Real-Time Contact Updating

You can regularly update contacts in two ways:

• By SDK — data updated by users on their mobile phones.
• By Backend API (server-to-server) — contact data from backend events (subscription started/canceled) or web-to-app funnels: when some contact updates happen in the browser, we recommend sending them via Backend API for security purposes.

Let’s consider updating contacts in detail.

SDK

When a user opens the app after downloading it, the SDK creates an anonymous contact with a Device ID and a push token if the user has given permission to receive push notifications. To update additional fields of such a contact, use the updateAnonymousUserAttributes method.

When the user logs into the app, transfer the contact identifier (email/phone) with User ID (External ID in Reteno) and the data of additional profile fields using the [updateUserAttributes](https://docs.reteno.com/reference/using-updateuserattributes-method) method.

If such an External ID exists in Reteno, the contact will be updated; if not, it will be created.

For more information about tracking user data, follow the links below:

• iOS
• Android
• React Native
• Flutter
• Unity
• Cordova
• Ionic

More on contact identifiers and matching >

Backend API

Data from web projects is stored only on the backend, so to transfer it to Reteno, use the Add/Update a Сontact API method.

The method creates a new or updates an existing contact in real time (synchronously). This means when you receive the 200 response you can be sure that contact data is already actualized in Reteno.

For example, you can use the Add/Update a Сontact method to collect data on subscription changes.

Features:

• One request allows you to add or update one contact.
• If a contact card with an identifier from the request already exists in Reteno, it will be updated. A contact will be created with all additional data from the request if it hasn't existed.

Method type: POST. The description of the method, fields, and request body format are available here.

URL to send request: https://api.reteno.com/api/v1/contact

API Use Case for Web-to-App Project

1. A user has completed onboarding on the site (answered the questionnaire questions).

2. The Add/Update a Сontact API method creates a contact profile with data collected on the site and external ID as the main identifier.

3. The user has downloaded and opened the mobile app.

4. SDK creates the anonymous contact with the Device ID.

5. The user logged in to the app.

6. The SetUserAttributes request with the external ID updates the existing contact with the Device ID and push token and deletes the anonymous contact.

Analytics

The Contacts → Analytics section provides detailed information about your contacts:

• Contact list overview by marketing channels
• Contact list overview by activity
• Contact growth overview
• Subscriber engagement overview
• Segment tracking
• RFM analysis
• Cohort analysis

Follow the link to learn more about the system's analytical capabilities.