Overview
App channel integration in Engage enables you to manage contacts across mobile applications, send push notifications, and configure channel-specific settings. Understanding how Engage handles contact profiles and group-based message delivery is essential for effective communication and avoiding unintended data or delivery issues.
Contact Profiles and Merging Behavior
Engage maintains a single unified profile for each contact across all connected channels. When a user installs multiple apps or subscribes through various sources, Engage merges their profile data automatically, provided you've defined the correct attribute to control this behavior.
The merging process is attribute-based and must be configured before you add new channels to Engage.
Without a predefined merge attribute, the system cannot recognize duplicate contacts, which can result in inconsistent targeting or profile duplication.
As soon as Engage identifies an existing contact based on the merge attribute, new profile data from app installations or channel subscriptions is merged into the existing contact profile.
See: Merge Profiles
Group-Based Contact Management
All message sendouts in Engage, regardless of channel, are executed within the context of a group. Groups are the organizing layer that controls which contacts receive messages, under what conditions, and with which configuration settings.
Each group has its own configuration, including sendout restrictions and timing options.
Using the same group across multiple channels (e.g., email and push) can lead to issues if the behavior in one channel impacts the other.
For example, if a contact is deactivated due to email preferences or bounce behavior, they will be excluded from all group-based sendouts, including mobile push, even though push does not trigger deactivation.
Why Separate Groups for Each Channel?
Engage uses groups to manage message delivery and contact eligibility. To avoid unintended consequences, like blocked push notifications, it’s important to separate sendout groups by channel.
Engage automatically deactivates contacts who cannot or do not want to receive email (e.g., due to hard bounces or unsubscribes). This deactivation is applied system-wide to protect your email deliverability, and by default, it prevents the contact from receiving any messages across all channels.
However, push notifications do not trigger deactivation, and in push-only groups, you can configure settings to allow sendouts to system-wide deactivated contacts. This makes it possible to continue reaching users via push even if they’ve been deactivated due to email.
To take advantage of this behavior:
Create separate groups for email, SMS, and mobile push.
Configure push-only groups to allow sendouts to deactivated users when appropriate. This can be done by clearing the ”Do not send messages to system-wide deactivated users” check box in the Group settings Deactivation tab. For more information, see Deactivation (tab).
This setup ensures that contacts who are deactivated for email can still receive mobile push messages, without risking cross-channel delivery issues.
Managing Contacts Across Multiple Apps
If your Engage environment is connected to more than one app, creating app-specific groups allows you to maintain control over segmentation, targeting, and performance analysis.
Segment contacts by app, operating system (iOS/Android), or user type (e.g., free vs. premium).
Use separate groups to support campaign goals, such as promotions for a specific app or platform.
This setup allows you to apply distinct configurations and collect app-specific profile data aligned to your internal workflows.
Using Group Attributes and Member Data
Engage lets you store contextual data within groups to support personalized messaging and group-specific logic.
Member attributes: Store profile data that is only valid within a specific group. These values are removed if the contact leaves the group or if the group is deleted.
Group attributes: Store values that are accessible across all messages sent to the group. These are useful for dynamic content like seasonal offers or loyalty perks for members of a specific group.
See: Attributes
Assigning New App Contacts to Groups
When new contacts enter Engage from a mobile app, they are added to the system but not to any specific group. Since push notifications are sent in the context of a group, assigning new contacts to the correct group is critical.
Use the Whiteboard event Changes Profile Attribute to transfer contacts into the appropriate group upon creation.
Without this step, contacts will remain ungrouped and will not be eligible to receive mobile push messages.