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Dotdigital data import and export features and APIs

We provide many APIs and features for importing and exporting data to make integrating with Dotdigital as simple as possible for your tech stack. This article aims to help guide you to identify what features and APIs will best suit your integration needs.

The first consideration is how you want to pass data to or from Dotdigital:

• Using APIs - Our APIs allow you to create powerful integrations to Dotdigital and offer the most flexibility.
• Using a cloud storage and platforms - Use our integrated features to push and pull data using cloud storage like Amazon S3 or data platforms like Tableau or PowerBI.
• Using CSV files - Use CSV files with either FTP or manual processes to perform data exchange; usually best for one off processes.
• Using a pre-built integration
• Using agentic AI

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API-based

To access the most functionality, flexibility, and features, Dotdigital's family of APIs is the best solution. REST-based for maximum compatibility, our APIs are simple to call and utilise.

We have a great range of APIs, all of which are covered in detail in the reference section, but here are our picks for common integration scenarios.

Best solution for syncing from Dotdigital

The Events API is the recommended way to establish a high throughput, low latency data synchronisation from Dotdigital to your platforms and systems.

The Events API removes the need to integrate to a multitude of APIs to sync any data changes you're interested in. Instead, just subscribe to the events you're interested in, and sync as often as you need.

Events cover a vast array of activity within Dotdigital, including:

• Changes to contacts
  • Additions, deletions, or updates
  • List membership updated
  • Segment membership updated
  • Changes to preferences
  • Changes to marketing consent
• Messaging activity across all our supported channels:
  • Message sent
  • Message received
  • Message status updates
• Interactions
  • Link clicks
  • Push messages tapped
  • Social shares of your content
  • Unsubscribes - attribute unsubscribes back to the campaign that triggered it
• Insight data changes
  • Additions, deletions, and updates
  • Collection changes

The full list of events supported can be found here.

Best solution for back-filling data from Dotdigital

Contact data back filling

The Contacts API provides bulk methods to pull contact information into your systems efficiently. The Get contacts based on your criteria call allows you to filter and tune what is returned for a contact, including their core data, preferences, list and segment membership, consent and more, all in one call.

Orders data, product catalogs and other data

The Insight data API controls access to both account and contact-level Insight data which includes orders, product catalogs, browsing behavior, and more.

The API provides methods to retrieve Insight data in bulk using pagination with optional modified date filtering. There's an API call, Retrieve records for contact-scoped Insight data collection, for retrieving contact-scoped data such as orders. Account-scoped data such as product catalogs can be retrieved using Retrieve records for a contact from Insight data collection.

Email campaign activity

For receiving ongoing campaign activity we recommend using the Events API, as it consolidates all activity into a single call.

For backfilling previous activity the following pattern can be utilised:

1. Call Get campaigns with activity since date with the date you require to sync activity data from; this identifies any campaigns that have had any trackable activity such as opens, clicks, and shares since the date passed.
2. Make a call for each campaign identified in step 1 as having activity. You have a choice of:
   1. Campaign summary statistics - If you only require statistics about the campaign and the activity associated with it then use Get campaign summary.
   2. Detailed interaction data for each contact - If you require detailed information on which contacts interacted with your campaign then use Get campaign activity since date, passing the same date as step 1.
   3. Detailed ROI data to contact level - If you require detailed ROI information, such as purchases and engagement, use Get campaign ROI activity since date, passing the same date as step 1.
   4. Campaign revenue statistics - If you need revenue and order statistics associated with the campaign then use Get campaign revenue since date, passing the same date as step 1.

Pages and forms submissions

For receiving pages and forms submissions:

1. Call Get forms with activity since date with the date your require to sync form activity from; this identifies all forms that have had submissions from the date passed.
2. For each identified form, call Get form responses with activity since date, passing the same date as used in step 1. This fetches all form submissions since the date.

Best solution for importing into Dotdigital

Contact data

The Contacts API provides a bulk method to import contact information into your systems efficiently. The Import contact collection call allows you to create or update contacts, including their core data, marketing channel statuses, preferences, list membership, consent and more, all in one call.

A maximum of 50MB of request data can be included per call, and the import is processed asynchronously. We recommend performing no more than 5 concurrent imports simultaneously. Any more than this causes longer import times and lower throughput.

The method for polling for import job status is Retrieve the status of a contacts import request and once complete also returns the import report showing what contacts were created, updated or failed; this is also when you can capture the contactId for each contact sent to Dotdigital.

Orders data, product catalogs and other data

The Insight data API controls access to both account and contact-level Insight data which includes orders, product catalogs, consent insight, and more.

The Bulk import Insight data call allows you to create or update records in an Insight data collection.

A maximum of 50MB of request data can be included per call, and the import is processed asynchronously. We recommend performing no more than 5 concurrent imports simultaneously. Any more than this causes longer import times and lower throughput.

The method for polling for import job status is Retrieve the status of a Insight data import request and once complete also returns the import report showing the statistics for the report and any import failures for records.

API guide

The following table highlights some of our key APIs for importing and exporting data from Dotdigital:

Cloud-based

If you need to import data into other third party cloud-based platforms and systems then the options listed in the table below should be considered.

Of particular note is the Data Firehose feature that can export a vast array of events as tabular data into cloud-based storage. This enables easy ingestion into other platforms that support data feeds from the same cloud storage platforms. For example, see our guide Export Dotdigital events to Snowflake using data firehose.

File based

If you need to do one off imports or exports of data then the following features should be considered as they offer simple setup via the UI and support for importing and exporting tabular data usually is CSV format: