Question

I have a requirement to assign additional information to multiple contacts in Audience Manager, where the same information must be reusable across all appropriate contacts, as well as being editable in a single location. This information must also be accessible using the CD APIs. How do I best go about doing this?

Answer 1

I can think of two possibilities:

1. Create specific Keywords for this shared information and assign them en masse to the appropriate Contacts through the Import Keywords screen. The downside to this approach is that it is harder to selectively remove Keywords this way (but easy to selectively add new ones). A benefit is that it is easily available for use on the CD side and you can easily create Dynamic Address Books / Distribution Lists / Segments using the different Keywords.

2. Create specific Contacts to hold this shared information and put their identification field values into an Extended Detail field for each relevant Contact. On the CD side, you would read the IDs from the Contact and load the shared information Contact separately. A pro for this approach is that you can easily maintain the shared information in one place and any changes you make will be picked up immediately for all of the Contacts using it. A con is that you need to load twice as many Contacts on the CD side.

Which one is the best approach depends on the specifics of your use case.
Good luck with it 🙂