How to Build B2B Customer Journeys

Journeys is Courier's AI-native journey builder for multi-step customer messaging. You build on a canvas: triggers, branching, delays, live data fetching, AI classification, omnichannel sends. Your engineering team (or coding agent) wires up the event source once. You own the logic, timing, content, and iteration from there.

Start with the payload schema

Every Journey starts with a Payload Schema where you define the variables the Journey works with: String, Number, Boolean, DateTime. Add plan_type or trial_days_remaining to the schema and it autocompletes everywhere in the Journey, in branch conditions, message copy, and personalization. This is the agreement between you and engineering about what data the event carries. They populate it; you use it. Get aligned on this early and you own everything after.

Set up the trigger

API trigger. Engineering calls the notification API with a user ID and data payload. If they're using a coding agent, the Courier MCP server and Courier Skills give the agent the tools and patterns to set up the integration directly.

Segment trigger. Existing Segment track calls route straight into Courier. Event name becomes the trigger, event properties become your payload variables. No new backend code.

The trigger also has a Conditions section where you filter who enters the flow based on payload values or profile data. If conditions aren't met, the Journey exits at the trigger. You control this in the UI, no ticket required.

The nodes

Branch

Branch on payload fields, profile attributes, or output from upstream nodes (AI classification, Fetch Data responses). Each branch creates a separate path. You can nest them. This is where the Journey's intelligence lives.

Delay

Wait a fixed duration (24 hours), until a specific time (Tuesday 10am in the user's time zone), or within a deployment window (business hours only). Quiet hours prevent 2am sends. Time zones are per-user, pulled from their profile.

Throttle

Caps messages per user per time period. When a burst of events fires at once, throttle prevents your customers from getting hammered. Available on standard plans.

Fetch Data

Call an external API mid-flow and use the response in downstream nodes. The Journey branches on live state from your backend, not a stale snapshot from when the trigger fired.

AI

Use OpenAI or Claude as a native step. Define a prompt, pass in upstream data, get structured output the rest of the Journey can use. Enrich user profiles with classifications or tags that persist across future Journeys. Create branching logic based on the model's output. Generate personalized message copy per user and per channel. No model hosting. Native node.

Send

Send on any channel, through any provider. Courier's BYOP model means you connect your existing providers and Courier orchestrates delivery. Message content is designed directly in the node, scoped to this Journey. Per-user preferences are enforced automatically at send time.

Compare, test, publish

When you edit a live Journey, comparison mode shows a side-by-side diff of your draft against the published version: nodes added, branch conditions changed, what was removed. Every publish creates an immutable snapshot in version history. If something breaks, restore the previous version in one click.

Build and test in the Test environment, which sends to test provider configurations instead of real users. Paste a payload into the preview pane to verify personalization renders correctly before anything goes live.

Engineering or a coding agent can also invoke Journeys with test payloads from the CLI, or use the MCP server (59 tools, works with Claude Code and Cursor) to verify template rendering, check delivery, and debug message status from the editor.

Debug

Open the Logs tab. Search by Run ID or Recipient. Step through the execution: which branch was taken, what the AI scored, what got delivered, when. Real production data.

The Metrics tab aggregates sends, deliveries, opens, and clicks over time, broken down by template.

Customer journey patterns with Courier Skills

Courier Skills gives coding agents production-grade Journey patterns with timing, frequency limits, and cancellation logic already encoded. Tell your agent (or engineering team) to install Skills, and they can scaffold the customer journeys most teams build first:

The patterns cover onboarding, feature adoption, engagement and retention, re-engagement, referral, and campaign sequences. Each includes recommended timing, frequency limits, and cancellation logic so the Journey stops when the customer takes the desired action.

The agent scaffolds the structure. You review on the canvas and publish.

Build your first Journey | Journeys docs | CLI docs