Don't start with "which experience type should I pick?" — start with "what am I trying to accomplish?" The job determines the experience type, not the other way around. This article walks through that logic: what outcome you're driving, who the audience is, and what level of interruption fits the moment.

What the campaign builder can help create today: in-product experiences (Flows, Pins, Embeds, Checklists, Launchpads, Banners). Email, push, and Workflows aren’t part of the initial campaign product or Appcues AI building capabilities yet — where this article mentions them, treat them as a manual, separate setup, not something the AI can build for you.

Start with the job, not the type

Don't ask "which experience type?" first — ask "what are we trying to accomplish?" The job determines the type. Here's the mapping to use:

Why lighter experience types come first

Lean toward less interruptive experience types — Pins, Embeds, Tooltips — unless you have a reason to go louder. Here's the logic:

• Modals demand immediate attention. Reserve them for time-sensitive or strategically critical moments — users came to your product to do something, and a Modal can feel like an obstacle.
• Slideouts are the middle ground — more attention than a Pin, less takeover than a Modal. Reach for these when the user needs to know something now but doesn't need to stop everything.
• Pins persist. They let users engage when they're ready, not when you're ready. Default here for awareness — persistence beats interruption for most new-feature launches.
• Embeds sit inline with the page content. They're the most underused experience type, and the one worth reaching for most often for re-entry, reminders, and feature launches — they feel native to the product rather than bolted on.
• Tooltips point at exactly where to act. Use them for contained, single-screen actions where the user already knows what to do — they should interact with the product, not the Tooltip.

When to sequence multiple experiences

A single experience is enough when the action is contained to one screen and one step. For anything larger, sequence experiences across multiple tactics.

The rule: if the action spans multiple pages or takes more than one session to complete, sequence it. Vary the experience type within the sequence, too — three Flows in a row creates fatigue; a Flow followed by a Pin followed by an Embed creates rhythm.

A typical sequence has three beats:

1. Discovery — a Modal or Slideout announces something exists
2. Action — a Tooltip-led tour guides the user through doing it
3. Follow-up — a Pin, Embed, or email re-engages users who didn't convert

Experience types to steer away from

Be cautious reaching for these, even when they seem like the obvious choice:

• Flows longer than 3–5 steps — break these into shorter sequences with re-entry instead of one long walkthrough
• Hotspots — Pins are the modern version; use a Pin anywhere you'd previously have reached for a Hotspot
• Banners — Embeds or Slideouts outperform them for most use cases
• A Modal as the default starting point — start with the lightest experience type that fits the urgency, and go louder only if you need to
• A Checklist and a floating Launchpad running at the same time — graduate from one to the other instead of running both

The "AND not OR" principle

Combine quiet experiences with loud ones rather than choosing between them:

• A Modal plus an Embed — the Modal carries discovery; the Embed remains for users who skipped or came back later
• A Flow plus a Launchpad recall — the Flow tries; the Launchpad gives users a way back
• An email plus an in-product Tooltip on next session — the email is the exit fallback; the Tooltip is the welcome-back

If you find yourself planning two experiences where you expected one, this is why — you're building a recovery path alongside the primary path.

Every campaign gets a re-entry path

Always include a way for users who dismiss or skip an experience to come back to it later. This typically means:

• Tracking who dismissed so they can be targeted separately
• A follow-up in another channel (email via Workflows, or an in-product nudge on the next session)
• A recall mechanism, like a Launchpad item

Don't ship a one-shot interruption with no recovery path.