What Is New in Customer Insights Journeys? (5 Features in a Row)
Make the transition to Real-Time Marketing seamlessly with five powerful new features from 2025 Release Wave 1 for Customer Insights Journeys. From smart event portals and waitlists to flexible data exports, these tools empower you to make every customer journey even more personalized and effective.
Anyone working with Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Journeys has noticed that the Microsoft product team worked hard to ensure the outbound marketing module (OBM) was phased out smoothly by June 30. This focus is reflected in the extensive 2025 Release Wave 1, which not only transitions legacy OBM capabilities into Real-Time Marketing (RTM), but also introduces powerful new functionality. Here are the 5 most important features to know about:
Prefer watching an in-depth session over a quick read? Watch our webinar recording on all the new features in Release Wave 1 here!
1. Use Segment Membership as a Condition for an If-Then Branch in Journeys
Existing if-then branches already allowed you to wait for specific triggers within a journey, such as opening an email. You can now also use segment membership (or lack thereof) as a trigger within customer journeys. This enables you to seamlessly deliver targeted communications at the right time, giving you greater control over the customer experience.
2. Data Export Functionalities
In today’s data-driven landscape, marketers struggle to gain a comprehensive overview of campaign performance to drive informed decision-making. With the latest Release Wave, you can now securely export real-time marketing (RTM) data, such as email opens, clicks, and bounces, to your preferred storage solution without requiring Microsoft Fabric. This empowers you to generate custom reports and analytics that integrate seamlessly with your existing systems.
3. The Event Portal
The legacy Outbound Marketing (OBM) module included an event registration portal with limited customization options. With the latest Release Wave, the new Power Pages event portal for Customer Insights-Journeys is now in public preview.
With the new event portal, you can quickly build a comprehensive hub where attendees can access event details, session information, and speaker schedules. Furthermore, attendees can easily register for events using embedded forms. The portal integrates seamlessly into your existing CMS via a JavaScript code snippet or the new Event API.
4. Waitlist Features
Alongside the new event portal, waitlist functionality is back by popular demand and far more extensive than it was in OBM. For example, potential participants are automatically placed on a waitlist as soon as an event or session reaches capacity, and vacant spots are immediately filled from the queue. The key features of the new capacity management system include:
- Simple list of queue registrations and segments can make queue registrations
- Automated communication via prebuilt, trigger-based journeys for both event and waitlist registrations.
- Add a cancellation button to your emails, allowing participants who can no longer attend to easily free up their spot for someone else.
5. Custom Form Fields
For users accustomed to Dynamics 365 Marketing, the inability to add custom fields to forms was often frustrating. The form builder previously only allowed you to include fields that already existed in your database.
That challenge is now resolved with Custom Form Fields. You can easily add unbound fields to collect information that you do not need to store permanently in your Dynamics 365 database, such as asking attendees for dietary preferences or parking space reservations.
This is just a glimpse of the new features in Customer Insights-Journeys. There are many more updates in this Release Wave that we would love to share with you.