Customer.io data out

Getting started

1. Go to Data & Integrations > Integrations and select the Customer.io entry in the Directory tab.
2. (Optional) Select the data sources that you want to connect to your outbound integration. You can always connect data sources later. We'll only show you data sources that work with your integration.
3. Configure your integration.
   1. Site ID: Customer.io site ID. This can be found on your [API Credentials page](https://fly.customer.io/settings/api_credentials).
   2. API Key: Customer.io API key. This can be found on your [API Credentials page](https://fly.customer.io/settings/api_credentials).
   3. Account Region: Learn about [Account Regions](https://docs.customer.io/data-centers/).
4. Click Enable Destination.

Actions

When you're done setting things up, you can go to the Actions tab to see how we map incoming data to your integration.

Create or update a person (identify)

Incoming identify calls add and update profiles in your workspace. We map traits in source calls to attributes for profiles in your workspace. These are things you know about a profile, like their first name, their interests, etc.

By default, we send this event when you identify a profile—like when they submit their email address on your website requesting more information, or when they create an account with you.

You’ll typically set relationships between a profile and an object and information about the relationship with the group call. But you can also send this information in an identify call if you want. When you relate a profile to an object through an identify call, you’ll place the group information in the context object.

{
  "type": "identify",
  "traits": {
    "first_name": "cool",
    "last_name": "person",
    "email": "cool.person@example.com",
    "plan": "premium",
    // include if you want to set relationships/attributes
    "objectId": "math101-2024",
    "objectTypeId": "2",
    "relationshipAttributes": {
        "dues_paid": true,
        "class_complete": true,
        "grade": "A-"
    }
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "created_at": "1679407797",
}

Add and update profiles by ID or email

In Customer.io, you can identify profiles by an id or an email address, which provides a way to work with contacts who provide an email address but haven’t generated a backend ID (like when someone signs up as a lead but hasn’t yet become a paying customer). When you send identify events to this destination, they’ll add or update profiles in Customer.io depending whether or not the corresponding email or ID exists.

If an identify request contains either a userId or an email trait, and that profile doesn’t already exist, we’ll create a profile in Customer.io

If an identify request contains either a userId or an email trait, and that profile already exists, we’ll update the profile in Customer.io

If an identify request contains both a userId and an email trait, but one of those values wasn’t associated with the profile, we’ll add the new identifier to the profile.

Customer.io Journeys doesn’t support anonymous identify calls yet

We’re working on support for anonymous profiles, but, for now, Journeys ignores anonymous identify calls.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t send anonymous identify calls—even if Journeys is your only destination. Anonymous still has value if:

• You send data to other, non-Customer.io destinations, many of which support anonymous profiles.
• You use our JavaScript source.

If you use our JavaScript source, anonymous identify calls store traits in local storage and attach them to subsequent identify calls. This means that when you formally identify a profile later, you won’t need to capture all of a customer’s traits at the same time; the JavaScript source will automatically associate their anonymously gathered traits with their userId.

Delete person

You’ll delete profiles in Customer.io Journeys by sending a track call called User Deleted. You can always change the name of the event in the Actions tab of your destination settings.

Deleting a person doesn’t necessarily require a userId. You can delete a person by their email address, for example. If you don’t include a userId, we can delete a profile by properties.email. If you include both, we’ll use the userId.

{
  "type": "track",
  "event": "User Deleted",
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "timestamp": "1679407797",
  "properties": {
    "reason": "user requested deletion"
  }
}

Create or update an object (group)

In Customer.io Journeys, we refer to groups as objects—non-profile entities like accounts, online classes, or recreational leagues.

The group call does two things:

• It creates or updates an object, like an identify call does for profiles.
• If you include a userId, it also relates a profile to the object—including any relationship attributes you pass in the call.

Note the objectTypeId field: objects in Customer.io Journeys have a type—an incrementing number beginning at 1. This lets you have different kinds of objects; if you run an edtech company, for example, you might have objects for online classes, departments of faculty members, clubs or study groups, and so on. If you don’t pass traits.object_type_id (or objectTypeId), we assume that the value is 1.

