This feature is in Beta. Contact your Customer Success Representative for more information.
A real-time triggered activation allows you to communicate with a potential or existing customer within minutes instead of daily. Real-time triggered activations support the following events:
- Wait Step: Insert multiple wait steps into a journey's path to define the cadence in which you interact with profiles.
- Decision point: Create one or more decision points to direct your user down a personalized path.
- Merge: Merge multiple decision points into a single point.
This topic includes:
- Create Triggered Activation
- Enter Real-time Activation Details
- Braze
- Sendgrid
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Output Data Streaming
- Webhook Output Streaming
- Using Real-time Attributes in Trigger Activations
- About Real-time Variables
- Open TD Console.
- Navigate to Audience Studio.
- Navigate to an existing real-time journey and open it or create a real-time journey.
- Select a stage.
- In the left panel, select Triggered Activation and drag and drop it to the Journey canvas.
Alternately, select the plus sign at the end of the stage rule and select Add triggered activation.
Marketers might need to contact their data engineer to identify the correct authentication details.
You can configure a triggered activation to work with the following streaming integrations:
- Braze Output Streaming
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Output Data Streaming
- SendGrid Output Streaming
- Realtime Webhook Activation
While the configuration details vary between integrations, the information you need to provide can generally be grouped as follows:
- Integration details -- these are integration-specific details that determine how the streaming data is returned.
- Payload -- these configurations are where you define what information will be returned in the payload. Using the TD Console you can specify Imported Attributes, Real-time Attributes, or Journey Metadata such as Journey Name, Journey Stage Name, Audience Name, etc.
- Timeouts and Retries -- these configurations are where you define how retries happen if the integration experiences a timeout condition.
To create or update a triggered activation:
- Select the triggered activation you want to configure
.
- In the triggered activation window, select an activation from the Copy triggered activation from drop-down menu.
- Enter a Triggered activation name.
- Enter an Optional description of the activation.
- From the Authentication drop-down menu, select the authentication the activation should use.
Depending on the type of authentication you choose, the details you will need to provide will vary. Refer to the integration-specific tables below for more information.
- Verify or provide the information required for the fields on the Details page.
- After the Details are configured, select Create or Update.
The following tables describe the configuration fields for authentication integrations. For fields containing an Add batch attributes option, see the Using Real-time Attributes in Trigger Activations section for more information about the prefix notation used for selections.
| Field | Action/Description |
|---|---|
| Integration Details | |
| API-Triggered Delivery | Select Campaign or Canvas for the API-triggered delivery. |
| Campaign ID | (Required) Enter the Braze campaign or canvas identifier that matches the selected delivery. |
| Send ID | (Optional) Enter the Braze send identifier associated with the authentication. |
| Broadcast | Selecting this checkbox sends the data as a broadcast. Use caution--enabling broadcast can unintentionally send messages to a larger audience than expected. |
| Payload | |
| Trigger Properties | Enter the JSON payload for the triggered properties. Select + Add to insert Imported attributes, Real-time attributes, or Journey Metadata (Journey Name, Journey ID, Journey Stage Name, Audience Name, Audience ID, Activation Timestamp in UNIX). |
| Connected Audiences | (Optional) Configure Braze connected audiences for the activation, if needed. |
| Recipients | (Optional) Configure the recipients section according to your Braze setup. |
| Timeouts and Retries | |
| Maximum Number of Retry | Select how many times the activation should retry on failure. |
| Initial Retry Delay (in seconds) | Enter the number of seconds to wait before the first retry. |
| Retry Delay Multiple | Enter the factor that multiplies the retry delay after each attempt. |
The triggered_properties object has a maximum size limit of 50 KB.
| Field | Action/Description |
|---|---|
| Integration Details | |
| From Email | (Required) Enter the email address of the campaign sender. |
| From Name | Enter the sender's display name. |
| Subject | (Required) Enter the subject of the email. |
| Template ID | Enter a template ID to override substitutions in the personalized email body. |
| Unsubscribe Group ID | (Optional) Enter a group ID that lets recipients unsubscribe from the campaign. |
| Payload | |
| Personalized Email Body | Enter the JSON payload for the personalized email content. Select + Add to include Imported attributes, Real-time attributes, or Journey Metadata (Journey Name, Journey ID, Journey Stage Name, Audience Name, Audience ID, Activation Timestamp in UNIX). |
| Content | Provide the JSON payload for SendGrid content settings. |
| Attachment | Provide the JSON configuration for SendGrid attachments. |
| Mail Settings | Provide the JSON configuration for SendGrid mail settings. |
| Tracking Settings | Provide the JSON configuration for SendGrid tracking settings. |
| Timeouts and Retries | |
| Maximum Number of Retry | Select how many times the activation should retry on failure. |
| Initial Retry Wait (in seconds) | Enter the number of seconds to wait before the first retry. |
| Maximum Retry Wait (in seconds) | Enter the maximum amount of time to wait between retries. |
For Personalized Email Body, input the configured email template. Use __column_name__ to mark a substitute column or alias. All substitute columns and aliases must exist in the exported data. Payload limitations: the Attachment, Mail Settings, and Tracking Settings sections do not accept Journey Metadata values; the activation fails if Journey Metadata are included there.
