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Journeys

Every contact in the Contact Book carries a funnel status. The status describes how engaged the contact is with your business, from first-touch awareness through repeat-purchase loyalty.

In the dashboard, this surface is the CDP funnel view.

The five stages​

StageWhat it means
AwareContact is aware of your product. Top of funnel.
EngagedContact has interacted with your business beyond awareness (opened campaigns, replied, joined a list).
CustomerContact has made a transaction.
Loyal CustomerContact has made repeat transactions.
PromoterContact actively refers others to your business.

The boundary between stages is your call. Mailtarget does not auto-derive status from email engagement metrics. The status is what you say it is.

Lost contacts​

A lost contact is one that has gone inactive. The lost state is layered on top of the funnel stage: a contact can be lost from Aware or lost from Customer. The dashboard renders lost contacts in red and groups them by their last active stage.

A contact becomes lost in one of two ways:

  • Account flipped to inactive. The contact's account state is set to inactive. The funnel status auto-transitions to lost.
  • Manual mark as lost. An operator marks the contact as lost from the funnel UI.

Lost is reversible. A contact returning to engagement can be flipped back to an active funnel stage.

How status changes​

Three change patterns, in order of operational weight:

1. Per-contact change​

Manual edit on a single contact. Used for high-touch operator action and corrections.

From the dashboard:

  1. Open the contact's action menu in the Customer Journey view.
  2. Select the new funnel stage from the dropdown.
  3. Save.

The change is logged with timestamp and operator identity. The funnel-status history is visible on the contact detail.

2. Per-label change​

Bulk edit driven by a label rule. Used for periodic operator-driven status updates (for example, marking everyone with the purchased-q2 label as Customer).

From the dashboard:

  1. Open Customer Journey.
  2. Click Manage Funnel.
  3. In the Change Status box, select the source label and the destination funnel stage.
  4. Save.

Every contact carrying that label flips to the destination stage. Subsequent contacts gaining the label after this rule executes do not auto-flip. Re-run the rule when needed.

3. Default status change​

Sets the default funnel stage for contacts that do not yet have a status set. New contacts entering the Contact Book without explicit status assignment fall back to this default.

Most accounts set the default to Aware. Pick a default that makes sense for your funnel and stick with it.

What does not happen automatically​

The funnel status is not driven by email engagement. Opens, clicks, replies, and unsubscribes do not auto-promote or demote the contact. Two reasons for this design:

  1. Engagement signals are noisy. Mailbox provider preview panes load tracking pixels without the recipient ever seeing the message. A contact can show "open" without engaging.
  2. Funnel meaning differs per account. "Engaged" for a SaaS company is different from "Engaged" for an e-commerce store. Mailtarget refuses to define the rule for you.

If you want automatic funnel status changes, drive them from your application via the API. Update the contact's funnel status when your business event fires (purchase confirmed, refund processed, support ticket resolved). The API-side surface for funnel status updates is in the API Reference. Tag any divergence as review_needed: true.

Funnel status as a segment dimension​

Funnel status is a filterable field. Build segments like:

  • Funnel status = Customer AND Last open before 2026-04-08 for at-risk re-engagement.
  • Funnel status = Promoter for advocacy outreach.
  • Funnel status = Aware AND Subscribed at after 2026-05-01 for new-subscriber welcome series.

See Segmentation for combining filters.

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