team will reach out.
Case Study Call Scheduled
Case Study Call Completed
Draft in Progress
Draft Pending Approval — Notify the customer that the draft is ready for their review.
Case Study Published — Create, approve, and fulfill the reward.

This structure keeps advocates informed at each step, helps your team track project status, and ties reward delivery to real business value.

Best Practices

Mirror your existing sales or commerce stages whenever possible — this keeps data consistent and reduces manual syncing.
Keep stages meaningful — avoid adding stages just for the sake of it. Each stage should trigger something.
Trigger rewards at stages that reflect real business value — not just intent.
Plan for the exception paths — returns, refunds, churns, and cancellations — so your reward logic handles them automatically.

Good to Know

A Journey doesn't need to cover every possible scenario from day one. Start with your core referral flow, get it working cleanly, and add additional stages or journeys as your program matures.

Journeys are reusable across Campaigns — the same Journey can be applied to multiple program campaigns.
You can have multiple Journeys to cover different lifecycle types (e.g., one for referrals, one for advocacy tasks, one for loyalty).
Related articles: Journeys Overview, Automations Overview, Referral Attribution Overview, Orders Overview