Can I branch a sequence on a condition?
Yes. A sequence is an ordered list of steps, and the step types go well beyond “send an email, then wait.”
The step types
- Send email
- Add delay for a fixed duration
- Add delay until a specific time, such as the next day or next week
- Add condition, which is the branching step
- Move subscribers to another sequence
- Add tags to the subscriber
- Remove tags from the subscriber
- Make the subscriber inactive
Because tag changes and sequence moves are steps, branching composes: a condition can tag someone, and that tag can enroll them somewhere else.
The sequences documentation covers each step type with examples.
Four ways people enter a sequence
- Added manually
- Automatically when a tag is added to them
- Automatically when they match a segment
- Added through the Sequences API
The tag and segment triggers are what let one sequence hand off to another without you touching anything. Triggering a sequence from a segment covers those two in detail, including why a date-based “recently added” segment is usually unnecessary.
A pattern worth knowing
Onboarding that splits on engagement is usually built as: send the welcome email, delay three days, add a condition on whether they opened, then tag the two groups differently. The tags become segment membership, and the segments become the audience for everything downstream.
Reusing a sequence
Sequences can be duplicated, optionally including their subscribers, which is the usual way to run a variant without rebuilding it. The documentation covers how parent and child sequences relate.
Trying to express logic you cannot see a step for? Tell us what it is.
