Contact syncing is the one-way automatic syncing of contact information from BigCommerce to MessageMedia. Once you've set up the MessageMedia SMS Marketing integration, the MessageMedia Hub can then retrieve the names and phone numbers of your BigCommerce contacts and they'll be saved in your Hub contacts list with a "BigCommerce" metadata label, differentiating them from your other Hub contacts.
Enabling contact sync is super easy, all you have to do is check the box for Sync my contacts from BigCommerce to MessageMedia when you set up the integration:
Once you've installed the integration, there're two ways that the Hub will sync your contacts;
- Bulk Sync - this is the initial sync of all your BigCommerce contacts when you install the integration.
- Live Sync - this is the automatic ongoing sync of any new BigCommerce contacts across to the MessageMedia Hub.
And just in case you were wondering, we're also going to touch on:
- How contact sync works with your customer groups
- How contact sync works when a customer uses the checkout as a guest
Bulk (Initial) Sync
What's important to call out is that when you first connect the two platforms, the Hub will automatically sync all existing BigCommerce contacts. It's how those contacts are managed in the Hub that will differ based on which option you configure for SMS opt-in consent when installing the integration:
- Explicit SMS Marketing opt-in consent - when this consent option is selected, the Hub will sync all of your contacts across as subscribed by default. This is because none of the existing contacts (customers) have had the option yet to opt in or out of this new method of consent added to checkout, so the Hub assumes a subscribed status and the contact can then unsubscribe accordingly in the future should they wish.
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General Marketing opt-in consent - when this consent option is selected, the Hub will recognise whether a contact has opted-in or out of general marketing when they created their BigCommerce account and save their subscription status accordingly. This is because opt-in consent for general marketing is initiated/managed by BigCommerce, not the MessageMedia integration, so the Hub will just carry across a contact's existing subscription status.
Live (Ongoing) Sync
Whenever a new contact (customer account) is created via the BigCommerce checkout, the Hub will automatically sync that contact and their subscription status to your MessageMedia contacts. What this means is the live sync will recognise whether a contact has opted-in or out of SMS or General Marketing at checkout, and will sync that contact's subscription status to the Hub accordingly.
If you want to learn more about managing a contact's subscription status in the Hub, check out this article.
Contact Syncing Customer Groups
To keep things simple and consistent, all your existing BigCommerce customer groups will automatically sync as Contact Groups in the MessageMedia Hub. You can learn more about managing contact groups in the Hub here.
How contact sync works for "Guest" customers
Sometimes a customer might choose to proceed through your store checkout as a guest, rather than creating an account. Ordinarily this would mean that you're unable to message or contact them since the information doesn’t get added to the customer section in BigCommerce.
The handy thing about the MessageMedia integration is, that while guest details don't save as a customer on the BigCommerce end, the Hub will sync the guest details and save them into a specific contact group called BigCommerce - Guests.