How To Use Early-Exit Conditions

  • Updated

Early Exit Conditions remove contacts from an Automated Program as soon as they meet specific criteria. This helps prevent redundant messages, respect suppression rules, and move contacts into more relevant programs once they have completed an action.

Quick Reference (Advanced Users) - Click to Expand
  • Where to add: Build → Early exits
  • How it works: Before each step, Act-On checks if the contact matches any Early Exit Condition
  • If matched: Contact exits the program immediately
  • Available actions: Exit only, exit and append to list, exit and copy/update to list
  • Works well for: Event signups, suppression lists, goal completion, lead scoring transitions
Try it like this: Add an Early Exit Condition for a “Registered for Webinar” list so that anyone who signs up is removed from the promotional program immediately and stops receiving reminder emails.

What Early Exit Conditions Do

Early Exit Conditions use lists or segments to determine whether a contact should stop moving through your Automated Program. Before the program runs any step, it checks whether the contact is in a list or segment identified in your Early Exit Conditions. If the contact matches, they exit the program immediately.

You might use Early Exit Conditions when:

  • A contact completes the goal of the program, such as submitting a form or purchasing.
  • You want to ensure that contacts in suppression lists or internal lists do not continue receiving program messages.
  • You want to stop nurturing a contact once they become sales ready or move to a different lifecycle stage.

Add Early Exit Conditions in the Automated Journey Builder

  1. Open your program and go to Build → Early exits. Select +Add Condition:

Add Early Exit Condition

  1. Select a list or segment for the condition:

Early Exit Condition dialog

  1. Choose what happens when a contact matches the Early Exit Condition:
    • Only exit contact from the program The contact exits and no further steps run.
    • Exit contact AND append contact to a list The contact exits and is added to another list, such as a follow-up or completed list.
    • Exit contact AND copy/update contact to a list The contact exits and is copied or updated into a different list.
  2. Click Submit to save your Early Exit Condition.

How Early Exit Conditions Work with Wait Steps

Contacts remain in a Wait step until the wait completes. When they finish the wait and move forward, Act-On checks Early Exit Conditions again. If they now match an Early Exit Condition, they exit at that point.

Examples

Lead Scoring Programs

  • In a nurture journey, contacts may receive educational content until they reach a specific lead score.
  • Once a contact meets the scoring threshold, a segment can mark them as sales ready.
  • An Early Exit Condition referencing that segment will remove the contact from the nurture program immediately.

Event Registration

  • If the program promotes an event, use an Early Exit Condition on a registration list.
  • As soon as the contact registers, they exit and stop receiving promotional messages.

Suppression Lists

  • An Early Exit Condition can reference a suppression list that identifies contacts who must not receive further communication.
  • If a contact is added to this list, the Early Exit Condition removes them from the program automatically.

Tips and Best Practices

  • Give lists and segments clear, specific names so you can easily understand why contacts exit.
  • Document your exit logic in the program description.
  • Review your program reports regularly to ensure contacts exit at the correct time.
  • Use Early Exits together with downstream programs to create connected journeys.

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