Why Day 0 Matters
The first moments after key customer actions, such as registration or completing KYC, are often the most critical for driving conversion. Intent is high, attention is focused, and timely engagement can significantly impact outcomes.
Day 0 Streams let you respond immediately to these moments and guide customers through their first interactions using real-time, behavior-based messaging. While often used for onboarding, Day 0 Streams can be applied to any scenario where engaging customers quickly, based on their actions, improves results.
What Is a Day 0 Stream?
"Day 0" refers to the day of registration. Trigger-based entry allows any customer who activates the trigger to enter the Stream, including newly registered customers and those already beyond day 0. This enables journeys that can start immediately at registration or at any key moment later in the customer lifecycle.
With Day 0 Streams, you can:
- Enter customers into a Stream instantly when a trigger occurs
- Send follow-ups based on customer actions (or inaction) within minutes or hours
- Continue seamlessly into day 1 and beyond, where journeys can include segmentation and scheduled campaigns
When Should You Use Day 0 Streams?
Use Day 0 Streams when early engagement after a specific event is critical to conversion or activation.
Common scenarios include:
- Immediately after registration (onboarding and welcome journeys)
- After completing KYC or verification
- Following a first purchase or deposit
- After triggering a key behavioral milestone
- Any use case where acting quickly improves outcomes
Example Use Cases
Simple Day 0 → Day 1 Welcome Flow
A customer registers and immediately enters a Stream.
- They receive an instant welcome message
- The Stream waits until the designated hour on the following day
- On day 1, the journey continues with scheduled campaigns and segmentation
This creates a seamless handoff from real-time onboarding to ongoing lifecycle engagement—without managing multiple campaigns or workflows.
Conversion-Based Branching
A customer registers and receives an immediate welcome message. The Stream then waits up to 2 hours for a purchase event:
- If a purchase occurs → send next-step guidance or product recommendations
- If no purchase occurs → send a reminder or incentive
Both paths continue into day 1 follow-ups within the same journey.
Rapid Deposit Follow-Ups
A customer registers and does not deposit within 15 minutes. They enter a Day 0 Stream that includes:
- An immediately triggered message
- Follow-ups after 30, 45, and 60 minutes
- Each step waits for a deposit event and branches accordingly
Once the deposit happens, or after the sequence completes, the journey continues with scheduled day 1 communication.
How to Build a Day 0 Stream
Follow these steps to create a journey that starts in real-time and continues into later lifecycle stages.
Step 1 — Set Entry Method to Trigger-Based
When creating the Stream:
- Select Entry Criteria
- Choose All customers who activate the entry trigger
This enables real-time entry into the Stream when a trigger occurs. When choosing this option, segmentation rules cannot be added at entry—customers will enter and receive day 0 campaigns based only on the trigger event.
Step 2 — Define the Entry Trigger
In the Stream canvas:
- Add a Trigger Split as the first step
- Select the event that will act as your entry trigger
For example:
- Registration
- KYC completion
- First deposit or purchase
- Any custom behavioral event
All customers who activate this trigger will enter the Stream, including newly registered customers and existing customers. To control which customers enter, apply filters on the event attributes when defining the trigger.
Step 3 — Add the First Triggered Campaign
Attach a triggered campaign to the relevant path from the trigger split. This lets you engage customers immediately and deliver a message while intent is at its highest.
Step 4 — Add Day 0 Follow-Ups Using Real-Time Logic (optional)
Use Wait for Event Splits followed by triggered campaigns to wait for a customer action and branch based on whether it occurs within a defined timeframe—from minutes to hours or longer.
Simply select the event and define the wait timeframe. Optimove automatically configures the Yes/No branching paths for you—no manual setup of the event flow required.
Step 5 — Transition to Day 1 and Beyond
Use Wait Until Day to advance the journey. From this point, you can:
- Add segmentation
- Use scheduled campaigns
- Continue with longer-term lifecycle messaging
Step 6 — Set Your Stream Objective and KPI
In Stream Settings, set the objective to KPI Based and select the KPI that reflects the key action you want to drive. For a welcome or deposit journey, this is typically Number of Deposits.
This ensures your stream is measured against a meaningful outcome from the first interaction onward, giving you a clear view of how the full journey performs.
Limitations and Considerations
- Availability — Day 0 Streams are available only to clients using Campaign Execution 2.0
- Target group on day 0 — All campaigns on day 0 (before the first Wait Until Day) use the All Customers Target Group
- No segmentation on day 0 — Segmentation criteria, segment splits, and exit criteria are not available on day 0; they become available from day 1 onward
- Experimentation limitations — Day 0 Streams support only a single test treatment per campaign
- Control group configuration — If using a control group, the control percentage is defined at the All Customers Target Group level under Triggered Campaign settings
- Stream structure requirement — The stream must start with a triggered campaignS
- Personalization limitations — Personalization in day 0 campaigns is based only on attributes available in the trigger event. Follow-up campaigns after a Wait for Event Split may not include all personalization data. Configure templates with fallback values to handle any missing data
Key Takeaway
Day 0 Streams enable you to engage customers the moment it matters most—driving faster activation, earlier conversion, and a stronger foundation for long-term retention.
They provide:
- Immediate entry based on real-time triggers
- Fast, behavior-based follow-ups
- A single continuous journey from day 0 onward
- Continuous measurement across the full journey, starting from the first interaction