Like profiles, objects and their relationships with profiles can also have traits—things you know about the object, like its name, industry, and so on. A relationship might have things you know about the relationship between the group and a profile, like a profile’s position in a company, whether they’re a primary contact for a company, and so on.

Items in the traits object apply to the object itself—except for the relationshipAttributes key. Anything you put in the traits.relationshipAttributes object applies to the relationship between a profile and the object.

{
  "messageId": "4vl6zh",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:56:14.144Z",
  "type": "group",
  "traits": {
    "class_code": "cio101",
    "class_name": "Customer.io Basics",
    "start_date": 1679410730,
    "object_type_id": 1,
    "relationshipAttributes": {
      "type": "student",
      "dues_paid": true,
      "class_completed": false
    }
  },
  "groupId": "cio101-spring2024",
  "userId": "97980cfea0067"
}

Object and relationship attributes

Both objects and profiles have their own attributes. But relationships can have attributes too! In the way that attributes on a profile describe the profile and attributes on an object describe the object, attributes on a relationship describe the relationship between the profile and the object.

In the example above, our object is an online class and we set relationship traits (attributes) for a student. We could just as easily define relationship traits for a teacher, a teaching assistant, and so on—anyone who might be related to the class. These attributes help you send automations that are relevant to the relationship between a profile and an object.

Delete relationship

In Journeys, profiles are related to groups (called objects) You can relate profiles to one or more groups. In some cases, you may want to remove a relationship—like when someone finishes an online class or leaves an organization. You can do this with a track call called Relationship Deleted.

Your call must include:

• properties.objectId: the ID of the object a profile is related to.
• properties.objectTypeId: the type of object the person is related to (defaults to 1).
• either userId or properties.email: the ID or email of the person you’re removing the relationship from. If you include both values, we’ll use the userId.

{
  "messageId": "4vl6zh",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:56:14.144Z",
  "type": "track",
  "event": "Relationship Deleted",
  "properties": {
    "objectId": "example-company",
    "objectTypeId": 2
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067"
}

Delete object

In Journeys, you can delete a group (called an object) with a track call called Object Deleted. Deleting an object also removes all relationships between people and the object.

{
  "messageId": "4vl6zh",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:56:14.144Z",
  "type": "track",
  "event": "Object Deleted",
  "properties": {
    "objectId": "example-company",
    "objectTypeId": 2
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067"
}

Create or update a device

When a profile uses your mobile app or mobile website, you can capture and send device information to Customer.io. We capture this information with two specific events: Application Installed and Application Opened. These represent the times when you’ll typically register for a token and associate a device with a profile.

{
  "messageId": "i6yatl",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:48:17.593Z",
  "type": "track",
  "email": "cool.person@example.com",
  "properties": {
    "device_id": "cEFolG5uRDGPizsaUh4X4m:APA91bFsKwjW9zUaiuJMCGqa3fLRiJ8fv1riQ6U-1iI72aSFZx5wxiqGnqbL-S2g3kZ5RrRUUo3AAVh_LhpFbjDlSqEoC4rqHmH8Z1BGgqaD9jStahy63cGXueW-vOr6mTOekmXgWSww"
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "event": "Application Installed"
}

Delete device

We automatically remove a device when we register an event called Application Uninstalled. Our SDK automatically sends this event when profiles uninstall your app.

However, device tokens are transient tokens can expire based on your push provider, and you’ll likely register for a new device token whenever someone closes and re-opens your app. We automatically prune devices from our messaging platform when tokens are invalidated, but we don’t do this as a part of event subscriptions. You may want to send additional calls to delete previous devices as we prune them from your Journeys tab.

