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 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 stages
Having too many 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 Demandbase Account Team 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 growth (renewal, cross-sell, and upsell) opportunities. You can identify these accounts by using growth opportunity Pipeline Predict Scores. For example, you can create a “Growth” Journey Stage for accounts that have a high “Growth” Pipeline Predict score. See Set Up Pipeline Predict Scores.
- Bottom-of-the-funnel exclusion stage: At the bottom of the funnel, add a catch-all stage that excludes non-target accounts such as lost, partner, competitor, and vendor accounts from going through the funnel.
What selectors should I use for stages?
We recommend the following best practices when choosing selectors for your stages:
Don’t Use Calculated Fields
When choosing selectors for 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 Points (3 mo.), use the following selectors:
Use Account Based Selectors
Since Journey Funnels are account based, selectors should use the account as the main object.
Account
Account with Activity
Accounts with Person
Account with Opportunity
Use Merged Fields
If you have multiple integrations, use merged fields to see the most accurate data. See Understanding Fields.
The following are examples of merged fields:
Account Name
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
Incorrect
Add Date Range
Add date range restrictions to use the most recent data.
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 Points. By configuring the MQA stage with this additional condition, your sales team can reach out to known people in qualified accounts.