Buying Groups - Journey Object Management & Reporting

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Contents

 

Overview

The Journey object serves as a core container and tracking mechanism that enables organizations to effectively manage buying group activities throughout their sales process. Key aspects of the Journey object include:

  • Pre-Opportunity Tracking: Enables tracking of buying group activities before opportunity creation, particularly for marketing-driven processes
  • Member Management: Contains both potential and confirmed members (leads/contacts), each with associated sales and marketing signals
  • Signal Aggregation: Collects and manages engagement signals from various members to determine journey activation thresholds
  • Opportunity Integration: Provides two-way sync with opportunities, allowing member conversion to contact roles and vice versa
  • Segmentation Support: Each account can have multiple journeys differentiated by segments (e.g., product lines, industries)

Understanding the Journey object's structure and relationships with other key objects is essential for effective Journey management. For information about the Journey Record Page and Journey Tracker Interface, please see the Journey Record Page and Tracker Guide.

 

Core Buying Group Objects

  • (Buying Group) Journey: A custom object created and managed by LeanData that serves as a container for potential and confirmed buying group members and signals associated with these members. A Buying Group Journey can be linked with an Opportunity and will be part of a specific Account. Journeys can be categorized into different Journey Segments.
  • (Buying Group) Member: A Buying Group Member is a Lead or Contact with relevant signals that is associated to a Journey. Members can be either potential (identified by LeanData based on configured criteria) or confirmed (manually verified by users). Potential Members are grouped by their Personas. Confirmed Members are assigned specific roles in the Buying Group, which map to Contact Roles on any linked Opportunity.
  • (Buying Group) Signals: Signals are engagement activities from Buying group members like Campaign Member status changes, Tasks, or Events. Signals are a generalized version of Campaign Members (for Marketing Signals) or Tasks and Events (for Sales Signals).
    • Please Note: Signals are stored off-platform, so signal records cannot be accessed in Salesforce reporting.
  • (Buying Group) Persona: A Persona is a classification that defines a member's organizational role and context. Each segment will have its own Personas. Users can create custom criteria to categorize members into personas or utilize LeanData Title Clustering for automatic categorization.
  • (Buying Group) Role: A Role is a specific function a member performs within a Buying Group, such as Economic Buyer, Decision Maker, or Champion. When a Journey is linked to an Opportunity, these roles can be mapped to corresponding Contact Roles.

 

Object Creation and Maintenance

Buying Group Objects are created and updated automatically when they meet specified configuration criteria.

  • A Buying Group Journey is created when there is a single Potential Buying Group Member.
  • A Potential Buying Group Member is created when a Lead/Contact has a single Buying Group Signal.
  • In other words, one Signal generates both a Potential Member and its associated Journey.

A Signal will be created within a given Segment when all of the following conditions are met

  • A new Task, Event, or Campaign Member meets the criteria to be recognized as a Signal within this segment—either through an update (within the configured Signal Lookback Window) or when initially created.
  • The Lead or Contact's Account must match the Account filters that are configured in the Segment's "General" tab.
  • The Lead/Contact passes the Lead/Contact filters configured under the "Members" tab in the Segment.
  • The Lead/Contact must match a specific "Persona" defined under the "Members" tab in the Segment.

Each new or updated Task/Event/Campaign Member is evaluated as a Signal across all configured Segments. This means one Task/Event/Campaign Member can generate multiple Signals—potentially one for each Segment. Likewise, a single Lead/Contact can be a Member across multiple Journeys, with a new Member object created for each Journey.

When a Journey is created, it automatically includes Persona records for each Persona that was defined in the Segment configuration. Each Persona serves as a parent object for all Members who match its criteria.

 

Opportunity Contact Role Syncing

When a Journey is linked to an Opportunity, there is a direct one-to-one mapping between Opportunity Contact Roles and confirmed Buying Group Members. If a user manually adds a Contact Role to the linked Opportunity, LeanData will automatically create a corresponding Member if one doesn't exist. Similarly, any new Confirmed Buying Group Members are automatically mapped as Contact Roles on the Opportunity. When a role is updated for either a confirmed Buying Group Member or an Opportunity Contact Role, LeanData will automatically sync the change to the corresponding record.

For more information on these settings, please see the Buying Groups Edition - General Settings Guide.

 

Object Relationships

The following outlines the relationships between different Buying Group related objects:

