API Automation Best Practices with PostUp’s Brandon Badger

3 minute read

Upland Admin

This month we sat down with our Director of Integrations, Brandon Badger, to get some API automation best practices and tips that we could share with our clients in order to help them improve their email marketing program.

What are some common use cases for API integration?

Brandon: The welcome email is probably the most common form of an API triggered email. Most PostUp clients send welcome emails using a real-time API call, but there are some instances where customers want to send the welcome email the next day. One example is with our gaming clients who send welcome emails the next day in order to drive players back into their games. Triggered welcome emails are one of the easiest to set up and one of the cornerstone pieces for any email marketing program.

Triggered emails such as password reset emails are also one of the most basic triggered emails from an API integration but slowly becoming one of the most common that we are seeing.  This is due to the changing landscape of our publishing customers. Publishers are evolving to having more of a subscription-based business with content paywalls.  This requires a login for their customers, who often need to retrieve their lost or forgotten passwords.

What are some of the common challenges or mistakes that marketers make with API integration? 

Brandon: One the biggest things I see that marketers overlook is not planning the type of real-time automation they may need for their programs. An example is a re-engagement campaign. For a re-engagement program to be effective, there needs to be a real-time integration with nightly feeds to constantly update customer data so your email platform has the most up-to-date information for each customer. Real-time data is not hard to set up, but it’s sometimes forgotten.

What are some things email marketers can do with API integration that they may not be aware of?

Brandon: Consolidated reporting is a big benefit to any marketer but not always taken advantage of.  Marketers who have internal business intelligence databases, such as Domo or Tableau, can pass their PostUp reporting data via an API call back to their database. Both recipient level and campaign level reporting can be passed via the API. This allows marketers to have a consolidated view of all of their marketing channels, which is a big win for any marketer.

One of the coolest things we have for our publisher clients is the ability to send breaking news via an API call without having to log into the PostUp platform. For a publisher every second matters in terms of being first into the inbox. This type of automation can make them be more efficient and help them to beat their competition.

Another thing marketers can do with API integration is send dynamic content. When customers wish to use their own database as the database on record, they can pass dynamic content via the PostUp API to create an endless amount of content combinations to personalize their emails for their audience.

If you would like to get started with any of these ideas or ideas of your own, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at bbadger@postup.com. Also, feel free to visit our Developer Portal to help you get started.

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