| Field | Action/Description |
|---|---|
| Integration Details | |
| Trigger action | (Required) Choose the Salesforce Marketing Cloud action to trigger: - Send an email - Trigger a journey |
| Definition Key | (Required) Enter the key associated with the selected trigger action: - Send an email: email template definition key - Trigger a journey: API entry event definition key |
| Contact Key | (Required) Select a String, Batch attribute, Imported attribute, Real-time attribute, or Journey Metadata, then provide the unique recipient identifier used in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. |
| Recipient Email Address | Displayed only when Send an email is selected. Choose one of the following: - String -- enter an email address - Imported attribute -- select an imported attribute - Real-time attribute -- select a real-time attribute - Journey Metadata -- select the metadata to use |
| Payload | |
| Attributes | Enter the JSON payload for the attributes. Select + Add to include Imported attributes, Real-time attributes, or Journey Metadata (Journey Name, Journey ID, Journey Stage Name, Audience Name, Audience ID, Activation Timestamp in UNIX). |
| Timeouts and Retries | |
| Maximum Number of Retry | Select how many times the activation should retry on failure. |
| Initial Retry Delay (in seconds) | Enter the number of seconds to wait before the first retry. |
| Retry Delay Multiple | Enter the factor that multiplies the retry delay after each attempt. |
Each selected batch attribute creates key-value pairs for personalization. For journeys, those values are stored in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud data extension defined for the trigger.
| Field | Action/Description |
|---|---|
| Integration Details | |
| HTTP Method | Select the HTTP method for the API call. Available options: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, or PATCH. |
| URL | Specify the HTTPS endpoint for your third-party service. The URL must use the base URL defined in the authentication's URL Prefix and can be up to 2,048 characters. |
| Custom Headers | Specify any custom headers required for the API call (up to 32 headers, each <= 256 bytes). Provide both a key (for example, content-type) and a value (for example, application/json). |
| Payload | |
| Request Body | Enter the JSON payload for the request body. Select + Add to include Imported attributes, Real-time attributes, or Journey Metadata (Journey Name, Journey ID, Journey Stage Name, Audience Name, Audience ID, Activation Timestamp in Unix). |
| Timeouts and Retries | |
| Retry Limit | Integer between 0 and 64 that specifies how many times the call retries. |
| Connection Timeout (seconds) | Integer between 1 and 900 that specifies how long to wait for the call to establish a connection. |
| Read Timeout (seconds) | Integer between 1 and 900 that specifies how long to wait for a read request to finish. |
| Write Timeout (seconds) | Integer between 1 and 900 that specifies how long to wait for a write request to finish. |
The Webhook connector does not check for duplicate headers. Ensure no duplicate keys are defined.
The maximum request body size is 250 KB. You can reference the authentication secret from the API Key field as {{auth.api_key}}.
You cannot directly access sliding counter attribute sub-durations and list attribute aggregations; instead, use the corresponding sub-attributes. Refer to the following table for the correct formatting.
| Attribute Type | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| list | {{list.first}}{{list.list_attribute.first}} | Identifies a list aggregation. |
| counter | {{counter.inc_value}}{{counter.inc_value.by_2}}{{counter.sliding_counter_inc_value.perweek}} | Identifies a counter and, where present, the sliding counter sub-duration. |
| single | {{single.sliding_consent_inc1.first}} | Identifies a single-byte attribute. |
| imported | {{imported.email}}{{imported.order_id}} | Prefix used for imported attributes. |
Learn more about creating real-time attributes.
URLs, HTTP headers, and request bodies can reference authentication variables. Enter the variables manually in the triggered activation fields.
| Attribute Type | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| auth | {{auth.api.key}} | Contains the API key supplied by the authentication. |
Triggered activation fields can also reference metadata variables.
| Attribute Type | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| meta | {{meta.time}}{{meta.parent_segment_id}}{{meta.journey_id}} | Provides journey metadata. meta.time is the timestamp when the activation is sent. |