Merging Offline and Online User Data

Journey maps allow you to connect online and offline user data to create a seamless experience for your customers. You can upload offline events that occurred in your physical stores, such as purchases and membership registrations, and use these events in journey maps.

See Use case: encourage offline purchase for an example.

Requirements

In journey maps, users across different channels are unified based on user_id.

• To use offline events or offline segments in journey maps:
  • The offline events must be uploaded through the Offline Event API v2 with user_id as the unique identifier.
  • The offline segments must be created on AIQUA. The offline events must include user_id as the unique identifier. See segment by offline events.
• If you are uploading offline users through the Bulk Upload Offline Users API or Add / Update User Profiles feature, be sure to include a user_id in each user record. Offline users need to have an user_id in order to enter a journey.

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Limitations

• New offline users uploaded within one day may not be processed in time to be considered in the past conditions.
• Offline events cannot be used as real-time trigger events in in-web and in-app campaigns.

Best practices

Below are some suggestions and tips on uploading and using offline events.

Use the is_offline parameter

If you use the same event name for online and offline events, you can distinguish them with the is_offline event parameter. To do this, select the event in the journey map, click Add event property, and select is_offline.

Set is_offline to true if you only want to include offline events, and select false if you only want to include online events. If you want to include both offline and online events, do not set this event parameter.

Upload events frequently

Unlike online events tracked via Appier SDK, offline events need to be uploaded to AIQUA via APIs. As a result, there will always be a time gap between when the event actually occurred and when the event is uploaded.

We recommend uploading offline events at least once a day if you want to use offline events or segments in journey maps.

Add upload time interval to journey flow

In some nodes, you can extend the time periods to allow more time for offline events to be uploaded.

• Past condition: Add the upload time interval to the time period you want to set in Only consider events in the last x days. For example, if your event upload interval is 1 day and you want to consider events in the last 3 days, set the Only consider events in the last x days settings to 4 days.

• Real-time event: The event timestamp must be later than the journey activation time, and the users will enter the journey after the offline events are uploaded.
• Wait for conditions: Extend the timeout period by adding the event upload interval. For example, if your event upload interval is 1 day and you want to wait 7 days for users to complete the conditions, set the timeout period to 8 days.

• Check condition: Insert a time delay node before the check condition node to make sure offline events are already uploaded before users proceed to the check condition node. For example, if you upload offline events once a day, you can add a time delay node to put users on hold for a day.

• Goal event: Goal events are calculated based on the actual timestamp of the offline events. The event count will be added after the event upload, but the end results are not affected.
• Exit rule: Users who meet the exit rule will exit the journey after the exit events are uploaded.

Use Case: Encourage offline purchases

Let's say you want to send marketing campaigns to the VIP members to encourage offline purchases in your physical stores.

First, make sure offline purchase events are uploaded to AIQUA daily.

Next, set up the journey map as below.

1. In the entry trigger node, select Past condition and set the condition to include VIP members.
2. Add a Wait for condition node and add the offline purchase event as the condition.
3. In the Matched path, add a thank-you email to users who have completed offline purchases.
4. In the Timeout path, send an email to encourage offline purchases.
5. If the email is opened, send another email to follow up. If the email is not opened, send a message through SMS instead.
6. Set the offline purchase event as the goal event and exit rule.