Eject If Delayed Action Block

What’s in this article

What the Eject If Delayed block does
When to use it
How it works in a drip campaign
Recommended best practice: Trigger + Eject pattern
Block settings: Editor
Tips & common mistakes

Summary

The Eject If Delayed action block helps your automations stay relevant by removing people who have are “waiting” in a Delay action block. It’s most useful in drip campaigns, where contacts might take an action (buy, book, reply) while they’re still in a long wait period.

What the Eject If Delayed block does

Eject If Delayed removes contacts from an automation if they are currently sitting inside a Delay action block.

This helps prevent messages like:
“Still thinking about it?” after they already purchased yesterday.

When to use it

Use Eject If Delayed when:

You have long delays (ex: 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days)
A contact might convert quickly (buy, book, upgrade, reply) while waiting
You run time-sensitive offers (so stale messages don’t go out late)
You have multiple automations that could overlap

It’s especially helpful in “drip” or “nurture” automations where the goal is to guide someone toward the next step.

How it works in a drip campaign

Drip campaign best practice: don’t delay forever.

If you’re building longer drips, add a conversion/decision point. In Patch, we often do this cleanly by using another trigger plus Eject If Delayed in a separate path of the same automation (see the next section).

Recommended best practice: Trigger + Eject pattern

A simple way to keep drips accurate is:

Drip automation sends messages with delays
A separate trigger fires the moment the contact takes the “success” action
That trigger path ejects the contact from the drip (or routes them to the next campaign)

Why this works well:

It reacts right away (not days later after a Delay ends)
It prevents “wrong timing” messages
It keeps each automation simple: one job per automation

Block settings: Editor

The Editor tab is where you configure the block.

Eject Minors

Option: “If a guardian contact is ejected, also eject all minors from this automation.”
Use this when you treat a household as one unit. If the main contact is removed from the drip, you usually don’t want dependent contacts continuing down it.

Once saved, the block will apply that rule any time a guardian is ejected while delayed.

Stats tab

The Stats tab fills in after the block has run for at least one contact.

For most blocks (including this one), Stats are mainly used for:

quick troubleshooting
confirming the block is being hit

You won’t see the same deep delivery stats you get in Email and SMS blocks.

Task Log tab

The Task Log is your “what happened?” history.

It typically includes:

each task/contact that passed through the block
a way to open the contact profile (person icon)
payload data for troubleshooting (what Patch knew at the time)

Use this tab when you need to confirm:

who got ejected
when it happened
what data was present when the decision occurred

Warnings / Errors tab

Errors prevent the automation from being enabled.
Warnings don’t always block enablement, but they’re usually telling you something important.

Common reasons you’ll see issues:

the automation references something that doesn’t exist anymore
a block is incomplete or missing required settings
the path logic doesn’t connect cleanly

Best practice: clear Errors first, then review Warnings before you approve.

Tips & common mistakes

Tip: Use Eject If Delayed as a guardrail, not the main logic.
Your main logic should usually be “what did they do?” (purchase/book/reply). Eject If Delayed is there to stop stale drip behavior.

Tip: Pair it with trigger-based automations.
If you can detect success with a trigger, you can eject immediately and move them to the correct journey.

Common mistake: forgetting linked contacts.
If you market to households, the “Eject Minors” option can prevent awkward mismatched messages.