Create or update contacts in bulk
Creates or updates up to 1,000 contacts in one request. Each entry is matched automatically against every identifier it supplies: its email address (trimmed and lowercased), its phone number (normalized to international form), and your own external_id. An entry with no match creates a contact. An entry whose identifiers all match one contact updates the supplied fields and preserves omitted fields. This lets an email address change under a stable external_id without creating a second contact. An entry whose identifiers belong to several contacts fails with an error naming each match; contacts are never merged automatically. Supplying match_on makes that field the only matching key, and every entry must include it. You can also add every contact in the request to up to 10 audiences.
Each entry succeeds or fails on its own: the response lists one result per contact in submission order (created, updated, or failed with the reason), and a failed entry does not abort the rest. If the request itself is invalid, for example when an entry in audience_ids does not exist, the whole request fails with a validation error and no contacts are written.
The JSON request body can contain up to 24 MiB (25,165,824 bytes), including escaped characters. Larger requests return HTTP 413 before any contacts are written. Split an oversized request into smaller batches.
Request
- Base URL: https://us1.platform.bird.com
- URL: https://us1.platform.bird.com/v1/contacts/batch
- Auth: one of:
- HTTP bearer
- API key in cookie bird_session
Headers
Client-supplied key. On operations supporting request deduplication, a retained response is replayed for duplicate requests with the same key within the idempotency window (3 hours by default). This protection requires a workspace, organization, or staff-account scope. User-only and unscoped unauthenticated operations, streams, and operations with a separate replay contract do not use this response replay.
On a supported operation, if idempotency protection is unavailable before execution, the API returns 503 IdempotencyUnavailable (E01033) without executing this attempt. Retry with backoff using the same key and request. An operation that takes effect before its response is retained can still execute again on retry.
Two distinct 409 errors signal misuse:
- request_in_progress (E01004): The same key is currently being processed by a concurrent request. Wait briefly and retry. The lock expires within 30 seconds.
- idempotency_key_reuse (E01005): The same key has already completed against a different request body or method. Generate a new key.
Recommended key format is <event-type>/<entity-id> (for example welcome-user/usr_abc123).
Workspace context for the request. Required for dashboard authentication and master keys. Workspace keys and access tokens already identify their workspace; send that workspace or omit the header. A different one is rejected.
Organization context for the request. Required for dashboard authentication. An API key or access token carries its own organization, so send either that organization or no header at all; a different one is rejected.
Request body
Example request
{
"contacts": [
{
"email": "alice@acme.com",
"first_name": "Alice",
"last_name": "Anderson"
},
{
"email": "bob@acme.com",
"first_name": "Bob",
"last_name": "Baker"
}
],
"audience_ids": [
"adn_01krdgeqcxet5s7t44vh8rt9mg"
]
}Response
Per-contact results, in submission order.
Example response
{
"data": [
{
"entry": {
"email": "alice@acme.com"
},
"contact_id": "con_01krdgeqcxet5s7t44vh8rt9mg"
}
]
}Changes
No recorded changes to this operation across all 2 revisions of this API.