Skip Message

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You may find yourself in a scenario where you want to skip/suppress a message for a person based on some logic in the content itself. This tag allows you to do so.

{% skip_message message:"<user defined message>" %}

All message skips caused by this liquid tag will be recorded as a Message Skipped event in the person’s journey with:

  • reason = custom_skip

  • reason_detail = <user defined message>

Code snippets that can be included on top of or within the personalization logic of any message serve as a good example.

How Skip Processing Works

Before a message is personalized or prepared for delivery, the platform evaluates recipient eligibility criteria, including suppressions, contact validity, de-duplication rules, control groups, audience filters, and any skip_message conditions defined in personalization logic.

Only recipients who pass these checks proceed to personalization, content generation, and delivery.

Applications

Skip if there is no data in the external feed:

{% if ext_feed == empty %} {% skip_message message:"No data in feed"}
Skip if a person received a message within the last 2 days:

{% assign today_date = 'now' | date: '%s' %}
{% assign pre_date = last_contacted | date: '%s' %}
{% assign diffSeconds = today_date | minus: pre_date %}
{% assign diffDays = diffSeconds | divided_by: 3600 | divided_by: 24 %}
{% if diffDays < 2 %}
{% skip_message message:"Last contacted within last 2 days" %}
{% endif%}

In this example, the campaign constraint is evaluated using user properties, while the variable used within the personalization logic is sourced from event properties.

Processing Behavior

When a skip_message condition is met, the recipient is excluded from further message processing. Personalized content is generated only for recipients who pass all eligibility and skip evaluations.

Person-Level vs. Contact-Level Behavior

The Zeta Marketing Platform evaluates skip_message at the person level, not the individual contact level.

For example, consider a person who has both an email address and a mobile phone number associated with their profile. If a skip_message condition is met for that person during campaign execution, the message is skipped for the person rather than for a specific contact method.

As a result, the person will not receive the campaign message through any channel included in the campaign, even if the skip condition was evaluated using data associated with only one contact method.

Keep this behavior in mind when designing skip logic for cross-channel campaigns, as a skip applied to a person affects all associated contacts for that campaign.

Best Practices

  • Use skip_message when recipient eligibility depends on data available at personalization time.

  • Apply skip logic as early as possible within your personalization code.

  • Use descriptive reason_detail values to make reporting and troubleshooting easier.

  • Skip conditions are evaluated before personalization and delivery preparation, ensuring that excluded recipients do not undergo unnecessary processing.