Contact journey

The contact journey is a unified, newest-first timeline of everything MailerPath has recorded for a specific contact. Use it to understand a contact’s full lifecycle, debug delivery or workflow issues, and verify that events and tag assignments are working as expected.

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What appears in the timeline

Each timeline entry has an entry_type and a corresponding payload object:

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How to read each entry type

profile

• action: created — the contact record was first created.
• action: updated — contact fields were updated.
• Shows the email at the moment of the change.

subscription

• state: subscribed — contact opted in or was re-subscribed.
• state: unsubscribed — contact opted out.
• unsubscribe_reason is shown when provided.

direct_email

• Shows subject, from address, and delivery status.
• status_text gives the human-readable status: sent, received, delivered, opened, clicked, deferred, bounced, failed, skipped.
• deferred means the provider temporarily delayed delivery — the email will be retried automatically.
• Use sent_email_id to cross-reference the full sent email record.

workflow_execution

• Shows which workflow ran, its status, and timestamps.
• Includes email_opened and email_clicked when the execution sent an email.
• sent_email_ref links to the specific sent email record.

tag_assigned / tag_removed

• Shows which tag changed and the timestamp.
• Useful for verifying that event-driven tag rules are firing correctly.

event

• The raw event your application sent (type, action, source, status).
• Useful for confirming events are arriving and being attributed to the right contact.

campaign_recipient

• Shows the campaign, send status, and engagement milestones (opened, clicked).

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Real example: a new user’s first 24 hours

Here is a real contact journey for a newly signed-up user. The timeline reads newest-first and covers two days of activity.

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June 19, 2026 — 3 events The contact opened the verification email the evening after signup. The Welcome Workflow email was opened twice that morning — consistent with a double-read or re-open on a second device.

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June 18, 2026 — 15 events What the sequence tells you:

1. At 8:16:07 PM the contact signed up: Profile created and Subscribed appeared together, meaning the registration flow created the contact and opted them in simultaneously.
2. The transactional Verify your email address email was dispatched immediately: sent → received → delivered within 2 seconds.
3. The contact opened the email at 8:16:10 PM — within 3 seconds of delivery.
4. At 8:16:24 PM the signup event arrived from your application. This triggered tag assignment: Lead, New Signup, and Onboarding were all assigned in the same second.
5. Profile updated appeared alongside the tags — the contact record was enriched from the signup event payload.
6. The contact clicked the verification link at 8:16:24 PM and again at 8:16:26 PM (double-click pattern is common on verification links).

This timeline shows a healthy, fully operational signup flow: event received → contact created → tags assigned → transactional email delivered and engaged within a few seconds.

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Common uses

Debugging why a workflow did not run

• Check for the expected trigger event in the timeline.
• Confirm the tag was assigned.
• Look for a workflow_execution entry with a failed status and review error_message.

Verifying a subscription change

• Look for a subscription entry with the expected state and timestamp.

Checking delivery for a specific contact

• Look for direct_email, campaign_recipient, or workflow_execution entries and check status_text.

Auditing tag assignment

• Review tag_assigned and tag_removed entries with timestamps to trace how tags changed over time.

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Related pages

• Contacts
• Events
• Tags and segmentation
• Sent emails and delivery