Journeys
Amperity
I am the the sole designer responsible for Amperity’s new Journey Builder, a no-code orchestration tool that lets marketers design complex, multi-step campaigns within a single visual space.
Amperity is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that has always tried to be best-in-class for Identity Resolution, but we would get dinged for our lack of focus on core CDP features. Our Gartner placement, and inability to ‘check the box’ on CJO/CJA (Customer Journey Optimization / Analytics) has lost us deals.
It was technically possible to build large, multi-step activations inside Amperity, but it was a complex, delicate process. If a customer wanted to do something more advanced, like branching logic, delays or split tests, they had to connect it with custom scripts; often requiring professional services.
So, one of my first projects after joining Amperity was kicking off our journey tool, and I have owned it from initial design sprint all through release.
An artifact of the design sprint
Designing the Journey Builder
The Journeys tool replaced and expanded on custom scripting with a clean visual canvas.
The interaction model and journey state system
The editor interface for connecting segments, conditions, and activations
A framework that supported both batch data and future real-time streaming
An overly complex state diagram that I created, and then wisely abandoned.
Keeping it simple.
The journey tool is simpler than some of our competitor’s tools by design. I have worked on similar tools in the past, and we would get into endless conversations about how to manage loops, orphaned nodes, arbitrary paths and merges; only to have the end result feel baroque and full of footguns.
From the very beginning, I insisted that we take these “more advanced” features and throw them in the icebox unless demand appeared. So far, we have only reintroduced Merging.
Results
Amperity’s Journeys may have been initially intended to check a box, but it’s turned into a key feature for a lot of our users. It’s an evolving, central part of our platform.
By the time I left, Journeys were a part of 13 RFPs.
Enabled customers to build complex, multi-step journeys without reliance on professional services
Helped close new enterprise deals by “checking the box” for journey orchestration
Positioned Amperity for real-time orchestration in upcoming releases
