Best Practices for Customizing Journey Stages

  • Updated

Journey Stages should align with your company’s marketing > sales > post-sales funnel. You can customize the standard Stages provided by Demandbase and also add Stages as needed.

How often should I update Journey Stages?

We recommend reviewing your Journey funnel once per quarter. For example, you may need to change the threshold for a Marketing Qualified Account (MQA) based on changing market conditions. 

Adjust Journey Stages when there are changes in your company goals. 

When there are changes to your product, industry, or marketing/sales business strategy, edit the Stages to align with those goals. See Edit and Publish Journey Stages

Limit the total number of Journey Stages

Having too many Journey Stages doesn’t provide a snapshot view of where your accounts are in the customer journey. The Demandbase standard Journey funnel covers necessary Stages for most customers. We recommend having no more than twelve Stages.

If you want to add Stages to support multiple business units, consider the Multiple Journey add-on. Reach out to your CSM for more information.

Don't create Stages that mirror your Opportunity Stages

Replicating the number and depth of detail in your Opportunity Stages can make account progression through the Demandbase Journey funnel difficult to interpret. We recommend having no more than two Opportunity related Stages.

Enhance the standard Journey funnel

You can enhance the standard Journey funnel by adding the following stages:

  • SDR Stage: Add a Stage between the MQA and Opportunity Stage to see account handoff between Marketing and Sales.
  • Post-customer Stage: Add Stages after the Customer Stage to see customer accounts with renewal, cross-sell, and up-sell opportunities.
  • Bottom-of-the-funnel exclusion Stage: Add a catch-all Stage that excludes non-target accounts such as partner, competitor, and vendor accounts from going through the funnel.

SDR Stage.png

What selectors should I use for Journey Stages?

We recommend the following best practices when choosing selectors for your Journey Stages: 

Don’t Use Calculated Fields

When choosing selectors for Journey Stages, don’t use fields that automatically calculate data. Instead, create logic that manually calculates the data.
Tip: Demandbase shows a caution message when you try to use a calculated field as a selector in Journey Stages. 

For example, to create logic similar to the calculated field Engagement Minutes (1 mo.), use the following selectors: 

CalField.png

Use Account Based Selectors 

Since Journey funnels are account based, selectors should use the account as the main object. 

The following are examples of account based selectors:  

Account
BP Account.png

Account with Activity
BP Activity.png

Accounts with Person
BP People.png

Account with Opportunity
BP Oppty.png

Use Merged Fields 

If you have multiple integrations, use merged fields to see the most accurate data. See Understanding Fields for more information. 

The following are examples of merged fields:  

  • Account Name 
  • Billing Country 
  • Industry 

Group Similar Selectors

Group similar selectors to optimize data calculation.

The following example shows how to group Activity selectors into one Account with Activity logic: 

Correct

Correct.png

Incorrect

Incorrect.png

Add Date Range 

Add date range restrictions to use the most recent data.

Date.png

Include known contacts and leads in the MQA Stage

In the MQA Stage, include at least two known contacts and leads with at least 20 Marketing Engagement Minutes. By configuring the MQA Stage with this additional condition, your sales team can reach out to known people in qualified accounts.

MQA.png

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