Modern marketing means keeping up with customers across emails, websites, ads, and messaging apps. To do that well, you need automation.
HubSpot offers two tools for this: traditional workflows and Journey Automation. Workflows handle simple tasks like sending follow-up emails. Journey Automation maps out the full customer path and adapts based on real-time actions across channels.
This blog breaks down how both tools work, what makes them different, and when to use Journey Automation.
Traditional workflows in HubSpot are like simple, rule-based instructions. You set up a trigger, like someone filling out a form, and HubSpot follows the steps you defined. That might mean sending a welcome email, assigning a task to your team, or updating a contact’s lifecycle stage.
Workflows are best when you have a clear, single goal. For example, if someone downloads a guide, you can set up a workflow to email them a follow-up series over the next few days. Everything moves in a straight line, based on the rules you choose.
This approach is easy to manage and works well for small teams or simple campaigns. But as customer journeys get more complex, workflows can become harder to organize, especially if you’re trying to personalize at every step.
Journey Automation in HubSpot is built for bigger-picture planning. Instead of setting up one path with fixed steps, you can design a customer journey with multiple stages, branches, and outcomes. Each contact moves through the journey based on their behavior and progress.
You can include email, SMS, WhatsApp, tasks, delays, and more inside a visual map.
Someone who clicks an email might move to the next stage, while someone who doesn’t might get a reminder later. You’re not stuck with one fixed flow. The journey adjusts based on what your customer does.
This flexibility enables you to nurture leads more thoughtfully. And it works. Companies that nurture leads generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead. Journey Automation helps you do that at scale, without needing to manage dozens of separate workflows.
Both tools help automate your marketing, but they’re designed for different levels of complexity. If you're not sure which one fits your needs, it helps to look at how they compare across a few core areas.
Workflows are straightforward. You build one sequence of steps, and every contact moves through it the same way. If you need different paths, you’ll need to build multiple workflows, which can get messy fast.
Journey Automation is more flexible. You can create multiple stages, paths, and outcomes inside one journey.
You can even split paths based on what someone clicks, does, or doesn’t do, without needing to jump between different workflows. This gives you a clearer view of the full experience.
Workflows can include basic personalization, like using a contact’s name or sending an email after they do something. But the logic is limited. You’re mostly reacting to one trigger at a time.
With Journey Automation, you can react to many behaviors across multiple channels. You can send different follow-ups depending on how someone engages, where they are in their lifecycle, or what content they’ve seen.
This kind of real-time personalization helps keep people engaged longer. Nurtured leads usually make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
Use workflows when you want to handle something specific, like sending a birthday email or assigning a task. They’re great for one-off actions or short campaigns.
Use Journey Automation when you want to guide someone through a longer process. That could be a lead nurturing campaign, a customer onboarding journey, or even a re-engagement sequence. It’s built for full-funnel marketing, not just one moment in time.
Journey Automation isn’t meant to replace workflows completely. But it shines in situations where customer engagement is more complex, and where you want to guide people through multiple steps in a smarter, more personalized way.
Here’s when Journey Automation is the better choice.
If your marketing involves more than just one email or one action, Journey Automation helps you connect everything. Instead of juggling separate workflows for different steps, you can manage the whole experience in one place, from awareness to conversion to retention.
This is especially helpful for longer sales cycles, where people need to be nurtured over time. Journey Automation gives you the structure to make that nurturing feel seamless.
Journey Automation responds to what each person does. If someone clicks a link, watches a video, or ignores a message, you can change their path. This makes your messaging feel more relevant without needing a ton of manual setup.
That level of personalization is hard to manage with traditional workflows. Journey Automation helps you act in real time and meet each person where they are.
If you’re engaging people through email, SMS, ads, or WhatsApp, Journey Automation keeps everything connected. You can send messages across different platforms within one journey, without losing track of where each contact is.
This is especially useful for larger teams or brands that need to stay consistent across channels. It helps you avoid repeating messages or leaving gaps in the journey.
Journey Automation helps you create smarter, more connected experiences across the full customer lifecycle. Instead of sending one-size-fits-all messages, you build flexible journeys that respond to what people do.
Here’s how it works in HubSpot and how it leads to better customer engagement.
The first step is deciding how you want to track each person’s progress. In HubSpot, you choose a contact property like Journey Stage or Lifecycle Stage to act as your guide. Each value you assign to that property becomes a stage in the journey.
For example:
Once you’ve set your stages, you choose which contact lists are eligible to join the journey. You can enroll people based on list membership and property values, so only the right contacts move through each part.
This setup makes it easy to control who enters, when they move forward, and what actions they should receive based on their behavior.
After setting the structure, you design the journey using HubSpot’s visual editor. You add actions to each stage, like sending an email or assigning a task, and set rules for what should happen next.
You can:
You can also add branching paths. For example, if a contact clicks a CTA, they go one way. If they ignore it, they get a reminder or are moved to a different stage. This keeps the experience personalized without creating a dozen separate workflows.
It works. Lead nurturing can increase sales opportunities by up to 20% compared to non-nurtured leads.
Modern customers switch between platforms all the time. Journey Automation helps you stay in sync by letting you use multiple channels in one flow.
For example:
You’re not guessing which channel will work. You’re covering your bases while keeping each message relevant and well-timed.
Once your journey is live, HubSpot makes it easy to track how it’s performing. You can see how many people enter each stage, where they drop off, and which actions lead to conversions. Instead of guessing what works, you have clear data to guide your next move.
For example, if one path leads to better click-through rates or faster conversions, you can adjust other paths to match. If people get stuck at a certain stage, you can change the messaging or add a reminder to move them forward.
You don’t need to rebuild the whole journey. You can update and optimize as you go, using real-time insights to improve the experience over time.
Journey Automation and traditional workflows both have a place in your marketing strategy. Workflows are great for handling small, straightforward tasks. Journey Automation helps you design full, flexible paths that respond to real customer behavior.
If your campaigns are growing more complex, or if you want to improve how you guide people across channels, Journey Automation is a strong next step. It gives you the structure, flexibility, and insights to build better experiences at every stage of the journey.
Start small if you need to, but build with the full customer experience in mind.
Our team at Origin 63 helps companies get more out of HubSpot by using automation tools the right way. We’ll help you map out a strategy that supports your goals, saves your team time, and creates a better experience for your customers.