Decisions vs Forks in Drip

There are two features in Drip Workflows that look very similar – Decisions and Forks. What’s the difference between the two? That’s what I cover in this tutorial.

There are two kinds of splits available in Workflows. This first split is a fork and this second split is a decision. How do you know? By looking for the words yes and no.

Decisions in Drip

If you see that, it’s a decision and there should be a decision criterion right above that yes or no.

In this example, you see right here Subscriber has subscribed to "Coaching Club Members" campaign.

When you set up this decision, you are telling Drip to check to see if the subscriber that’s going through this workflow is subscribed to that campaign.

Drip Workflow Decision

If the answer is yes, then you can specify a specific action to take. This can be anything from sending them an email to recording a specific event to removing them from a Drip campaign. And there are many other options.

If the answer is no, then you can have it take a different action. This is great for saying something like, if they are not a customer, introduce them to your product so that hopefully they will make a decision to get your awesome course.

Forks in Drip

Now this is different from a fork. A fork will allow you to run two series of actions simultaneously.

For example, you can say something like – once they reach this point, Subscribe them to two campaigns that run independently. 

Forks in Drip

Everything that happens once this fork starts until the fork ends down here happens at the same time. You don’t have to wait for one sequence to happen before doing the other.

I don’t use forks in my business because I usually find it more effective to have one goal for every subscriber that’s on a certain part of the journey I have them on. But it may be useful for you.

So analyze your business structure and see if it makes sense for you to use forks and where it makes sense for you to use decisions.

QUESTION: Do you see yourself using forks in your email marketing? Go ahead and leave your answer to this question in the comments area below.