How does the 'Best Time to Send' feature in Customer Journeys interact with entry delays or delays between messages?

The 'Best time to send' option delivers a message when each user is most likely to interact with it, based on their behaviour and the performance of messages you sent them earlier.

Prerequisite: the PW_ApplicationOpen and PW_NotificationOpen default events must be enabled in your project, ideally a few days before you launch the journey, so there is enough data to learn from. Accuracy depends on how many pushes the user received previously.

Here's how it works together with delays:

1. The best time is calculated for the next 24 hours after the user reaches the journey element where the option is enabled.

2. Users with insufficient activity data: if Pushwoosh doesn't have enough history for a user, that user receives the message at the Default time you specify, according to their own timezone. An entry delay (e.g. 3 hours after install) only determines when the user becomes eligible; the Default time determines when the message actually goes out.

3. With a relative Time Delay (e.g. 'Wait 1 day'): if the calculated best time to send falls later than the delay, the user waits until the best time, receives the message, and then proceeds to the next step in the journey.

4. With a Time Delay set to an exact date and time: if the best time to send is later than that exact date and time, the user does not receive the message and exits the journey. Keep this in mind before combining absolute delays with 'Best time to send'.

In summary: 'Best time to send' relies on user history and falls back to the Default time when there isn't enough of it. Delays determine eligibility, but an absolute delay combined with a later best time causes the user to drop out of the journey rather than receive the message later.

See Journey elements — Push.