{
  "messageId": "i6yatl",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:48:17.593Z",
  "type": "track",
  "email": "cool.person@example.com",
  "properties": {
    "device_id": "long-device-token"
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "event": "Application Uninstalled"
}

Track event

The track call represents an activity someone performs—typically in your app or on your website. If you send this event and the profile you reference in the event doesn’t exist, we’ll create them.

You’ll notice that the track event excludes several event names. The Customer.io Journeys API contains methods and endpoints that don’t map naturally to other source calls—like deleting profiles, suppressing profiles, and so on. We’ve mapped these calls to track events with specific names. You can always change the name of the event in the Actions tab of your destination settings. Events that don’t match the defined names act as standard track events in Customer.io.

{
  "messageId": "i6yatl",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:48:17.593Z",
  "type": "track",
  "email": "cool.person@example.com",
  "properties": {
    "class_name": "Customer.io Basics",
    "class_code": "cio101",
    "start_date": 1679410730
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "event": "enrolled"
}

Page views and screens

There are two special kinds of track events: page and screen calls. These represent the pages profiles visit on your website and the screens profiles visit in your mobile app respectively. You can use these events to monitor the places profiles do and don’t visit in your website or app. You might also use page and screen calls to follow up with profiles, to see if they were still interested in a particular product, online class, and so on.

{
  "messageId": "efxqsi",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:55:59.498Z",
  "type": "page",
  "email": "cool.person@example.com",
  "properties": {
    "session_started": 1679410730,
    "url": "https://www.example.com"
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "name": "home"
}

{
  "messageId": "9zk6c",
  "timestamp": "2023-03-20T22:56:06.259Z",
  "type": "screen",
  "email": "cool.person@example.com",
  "properties": {
    "session_started": 1679410730
  },
  "userId": "97980cfea0067",
  "name": "home"
}

Merge profiles

Customer.io lets you merge profiles. If you use your JavaScript SDK, we’ll automatically merge anonymous profiles with their identified counterparts when you identify them. But for any other case—if you’re not using our JavaScript SDK or you want to merge two non-anonymous profiles—you’ll want to set up a Merge People action.

This action uses on the alias call from your sources. You’ll set the userId and previousId values in the alias call, where:

• userId is the ID of the profile that you want to remain in customer.io. If this profile doesn’t exist, the request won’t do anything.
• previousId is the ID of the profile that you want to merge into the userId profile and remove.

The userId inherits attributes from the previousId that are not already set on the userId; if the userId and the previousId both have an attribute, the userId takes precedence.

The userId also inherits events performed by the anonymousId. Note that events merged from the previousId profile cannot trigger automations.

{
  "previousId": "97980cfea0067",
  "id": "cool_person"
}

Suppress and unsuppress profiles

In Journeys, suppressing a profile deletes their profile and prevents you from reusing their ID or email—whichever identifier you pass in the event.

You can suppress or unsuppress users by sending events called User Suppressed and User Unsuppressed respectively.

In most cases, you’ll want to delete people without suppressing them. Suppressing people is typically a last resort—along the lines of GDPR “right to be forgotten” requests.

{
  "messageId": "4vl6zh",
  "timestamp": "2022-11-24T22:56:14.144Z",
  "type": "track",
  "event": "User Suppressed",
  "userId": "97980cfea0067"
}

Report content event

The “Report content event” action tracks views and clicks for anonymous messages.

Only premium and enterprise customers have access to anonymous in-app messages. Go to your account settings to learn about upgrading!

Conversion timestamps

If you want to convert ISO-8601 strings to timestamps, set Convert Timestamps when setting up actions. This converts attributes containing ISO-8601 strings (like 2023-05-18T22:58:45+00:00) to Unix timestamps (like 1684475925).

We’ll only convert valid ISO-8601 date-times down to millisecond precision. If you store your timestamps in another format, or store timestamps using nanosecond precision, we won’t convert them.

• 2025-08-13T15:45:17.451Z ✅ (milliseconds - will convert)
• 2025-08-13T02:08:40.1418726Z ❌ (nanoseconds - won’t convert)