Customer Insights – Journeys is Microsoft's marketing automation application within the Dynamics 365 ecosystem, used to build multi-step, automated customer journeys across email, SMS and other channels, triggered by customer behaviour or CRM data. Unlike standalone marketing tools, it shares the same underlying customer data as Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, allowing marketing activity to connect directly with sales and service processes rather than operating as a disconnected system.
How journeys connect marketing to sales and service data
Because Customer Insights – Journeys draws on the same contact, lead and segment data as the rest of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, a journey can be triggered directly by sales or service events, such as a renewal date approaching or a lead score crossing a defined threshold, and can in turn feed back into the CRM by creating a lead or task for sales follow-up. This two-way connection means marketing, sales and service teams are working from a single, consistent view of the customer relationship rather than each maintaining a separate, potentially conflicting record.
Customer Insights – Journeys in practice
- A business builds an automated renewal journey that begins ninety days before a contract's expiry date, escalating the messaging and ultimately creating a task for the account manager if the customer has not engaged by a defined point.
- A marketing team triggers a nurture journey automatically when a lead's score crosses a qualification threshold, handing the lead to sales once engagement reaches a defined level within the journey.
- A business uses journey performance data to compare which messaging sequence converts best for a particular customer segment, refining future campaigns based on real engagement data.
- A service team triggers a follow-up journey automatically after a case is closed, gathering customer feedback and surfacing any negative responses directly to a service manager for review.
How Advantage builds customer journeys with Customer Insights
Advantage builds automated customer journeys within Customer Insights – Journeys, connected to the wider Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement data so marketing activity aligns directly with sales and service processes rather than running in isolation. We help businesses design journeys around real triggers and outcomes specific to their customer lifecycle.
Read our guide to marketing automation with Customer Insights →
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Customer Insights – Journeys.
What is a customer journey in marketing automation?
A customer journey is an automated, multi-step sequence of marketing touchpoints, such as emails, SMS messages or personalised website content, triggered by a customer's actions or attributes and designed to guide them toward a defined outcome, such as a purchase, renewal or re-engagement. Rather than sending a single campaign to everyone at once, a journey adapts the sequence and timing based on how each individual customer responds along the way.
How does Customer Insights – Journeys connect to the rest of Dynamics 365?
Customer Insights – Journeys shares the same underlying customer and contact data as Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, meaning a journey can be triggered by, or feed directly into, CRM activity such as a lead being created from an engaged prospect, or a case being raised automatically following a customer's negative survey response. This connection avoids the data silos that occur when marketing automation runs as a completely separate system from sales and service.
What triggers are commonly used to start an automated customer journey?
Common triggers include a new lead or contact being created, a customer reaching a specific lead score threshold, a contract or subscription approaching renewal, a customer's segment membership changing, or a specific behavioural action such as downloading content or abandoning a basket. Journeys can also be triggered manually for one-off campaigns rather than only running continuously based on customer behaviour.
