Engagement - Email Send via Journey Builder Does Not Send to All Contacts

There are several reasons a Contact isn’t sent an email from Journey Builder. There are two parts to troubleshooting Emails sent via Journey Builder; the Journey and the Triggered Send used by the Journey to send the email. This article discusses the most common reasons a Contact won’t receive an email in a Single Send and Multi-Step Journey.

For details on troubleshooting a Triggered Send review Marketing Cloud Engagement Triggered Send Not Sent to Subscriber.


Table of Contents:
 

• Email Activity
• Injection
• Multi-Step Contact Path
• Triggered Send Troubleshooting

Email Activity

The first thing to check is if the Contact made it to the Journey’s Email Activity. To complete these steps, you must know the Journey that contains the Email Activity and the Contact Key of the Contact who didn’t receive the email.
 

• Navigate to Journey Builder
• Find and click the Journey you want to investigate
• Find the Email Activity in your Journey and click the Contact count below the activity
• On the pop-up that appears, select the View Contact Details button
• On the slide-out drawer that you see on the left, select View Details
• Review the activity at a high level as the view expands
• Use the search box to enter your Contact Key and specifically search for your Contact
• Ensure the Status column shows the Contact as Successful

If the Contact made it to the Email Activity and was successfully processed, it doesn’t guarantee the email was sent to your Contact. It means Journey Builder successfully passed the Contact Key (and data) to the Triggered Send to deliver the message.

Follow the Knowledge Article Marketing Cloud Engagement Triggered Send Not Sent to Subscriber to troubleshoot the triggered send used by Journey Builder.

If the Contact didn’t make it to the Email Activity, our next step is to confirm the Contact met the Entry Criteria and was successfully injected into the Journey.

 

Injection

After confirming the Contact didn’t make it to the Email Activity step, check the Contact was successfully injected into the Journey.

Every Journey requires an Entry Source to determine if a Contact is eligible for the Journey. If the Contact meets the requirements of the Event Entry Source, it is injected by the Journey. If the Contact doesn’t meet the criteria, it won’t be injected and processed by the Journey.

To verify the Contact has been injected and is eligible for the email, you need their Contact Key. Once you have their Contact Key, use the following steps to check the Entry Results.
 

• Navigate to Journey Builder
• Find the Journey you want to investigate from the Journey Dashboard
• Click the Journey Name
• Click View Event Results
• Click the number in the Contacts Accepted box
• On the right-hand side of the page, search for the Contact Key
• If the Contact appears in this list, they were successfully injected into the Journey
  • If your Journey is configured to allow a Contact to be injected multiple times, evaluate the Time field to ensure they were injected for the time in question.

Alternatively, you can check Journey injection via the History tab within Journey Builder.
 

• Navigate into the Journey Builder application and select History from across the top
• On the right-hand side, use the Filters section
• Find your Journey Name under Journey and choose it
  • Note - you can also filter on Version if you have multiple Versions
• Within the search box above Journey, enter your Contact Key
• Select Apply to refresh the dashboard

You’ll be looking for the ActivityType of TRIGGER and a Status of MetCriteria. 'Trigger' is the original name for the Entry Source of the Journey. Review Status Key Reference for more information on each status.


If the Journey didn’t accept the Contact, review the Contacts data and the Event Entry Source filter criteria to identify why the Contact didn’t meet the requirements.

If you’re using a Multi-Step Journey and the Contact was injected but didn’t make it to the Email Activity, proceed to the next section to review the Contact's path in the Journey.

 

Multi-Step Contact Path

If your Journey is a Multi-Step Journey and the Contact was injected but didn’t make it to the Email Activity, the Contact likely followed a path in the Journey that didn’t lead to the Email Activity.

Use the View a Contact Path to confirm the path your Contact took once injected into the Journey and review the Activities and path the Contact took.

• Enter the Journey you’re working on
• Click the Health icon towards the top right of the page
• Enter your Contact Key in the box to find your record
• Select the instance of the Contact you wish to look at
  • Contacts can enter a Journey more than once, and if within the last 30 days, they can appear more than once

Specifically, look for your Contact to move through the Email Activity you expect to be sent. Ensure the highlighted path navigates through the Email Activity, and you see a Continue (green dot) status for the Email Activity in the Contact Path details section.

 

Triggered Send Troubleshooting

When a Journey Builder Email Activity successfully processes a Contact, the Contact is sent to the Triggered Send associated with that email. Follow the steps outlined in Marketing Cloud Engagement Triggered Send Not Sent to Subscriber to troubleshoot the triggered send used by Journey Builder.