Data Transfer & Personalization: Overview

Reteno lets you use contact, event, and external data across messages, workflows, and segments.

Velocity is the core tool for rendering dynamic content in messages and for many data-driven expressions in workflows.

Data Sources

• Contact fields — available directly in messages, workflows, and segments
• Event data — available inside the workflow triggered by that event
• External sources (BigQuery, Other) — available directly in messages or inside workflows, depending on the use case

Contact fields

Contact fields store persistent data about each contact — name, location, subscription status, custom attributes, and more. You can use contact field values to personalize messages, define conditions in workflows, and build dynamic segments.

Event data

Events capture what a contact does — starting a subscription, completing a workout, viewing a screen. Each event carries a set of parameters (e.g. subscriptionPlan, price, expiryDate) that are available inside the workflow the event triggers. You can use event parameters to personalize messages, branch workflow logic, and update contact fields for reuse in future workflows and segments.

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Event parameters are not written to contact fields automatically

An event parameter lives inside the workflow that the event started. It is not copied into the contact profile, so it isn't available in segments or in later workflows on its own.

To keep a value in the contact profile, update the contact explicitly: either call the Update contact API resource, or add an Update custom fields block to the workflow that receives the event. After that, the value is a regular contact field and can be used everywhere contact fields are used.

External sources

External sources let you bring data from outside Reteno into your messages and workflows. You can connect Google BigQuery, Google Sheets, or an HTTP endpoint and use the data to personalize messages, enrich contact profiles, and drive workflow logic.

Substitution priority: when the same field has a value from multiple sources, the order of precedence is: event data and external sources override contact field values.

In this Section

• Velocity Overview — the main tool for working with data in Reteno
• Exchanging Data With Google BigQuery — for large-scale data exchange
• Exchanging Data With Other External Sources — for enrichment and personalization