Every database-driven system has a way to enforce uniqueness of the individual records in order to avoid duplicate records. Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Enterprise (Thrive Marketing Enterprise) integrations have two data points that can be used as the unique identifier (unique ID):

• Email address - The value in each recipient's email address field in the integration database is used as the unique ID in Thrive Marketing Enterprise.

NOTE: Email address is the default unique ID in the Thrive Marketing Enterprise system and the recommended option.

• Custom Member ID - An integration-specific "member ID" is used as the unique ID in Thrive Marketing Enterprise.

Before your first upload of records to Thrive Marketing Enterprise, review the information in this article. If you have any questions, create a case.

Email address

For every record that gets uploaded to Thrive Marketing Enterprise from the integration database, Thrive Marketing Enterprise creates a unique record based on the email address.

NOTE: Email address is the default unique ID in the Thrive Marketing Enterprise system and the recommended option.

Important notes

With this option:

• Every record that is uploaded to Thrive Marketing Enterprise must contain a unique email address.
  • If multiple records in the upload file have the same email address, only one of the records will be uploaded to Thrive Marketing Enterprise.
• Thrive Marketing Enterprise validates all email addresses that are uploaded to it from an integration database.
  • Records in the upload file that do not have a valid email address in the email address field will not be uploaded to Thrive Marketing Enterprise.
• Email addresses cannot be duplicated or overwritten.
• Recipients have one email address only and will not be sent duplicate messages.
• Thrive Marketing Enterprise creates one unique record per email address that is uploaded.

Custom Member ID

Custom Member IDs are unique identifiers that are assigned to each record in the integration database. They are set by the Higher Logic Implementation Manager or Customer Support, and their management (which includes avoiding duplicates) is each customer's responsibility.

NOTE: If custom ID is the unique identifier for an account, then, during the upload process, records in the CSV data file will be de-duped and qualified based on the uniqueness of the value in the custom ID field.

These custom IDs are one way to ensure that, if an existing recipient's email address changes, it is updated in Thrive Marketing Enterprise, rather than a new record being created for the new email address and the original record being orphaned.

NOTE: The field label for Custom Member IDs is unique to each integration. Some known labels for this field are Contact ID and RegistrantID.

Important notes

With this option:

• Your upload file must contain a custom ID field and every record that is uploaded to Thrive Marketing Enterprise must contain a unique ID.
• The custom ID must be the actual unique identifier in your database; it cannot be an arbitrary or randomly generated identifier.
• Thrive Marketing Enterprise does not validate IDs that are uploaded to it from an integration database.
• Thrive Marketing Enterprise creates one unique record per integration-specific "member" ID that is uploaded.
• Duplicate email addresses are possible.
• Recipients could have more than one email address and could be sent duplicate messages.

Unintentional email-address duplication

The custom ID feature can cause unintentional duplication of email addresses in Thrive Marketing Enterprise. If your external database has multiple records with the same email address but with different custom IDs, Thrive Marketing Enterprise will accept these as unique records and will send email messages to both email addresses, regardless of the fact that the email addresses are the same.