Understanding User Profiles
A user profile represents an individual customer in Vero. Profiles are the foundation for sending messages, tracking engagement, and managing subscriptions.
Each profile contains:
- A unique identifier
id(required) - Channel addresses such as
email,phone number, ordevice tokens - User properties and tags such as
first_name,company, orplan - A history of the user’s activity including events and messages interactions
- The user's subscription status
Why profiles matter
Customers interact with your business across many devices and channels. Profiles consolidate this activity into a single record, so you can:
- View and update user data in one place
- Manage subscription preferences
- Track engagement across channels
- Create segments of users based on properties or activity
- Avoid duplicate profiles via identity stitching
User profiles with multiple channel addresses provide a way to capture this reality elegantly: a single user will have multiple ways to be contacted.
The anatomy of a user profile
Every profile in Vero is built around a single unique user and contains multiple types of data to represent them. Here’s a breakdown of the data a profile is made of.
User Identifier id - (Required)
Each profile must have a unique id. This ensures you don’t create duplicate profiles and can build rich histories over time.
- The
idcan be any unique string or number (such as your internal database ID). Virtually all user-based products track users with unique identifiers. Vero supports forwarding this useridto our system so the same identifier is used for both product and messaging purposes. - Whilst you can update the
idover time, it is usually long-lived and stable across the customer’s lifetime. - Used across Vero’s system to find and act on the right profile.
Channel Addresses - (Optional, but required for messaging)
Channel addresses are special properties used as the address to send a messages to. The supported Channel addresses are:
Email address email
- Required to send email campaigns.
- Profiles can exist without an
email, but won’t receive emails until one is added. - If you add a user via API with only
emailand noid, Vero will use email address as both theidandemail. Meaning the email becomes the profiles unique identifier.
Phone number phone_number
- Required to send SMS messages.
- One phone number can be stored per profile.
- Must be imported in E.164 format. i.e.
+61 234 567 890
Device tokens (iOS/Android)
-
A combination of a device address, type, and device platform used to identify a device that push messages can be sent to.
-
Device tokens are tracked via the API to Vero in a hash e.g.
"channels": [ { "type": "push", "address": "UNIQUE_DEVICE_TOKEN", "platform": "android" } ]
-
Required to send mobile push notifications.
-
A profile can store multiple device tokens.
User Properties - (Optional)
User properties are custom attributes associated with a specific user e.g. first_name company or date_of_birth. They can be tracked and imported when adding users or when updating users via the api or importing. Properties can be referenced in message content using liquid e.g. { user.first_name } and can also be used in segmentation to narrow down a group of users.
Tags (Optional)
Each customer profile in Vero can have multiple tags. Tags let you associate many values with a profile, such as customer preferences (like shoes, skirts, and trousers). Tags should only contain alphanumeric characters (a-z, 1-9), hyphens (-), and underscores (_).
Tags enhance segmentation, enable preference centers, emulate static lists, and support lightweight CRM functions. You can add and manage tags directly in Vero's interface.
Segment Membership
User profiles can belong to multiple segments simultaneously. Each profile tracks which segments the user is currently a member of. You can view all current segments on the user profile under the 'Segments' tab.
Segmentation is coming soon to Vero 2.0, but for now profiles will display segments created in Vero 1.0
Message and Event Activity
Every message interaction (opened, clicked etc) event (sign_up, viewed_product etc) tracked to Vero is associated with a user profile. You can view a user's recent activity on the activity tab of a user profile, with the last 30 days of activity available. Viewing this activity history helps you understand how users engage with your messages and product, allowing you to identify patterns and optimize your communication strategy.
Learn more about activity logs
Subscription Status
Each user profile maintains its own subscription status within Vero. When viewing an individual profile, you can see whether that user is currently subscribed or has opted out of communications. A profile's subscription status determines whether they'll receive future campaigns - if a user is marked as unsubscribed, Vero will automatically prevent any new messages from being sent to them, regardless of which audiences they appear in. You can easily manage subscription status directly from any user profile via the actions menu, which allows you to unsubscribe active users or resubscribe users who previously opted out.
