| Audience | Marketers preparing a journey to go live |
| Prerequisites | A built journey with entry, steps, exit criteria, and a schedule (see Create a journey) |
Test a journey in stages: simulate its logic, check the destination sync, then confirm real timing and delivery with a small live cohort.
Before launching broadly:
- Test the journey logic.
- Check the destination sync, if the journey sends to one.
- Run a small live cohort.
- Activate the journey for its intended audience.
| Validation stage | What it validates | What it doesn't validate |
|---|---|---|
| Journey test | Branching logic, segment conditions, entry criteria, which members reach each step | Delay timing, real sends and payloads, cross-journey interactions, destination behavior |
| Small live cohort | Real timing, sends, exits, and destination delivery under the tested conditions | Behavior outside the cohort or changes to data after testing |
1. Test the journey logic
Select Run test on the journey canvas to open Configure a journey test, which simulates how members move through the configured logic. Tests don't send data to destinations, and time delays are skipped.
- Open the journey and select Run test.
- Set the Start date & time. It defaults to the current time. To test an event-based journey against historical events, choose a past date and time. The test uses events with timestamps after the selected start time.
- Choose a test size:
- Single event or Single profile — Simulates the path for one member.
- Set of events or Entire audience (default) — Simulates all qualifying members and is useful for validating branch distribution.
- Select Run test. When it finishes, the Path breakdown shows how many members entered, exited, and continued at each step, with destination steps shown as simulated sends. The Profiles tab lists the evaluated profiles, and the canvas highlights the paths taken.
A journey test doesn't change membership, logs, syncs, or the evaluation schedule.
Because a test evaluates journey logic in a single pass with delays skipped, it doesn't:
- Replay future runs over time.
- Trigger syncs or send data.
- Model cross-journey interactions or priority-list behavior.
- Reflect destination-platform rules such as consent filtering or deduplication.
Use a journey test to validate paths and conditions. Use a small live cohort to validate behavior over time.
2. Check the destination sync
A Send to destination step runs its sync as part of journey evaluation, not on its own schedule. Open the step before launch to review the sync.
Each sync shows its destination and Type (Trigger or Cohort). Recent Runs stays empty until the journey triggers the sync for the first time.
To review or change the destination-specific configuration, select View sync details to open the full sync. Because the journey test only simulates sends, validate the sync's real output with a small live cohort.
3. Run a small live cohort
After the journey test confirms the logic and you've reviewed the destination sync, validate the full journey with a small live audience.
- Create a narrow test audience, such as internal users or a small segment of real users.
- Configure the journey to use this audience for entry.
- Activate the journey and monitor the first several runs.
- Check destinations to confirm that data arrived as expected.
- After validation, update the entry audience to the production audience.
A live cohort validates real timing, exit behavior, sync execution, and destination delivery. If you use destination rules, verify them separately because they can filter records at sync time.
Pre-launch checklist
Before launching broadly, confirm:
- Entry — The intended members qualify for the entry audience or event.
- Priority — If the entry audience belongs to a priority list, its ranking is correct.
- Journey logic — Branches and conditions behave as expected in a journey test.
- Destination configuration — The Send to destination sync has the right destination, type, and field mappings. Review it with View sync details.
- Exit criteria — Exit conditions remove members at the intended point.
- Delivery rules — Destination rules, consent, and suppression won't filter members unexpectedly.
- Live behavior — A small cohort completes the journey with the expected timing and delivery.
Activate
Select Activate to start the journey. Hightouch begins evaluating it on the configured schedule: an interval schedule starts within seconds, and a custom recurrence schedule starts at the next matching time.
Next steps
- Monitor and troubleshoot journeys to inspect live performance, member paths, and run failures.