"Subscriber joins a list" journeys are triggered when someone signs up through a subscribe form, is added through an integration or individually via the API. To prevent unintentional and potentially confusing send, contacts that are added via other means will not by default trigger a "subscriber joins a list" journey.

However, when manually adding or importing subscribers from a file, you have the option to check a box to trigger the “subscriber joins a list” for any new contacts in the dataset. Without selecting this option the journey will not be triggered.

If you have a specific email address you'd like to trigger a journey for, and you have the person's explicit permission, you will need to sign them up yourself through a signup form. 

Delivery delays

"Subscriber joins a list" journeys are triggered immediately after someone submits a subscribe form. Or, if you added a delay when setting up the journey, it's sent at the nominated time (for example, 10 minutes or an hour after signup).

After an email leaves our server it's up to the receiving server to accept the message and deliver it to the recipient's inbox. If you're testing a "subscriber joins a list" email by signing up through a subscribe form, and you're not receiving the email, check with your IT or mail administrator to see if it has been blocked or stalled.

Subscribers added via the API

For email addresses added via the API:

• Importing subscribers using the 'batch import API method' will not trigger "subscriber joins a list" journeys unless the QueueSubscriptionBasedAutoResponders property is set to true
• Adding people individually via the API will trigger "subscriber joins a list" journeys.