Question 1

What can Polytomic write into Iterable?

Accepted Answer

User profiles and events. Profile writes create or update users, matching on either email or user ID, and support Iterable data fields including the custom ones configured in your account, which Polytomic discovers rather than requiring you to declare. Event writes go through Iterable's bulk tracking endpoint, so they append rather than update, and need an event name plus either email or user ID. Optional fields include event ID, timestamp, and campaign or template IDs, along with arbitrary data fields on the event. Together these cover the reverse ETL patterns teams need for lifecycle messaging.

Question 2

Why use reverse ETL to populate Iterable?

Accepted Answer

Because the attributes that make campaigns good are usually computed somewhere Iterable cannot see. Plan tier, lifetime value, usage trend, renewal date, and health score live in your data warehouse, and hardcoding them into application tracking calls means an engineering ticket every time a definition changes. Reverse ETL keeps that logic in your data warehouse and syncs the result onto Iterable profiles on a schedule, so marketing can segment on it directly and the definition stays consistent with what analytics and finance report.

Question 3

Can I read data out of Iterable as well?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the public documentation is behind on this: Iterable works as both a source and a destination today. Users and events read incrementally through Iterable's export API, and you choose which event types to pull on the connection, covering email, push, in app, SMS, web push, embedded, purchase, and custom events. Campaigns and lists are also available, though those are full refresh rather than incremental. Note that lists expose their id, name, type, and creation date rather than their membership.

Question 4

Can Polytomic manage Iterable list subscriptions?

Accepted Answer

Not as a first class operation. There is no dedicated list membership destination, and Polytomic does not call Iterable's subscribe and unsubscribe endpoints. Iterable profile fields relating to lists may appear as writable data fields, but that is not the same as proper subscription management and should not be relied on for it. The pattern that works well is syncing the attributes that define an audience onto user profiles, then building the corresponding list or segment inside Iterable on those attributes.

Question 5

Why are some of my custom fields missing after setup?

Accepted Answer

Dynamic user and event schemas are inferred from a sample of exported records, up to a hundred, so a custom field that appears on only a small fraction of your users or events may not show up in the initial schema. This is the same trade off any sampling based inference makes. When it happens you can add the field so it is included going forward. It is worth checking after setup if you rely on sparse attributes, rather than discovering the gap in a dashboard later.

Iterable

Perfect pairings

Read and write Iterable

Custom profile fields

Bulk event tracking

Example workflows

What you can sync

From Iterable

To Iterable

How it works

How to set up

Frequently asked questions

Why teams choose Polytomic

No engineering required

Flexible data modeling

Handles scale automatically

Start syncing your data with Iterable in minutes

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