Understanding the Trigger node when building flows
The Trigger node ensures that your flows only apply to specific customers or orders, allowing you to provide customers with a personalized experience.
This guide explains how you can leverage conditions in the Trigger node for specific flows, and any use cases and considerations.
- Shopify Checkout Integration
- Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration
Before you start
- Consider the conditions you want to configure for the flow to prevent a large portion of/all orders from entering the flow. Using the number of subscription orders processed or the streak count for subscription orders conditions to target customers at specific parts of their journey ensures that the incentives do not apply to every single processed order. See inherent risks for additional information.
How it works
By default, all flows execute based on the trigger set on the Trigger node in the flow’s canvas. Each flow uses a different trigger in the trigger node to trigger the flow on specific orders:
- Surprise and Delight: After the order is processed
- Rewards After the order is processed
- Upcoming Order Cross-sell: After the order is processed
- Cancellation Prevention: After the customer starts the cancellation process
- Advanced Failed Payment Recovery: After a charge fails
Surprise and Delight, Rewards, and Upcoming Order Cross-sell flows let you set trigger conditions to ensure that your flows only apply to specific customers/orders. Trigger conditions specify which processed orders the flows should apply to. The trigger conditions use the conditions available in the Conditional Branch node, giving you complete control over the flow.
Recharge requires setting at least one trigger condition when building a flow. This ensures that the flow only applies to specific orders, rather than having the flow trigger on every order.
Recharge provides multiple trigger condition options to use as your trigger, allowing you to get granular with the customers you let into the flow. See available conditions for a detailed list of possible trigger condition options.
While some of these options were previously available as flow and trigger filters, Recharge has rolled them into the trigger conditions, which a customer must meet for their order to enter the flow.
You can get granular with your trigger conditions using AND or OR logic. You can use up to 10 OR logic blocks within a trigger node and 5 AND logic blocks within an OR block:
- Use
ANDlogic to ensure all of the specified conditions are met before the flow triggers - Use
ORlogic to ensure any of the specified conditions are met before the flow triggers
Available conditions
Review the chart below for a full understanding of the available options you can use to build your conditions:
Condition category |
Condition |
Purpose |
| Customer |
Number of active subscriptions |
Target customers based on the total number of active subscriptions they have. |
| Customer |
Subscription AOV |
Target customers based on their Average Order Value across all orders in Recharge. Recharge uses the total subscription spend divided by the number of orders to calculate the Average Order Value. Recharge calculates the total subscription spend by taking the price of the line items, subtracting any discounts, and then adding taxes and shipping. Refunds are not taken into account for this calculation. |
| Customer | Total subscription spend |
Target customers based on their total spend amount on all orders in Recharge. |
| Customer |
Number of subscription orders processed |
Target customers based on how many total orders in Recharge they have successfully processed, including both checkout and recurring orders. |
| Customer |
Segment |
Target a specific segment to have the flow apply to select customers or keep a specific segment of customers from entering the flow. |
| Customer | Streak count for subscription orders |
Target customers based on where they are in their current subscription journey. This number represents how many recent orders a customer has had in sequence without any cancellations. |
| Line Item | Variant |
Target or exclude customers subscribed to a specific subscription product. Orders only enter a flow if they contain the subscription version of a product, even if the product can be purchased as both a subscription and one-time. If a processed order contains the one-time version of a product, it will not pass the line-item condition, despite having the same variant ID as the subscription version. |
|
Shipping address |
Country |
Target or exclude customers based on the shipping country provided. |
| Shipping address | Zip code |
Target or exclude customers based on the zip code provided. |
Number of subscription orders processed vs. streak count for subscription orders
Both the number of subscription orders processed and the streak count for subscription orders conditions refer to the number of orders a customer has made across all of their subscriptions. The conditions are different, however, in how the flow handles customers who have cancelled and then reactivated their subscriptions. If all subscriptions belonging to a customer are cancelled by either the customer or an admin at any time:
- The streak count for subscription orders resets to 1 on the next fulfilled recurring order
- The number of subscription orders processed remains unaffected and does not reset
The example below outlines the difference between the two conditions:
Step in the customer journey: |
Checkout order processed |
Recurring order #1 processed |
Customer cancels all subscriptions |
Customer reactivates their subscription, Recurring order #2 processed |
Recurring order #3 processed |
Number of subscription orders processed: |
1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Streak count for subscription orders: |
1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Use cases
The possibilities are nearly endless when it comes to the updated trigger conditions. Check out some of the most popular triggers other merchants are using, and how they’ve configured their conditions:
Use case |
Flow trigger configuration |
|
Offer customers subscribed to a specific product a free gift on their fifth order |
Set the trigger conditions as follows when creating a Surprise and Delight offering: Condition 1:
AND Condition 2:
|
|
Provide American customers the option to buy a product at a discounted price for BFCM |
Set the trigger conditions as follows when creating an Upcoming Order Cross-sell offering: Condition:
Note: You can set a start and end date in your flow settings to determine when customers will enter the flow. Keep in mind that even after the set date, pending offers are still available for customers who have entered the flow.
|
|
Trigger a flow for every processed order
Warning: Offering a flow to every customer is considered extremely high-risk and is not recommended for all flow, as every single customer will enter the flow each time their order is processed.
|
Set the following trigger conditions when building any flow to trigger the flow on every processed order: Condition:
Or you could use: Condition:
Tip: Use the flow limit setting when creating a flow that applies to all orders to avoid situations where multiple customers receive the incentive, or where individual customers receive the incentive numerous times. See flow settings for additional details
|
Inherent risks
The trigger node provides additional flexibility; however, there are considerations to ensure the flow triggers as expected.
is greater than one. All orders satisfy these conditions, and the flow will apply to every order that Recharge processes. This is not recommended unless you have flow run count limits set to prevent customers from receiving the incentive multiple times. See flow settings for additional details.By default, the trigger node for Surprise and Delight, Rewards, an Legacy Upcoming order Cross-sell flows is set to trigger a flow on orders immediately after they are processed. To prevent customers from entering the flow after every order, use the number of subscription orders processed or the streak count for subscription orders condition. These conditions target a specific point in the customer’s journey.
For example, if you wanted the flow to apply to a customer’s fourth order overall, you would need to create a condition that targets the customer’s streak count using the following conditions configuration:
- Customer
- Streak count for subscription orders
- Equals
- 3
With this condition set, the flow only targets customers that have a streak count of three and applies the incentive to the customer's fourth order. While you can set values to allow flows to process on every order, it is risky and not recommended.
