Update Contact

Update an existing contact’s information. You can update any contact properties, subscription group memberships, and other data. The contact must already exist in your audience. For compliance reasons, you can only set subscribed to false.

Authorizations

Authorization · string · header · required

Include your Brew API key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header.

Example: Authorization: Bearer bw_api_your_key_here

Path Parameters

identifier · string · required

Either the contact's email address or their userId. When using an email address, you must URI-encode it (replace @ with %40). Examples:

• Email: user%40example.com (for [e-mail])
• User ID: user_12345

Body

application/json

Provide the fields you want to update. You can include custom contact properties as top-level fields. For compliance reasons, you can only set subscribed to false (not true).

Important: This endpoint only updates existing contacts - it will not create new contacts. To create contacts, use the Create Contact endpoint.

Updating Email Addresses: You can update a contact's email address, but you must use their userId as the path identifier (not their current email) since email is the primary identifier.

Custom Properties: Add any custom contact properties as top-level fields in your request. Custom properties can be strings, numbers, booleans, or dates.

For detailed information about creating and managing custom properties, see our Custom Properties documentation.

Data Types:

• string - Text values (e.g., "Enterprise", "Product Manager")
• number - Numeric values (e.g., 50, 99.99, -10)
• boolean - True/false values (true, false)
• date - Unix timestamps in seconds (e.g., 1704067200 for 2024-01-01)

Resetting Properties: Send null as the value to clear or reset any contact property.

Reserved Names: Field names like email, firstName, lastName, userId, source, subscribed, and subscriptionGroups are reserved and cannot be used for custom properties.

Request body for updating an existing contact

email · string<email>

Updated email address (requires using userId as path identifier)

Example:

"[e-mail]"

firstName · string

Updated first name

Example:

"Jane Marie"

lastName · string

Updated last name

Example:

"Smith-Johnson"

userId · string

Updated external user ID

Example:

"user_67890"

source · string

Updated source value

Example:

"Mobile app"

subscribed · boolean

Subscription status (can only be set to false for compliance)

Example:

false

subscriptionGroups · object

Updated subscription group memberships

Show child attributes

Example:

{
  "sg_newsletter": true,
  "sg_promotions": false
}

Response

200

application/json

Contact updated successfully

Success response for contact operations

success · boolean · required

Indicates the operation was successful

Example:

true

id · string · required

The contact's unique identifier

Example:

"cont_2Jk9mN8pQ7rX4vL1"