  • Journey to Account: A many-to-one relationship exists between Journeys and an Account. However, there can only be one Journey per Segment for each Account. An Account cannot have multiple Journeys within the same Journey Segment.
  • Journey to Opportunity: An optional one-to-one relationship exists when a Journey is linked to an Opportunity. Once linked, the Journey's roles automatically sync bidirectionally with Opportunity Contact Roles.
  • Member to Journey: A many-to-one relationship exists between Members and their Journey. Each Journey contains multiple members, while a member can only belong to one Journey at a time. However, individual Leads or Contacts can participate in multiple Journeys through separate Journey Member records.
  • Signal to Member: A many-to-one relationship exists between signals and a Member, tracking the different engagements per member. Each member can have multiple signals associated with their marketing and sales activities.
  • Member to Persona: A many-to-one relationship exists between Members and a Persona. Each member is categorized into exactly one Persona based on their title, role, or other configured criteria. A Persona can contain multiple members who fit its classification criteria.
  • Persona to Journey: A many-to-one relationship exists between Personas and a Journey (by segment). Each Journey will have multiple Personas defined based on the Segment configuration, and these Personas serve as grouping containers for both potential and confirmed members who match their classification criteria.
  • Member to Role: A many-to-one relationship exists between Members and a Role within a Journey. Each confirmed member is assigned exactly one Role, while each Role can have multiple members filling that Role. Roles define the member's function within the buying group (e.g., Champion, Decision Maker) and map directly to Contact Roles when linked to an Opportunity.
  • Role to Journey: A many-to-one relationship exists between Roles and a Journey (by segment). Each Journey has multiple pre-defined Roles that need to be filled by confirmed members. These Role definitions are configured at the Segment level and determine what roles are required or optional for each Journey.

Screenshot 2025-03-31 at 1.16.23 PM.png

 

Reportable Objects and Fields

Many of these Buying Group Objects are available to build your own Reports and Dashboards. Find below details for the different Buying Group Objects. Not all objects and fields will be listed below.

Object: LD_Journey__c

Field Name Data Type / Description
Status__c Text - Can be Unqualified, Closed, Triggered for Routing, Qualified, or Invalid
Invalid_Reason__c Text
Opportunity__c Lookup
Account__c Lookup
Segment__c Lookup
Segment_Name__c Text
Last_Routed_Date__c Date - Last time Journey was routed (including routing scheduler)
Qualified_Date__c Date - When Journey first met routing trigger conditions
Invalid_Date__c Date
Close_Date__c Date
Number_Of_Members__c Number
Number_Of_Potential_Members__c Number
Potential_Member_Personas__c Text - Semicolon separated, for trigger conditions
External_UUID__c Text
Opportunity_Linked_Date__c Date
Score__c Number - Aggregate of Score on Member objects
First_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Sales_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Marketing_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Marketing_Signal_Campaign__c Lookup
First_Signal_Type__c Text - Sales vs. Marketing
Last_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Sales_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Marketing_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Signal_Type__c Text - Sales vs. Marketing
First_Signal_Days_To_Journey_Qualified__c Number
Journey_Qualified_Days_To_Opp_Created__c Number
First_Signal_Days_To_Opportunity_Close__c Number
First_Signal_Days_To_Opportunity_Created__c Number
Total_Signals__c Number
Total_Marketing_Signals__c Number
Total_Sales_Signals__c Number
Total_Unique_Roles__c Number
Ideal_Total_Unique_Roles__c Number

 

Object: LD_Journey_Persona__c

Field Name Data Type / Description
Buying_Group_Journey__c Lookup
Status__c Text
Invalid_Reason__c Text
Invalid_Date__c Date
Segment__c Lookup
Segment_Name__c Text
Score__c Number - Aggregate of Score on Member objects
Suggested_Role_Mapping__c Text
Number_Of_Members__c Number
Number_Of_Potential_Members__c Number
First_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Sales_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Marketing_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Marketing_Signal_Campaign__c Lookup
First_Signal_Type__c Text - Sales vs. Marketing
Last_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Sales_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Marketing_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Signal_Type__c Text
First_Signal_Days_To_Journey_Qualified__c Formula
First_Signal_Days_To_Opportunity_Close__c Formula
First_Signal_Days_To_Opportunity_Created__c Formula
Total_Signals__c Number
Total_Marketing_Signals__c Number
Total_Sales_Signals__c Number
External_UUID__c Text

 

Object: LD_Journey_Member__c

Field Name Data Type / Description
Status__c Text - Can be Potential, Confirmed, Invalid, or Removed
Score__c Number - Mapped over from Lead/Contact score (optional)
Segment__c Lookup
Segment_Name__c Text
Opportunity__c Formula
Account__c Formula
Invalid_Reason__c Text
Invalid_Date__c Date
Buying_Group_Journey__c Lookup
Buying_Group_Persona__c Lookup
Prospect_Title__c Text
Title_Cluster__c Text
Lead__c Lookup
Contact__c Lookup
Member_Object_Type__c Formula
First_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Sales_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Marketing_Signal_Date__c Date
First_Marketing_Signal_Campaign__c Lookup
First_Signal_Type__c Text - Sales vs. Marketing
Last_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Sales_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Marketing_Signal_Date__c Date
Last_Signal_Type__c Text
Total_Signals__c Number
Total_Marketing_Signals__c Number
Total_Sales_Signals__c Number
Role__c Text - Equivalent of Contact Role pre-Opportunity. Must map 1:1 with Contact_Role__c when Opportunity is linked
Lead_Conversion_Date__c Formula
Contact_Role_Created_Date__c Date
Confirmed_Date__c Date
First_Signal_Days_To_Journey_Qualified__c Formula
First_Signal_Days_To_Opportunity_Close__c Formula
First_Signal_Days_To_Opportunity_Created__c Formula
External_UUID__c Text

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