Why is the number of users entering my Customer Journey much lower than the count in a segment with the same filters?

This is a common point of confusion that arises from the fundamental difference between how an event-triggered Journey enrolls users and how a standard segment calculates its audience.

Customer Journey Entry

When a Customer Journey is set to start with an event trigger (e.g., user_registered, purchase_completed), it only enrolls users at the exact moment they perform that specific action.

• The Journey is listening for this event in real-time.
• The user count you see at the Journey's entry point only includes users who have performed the trigger event since the Journey was launched and became active.
• Any subsequent filters within the Journey (like using a Segment Split) will further refine this audience, but the initial pool of users is limited to those who performed the trigger event.

Segment Calculation

A standard, filter-based segment works differently. It creates a list of users by scanning your entire user base for profiles that currently match the filter conditions you've set (e.g., Country is Brazil and Registration Date is less than 8 days ago).

• This calculation is like taking a snapshot of your audience at a specific point in time.
• It includes every user who meets the criteria, regardless of when they last performed a specific action.

Why the Numbers Differ

The discrepancy in numbers occurs because the two features are measuring different things:

• The Segment shows you the total number of users who currently have the right attributes.
• The Journey only shows you the subset of those users who have also performed the specific trigger event during the time the Journey has been active.

Therefore, it is expected that the number of users entering an event-triggered Journey will be significantly lower than the total count of a segment built with similar attribute-based filters.