Create or update customer

API at a glance

Description: This API creates a new customer or updates an existing customer's profile information including contact details, subscription preferences, and custom attributes.

Authentication & testing

Testing the API on this page

How to try it here

Use your User API Key as the Username (leave Password blank).

Select the appropriate API endpoint based on your Blueshift region.

Enter the necessary parameters and click Try It to run the request.

Authentication using Base64 encoding

Note for developers

API requests require authentication using HTTP Basic Authentication with an API key. The API key serves as the username, while the password field should be left empty. The format to encode is: your_api_key: (note the trailing colon).

This string must be Base64-encoded and included in the request's Authorization header as follows:

Authorization: Basic encoded_value

You can generate the encoded value using a trusted Base64 encoder.

Postman collection

Try it with Postman: Explore the API using Blueshift's Postman collection.

Things to know before you start

Required identifier: You must specify either email or customer_id for the customer.
Rate limit: We recommend limiting calls to this endpoint to 50 per second.
Phone number format: Must include country code, start with +, follow E.164 standard, not start with 0, and contain 6-14 characters.
Email limit: Maximum 64 characters.
Use case: Best for syncing customer data, updating profiles, managing subscription preferences, and maintaining customer records.

Request parameters

Check out the request parameters

Body parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`email`	`string`	✅ Yes (or customer_id)	Email address of the customer (max 64 characters).
`customer_id`	`string`	✅ Yes (or email)	Customer ID of the customer.
`firstname`	`string`	❌ No	First name of the customer.
`lastname`	`string`	❌ No	Last name of the customer.
`phone_number`	`string`	❌ No	Phone number with country code in E.164 format (e.g., `+919742888933`).
`gender`	`string`	❌ No	Gender of the customer (e.g., `male`, `female`).
`subscription_groups`	`array`	❌ No	User's subscription preferences. See structure below.

Subscription groups object

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`id`	`string`	✅ Yes	ID of the subscription group.
`subscribed`	`boolean`	✅ Yes	`true` if subscribed, `false` if unsubscribed.

Example requests & responses

Create or update customer

{
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "customer_id": "38759877",
  "firstname": "Mike",
  "lastname": "Doel",
  "phone_number": "+919742888933",
  "gender": "male",
  "subscription_groups": [
    {
      "id": "newsletter",
      "subscribed": true
    },
    {
      "id": "weekly_promo",
      "subscribed": false
    }
  ]
}

{
  "customer": {
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "email_domain": "yahoo.com",
    "email_hard_bounced": true,
    "email_hash": "a58639ea568b694d6e056ee72d0b9531",
    "email_spam_reported": false,
    "customer_id": "812123",
    "firstname": "Jane",
    "lastname": "Doe",
    "gender": "female",
    "phone_number": null,
    "created_at": "2024-10-03T04:57:24.000Z",
    "joined_at": "2011-10-11T19:58:17Z",
    "lifetime_orders": 2508,
    "lifetime_revenue": 61008,
    "lifetime_visits": 9299,
    "bsft_control_bucket": "31",
    "custom_attributes": {},
    "predictive_engagement_percentile": 78,
    "predictive_purchase_intent_percentile": 86,
    "predictive_retention_percentile": 70,
    "uuid": "06743da2-9589-4c01-afda-e3d85e487fa7"
  }
}

API error responses

Note
The following error codes are commonly returned by Blueshift APIs. Depending on the specific endpoint, not all may apply.

Status code	Description	Example responses
400 Bad Request	The request is invalid due to missing or incorrect parameters. This includes missing fields, invalid values, formatting issues, or conflicts such as duplicate data.	`{ "errors": { "name": ["can't be blank"] } }` `{ "errors": { "startdate": ["can't be blank"] } }`
401 Unauthorized	API authentication failed due to an invalid or missing API key.	`{ "message": "Not authorized" }`
403 Forbidden	The API key does not have sufficient permissions to perform this action.	`{ "message": "Permission denied" }`
404 Not Found	The specified campaign was not found. Verify the campaign UUID.	`{ "message": "Campaign not found" }`
422 Unprocessable Entity	The campaign cannot be paused due to its current status (e.g., already completed or archived). One or more scheduling parameters may be invalid (if applicable).	`{ "message": "Campaign cannot be paused in its current status." }` `{ "message": "Invalid schedule values" }`
429 Too Many Requests	The request limit has been exceeded. Reduce request frequency.	`{ "message": "Rate limit exceeded" }`
500 Internal Server Error	An unexpected server error occurred. Contact support if the issue persists.	`{ "message": "Internal Server Error - Please contact support for more information." }`
502 Bad Gateway	The server received an invalid response. Retry the request.	`{ "message": "Bad Gateway - Please retry the request." }`
503 Service Unavailable	The service is temporarily unavailable. Try again later.	`{ "message": "Service Unavailable - The service is temporarily unavailable. Try again later." }`
504 Gateway Timeout	The server took too long to respond. Retry the request with exponential backoff.	`{ "message": "Gateway Timeout - The server took too long to respond. Retry with exponential backoff." }`