Troubleshooting journey campaigns

Overview

This guide lists some common issues you may encounter when building your journey campaign, and tips for resolving the issues.

Troubleshooting


Delays and limits on sending email, SMS and push messages

The delivery of your email, SMS, and push messages can be impacted by the limits you've set in your Ortto account settings.

To adjust this, check your message limits and settings to ensure they're configured as needed, such as setting limits on specific days.


Failed action

If you see a Failed notification on an action in Preview, go to Activity. Find the failed action, then click Show details to see why it failed.

Example action showing failed for two people.
Example showing where in a journey to find the reason an action failed.

EX: Organization not found: This means the contact is not linked to any organization.

Learn more about failed salesforce actions.


Entry/ exit criteria filter errors

Example filter with error.

If you see a red condition when creating a filter, it means the condition is missing a value or the chosen operator is invalid. A red condition won't filter your results until it's fixed.

Learn more about working with filters.


Email deliveries

There are several reasons why an email might not be delivered, including:

  • Bounced email.
  • Invalid email.
  • Deferred email.
  • Complaints.

An Invalid email activity is triggered before the email is sent. Common reasons include:

  • Empty email content.
  • Permanent delivery issues from previous attempts.
  • Unsubscribe requests.
  • Missing or empty email values (e.g., a merge tag with no default value).

To learn more about why a contact received an invalid email, go to their profile, search for the Invalid email activity, and click Show details.

Learn more about email non-delivery.

Learn more about invalid email statuses.


SMS deliveries

If many contacts enter an SMS message shape but few messages are delivered, it could be because many contacts don't have a phone number or have no SMS permission.

To fix this, add a Condition shape before the SMS message with filters like SMS permission is true and Phone number has any value.

Example of adding in a condition before sending the SMS.

Invalid SMS

To find out why a contact received an invalid SMS, go to their contact profile. Search for the Invalid SMS activity and click Show details to view the reason.

Learn more about invalid sms statuses.

Learn more about sms non-delivery.


Condition shape after Email or SMS message

Placing a Condition shape (e.g., Clicked email) directly after an email or SMS message means the condition will never be met. This is because the condition checks for clicks as soon as the message is sent, giving contacts no time to interact with it.

Example Condition shape after a message shape that may result in people never meeting the condition.

To give contacts time to meet the condition (e.g., Clicked email), add a Delay shape between the email/SMS message and the condition. We recommend setting the delay for several hours after the message is sent.

Example solution to help ensure people can meet the condition related to the message sent.

Shapes that are switched off

Example notification in the journey editor that a shape is switched OFF.

If a shape is turned off in your journey, contacts will be blocked at that point until it's turned back on. They won’t skip the shape. Make sure to turn shapes on to include them in the journey.

Learn more about managing journey shapes and paths.


Unpublished changes

Example unpublished changes notification.

Ensure you publish any changes to your journey to ensure that it reflects your most recent configuration.


A nested link is tied to the YES/NO paths that come before it. To disconnect it, you'll need to remove the condition or split shape creating the paths and decide which path (if any) to keep.


Contacts not entering a journey with time-based filters

Audiences in Ortto that use time-based conditions (e.g., Sent email more than 1 day ago) are recalculated every 24 hours. This means contacts may not enter a journey immediately if their activity is recorded after the daily audience build.

To resolve this, use an occurs condition for the entry criteria and add a Delay shape in the journey. This allows contacts to enter the journey when they perform the entry activity, then wait a set number of days before moving to the next shape.


Action failed: Duplicate

The Duplicate error means the action is set to run only once, and it has already been performed for this contact. This can happen if a contact enters the same journey more than once.

To fix this, change the action's setting from Only once to More than once so the action can be triggered each time the contact passes through.

You may also want to consider the If this action fails setting, to decide whether the person will continue in the journey or will exit the journey.

Learn more about modifying action settings.