Two-Way Journeys™ let you build fun and effective conversational experiences between you and your subscribers. Instead of static, one-way promotional messages, Two-Way Journeys let you build automated conversations that react dynamically when subscribers respond to your message, making your brand feel personal while also driving more engagement.
Subscriber experience
Here’s what your subscribers will see when they enter a Two-Way Journey with you:
- You send an automated conversation prompt to a subscriber after the subscriber abandons a shopping cart, looks at a product on your store, or the subscriber does something that triggers a journey.
- The subscriber sees your prompt and sends a response to you.
- The subscriber is sent a personalized message based on how they responded to your prompt. The personalized message can be customized based on how subscribers responded to you, and can include special offers, messages, and more.
The actual journey map for building a Two-Way Journey experience above looks like this:
- Once the subscriber reaches the Send auto-reply text message step, you send them an automated message prompt. In this case, the message asks subscribers what their favorite kind of cat is, and offers three choices:
- 1 for 🐈⬛ Creepy black cats
- 2 for 🐈 Goofy orange cats
- 3 for 🐱Friendly fat cats
Note: If you're using a Texted-a-keyword journey, the entrance keyword can't be used in any "Send auto-reply text message" step in any other Two Way Journey™.
- The journey waits for subscribers to reply. If the subscriber replies with anything other than one of the chosen prompts, or if they don’t reply at all for two days, the subscriber exits the journey.
- The subscriber enters a different branch based on their reply. Each branch sends a unique message and offer for each branch. In this case, subscribers who respond that black cats are their favorite get the largest discount, because they're correct in their opinion.
- The subscriber’s response is saved as a custom attribute, which you build segments from later.
With Two-Way Journeys, you’re not limited to only a single question and reply. You can add multiple layers of question prompts and response branches, allowing you to uncover deeper, more granular product preferences from your subscribers.
For example, this Two-Way Journey first engages subscribers by asking a direct question, and then uncovers …
- What category of product they’re looking for.
- What type of product within that category they’re looking for.
- And finally, how much they want to spend.
Now that you know the subscriber is looking for sapphire earrings that are between $200 and $499, you can send them … - Links to product pages filtered for their preferences.
- Discount codes appropriate for their product preferences.
Now that we have detailed product preferences for this subscriber, we can save their choices as a custom attribute. Later, we can build segments on custom attributes like this one to send them matching rings, pendants, or special aftercare instructions.
How can I use Two-Way Journeys for my brand?
The sky is the limit on this one! Here are some of our favorite real-world examples and use cases from other Attentive brands:
- Check out our favorite Two-Way Journeys on Texts We Love
- Read 13 real-world examples of how brands have used Two-Way Journeys to boost their text-based marketing campaigns
- Learn about how and why Two-Way Messaging helps build long-term customer relationships
Ready to get started? We have a whole set of content on our help center to get your two-way program off of the ground, including: