Skip to main content
Create a seamless loyalty experience across all customer touchpoints—whether customers interact through your website, mobile app, physical stores, or other channels, Gameball’s channel merging feature ensures they see consistent rewards and maintain a unified profile.

​
Why Omni-Channel Matters

In multi-channel businesses, customers often interact through various touchpoints, each potentially using different customer IDs. Without channel merging, this can create fragmented experiences:

❌ Without Channel Merging

Fragmented Experience
  • Same customer appears as separate profiles across channels
  • Points and rewards don’t accumulate together
  • Inconsistent loyalty status across touchpoints
  • Customers miss out on unified rewards

✅ With Channel Merging

Unified Experience
  • Single customer profile across all channels
  • All points and rewards consolidated
  • Consistent loyalty status everywhere
  • Seamless reward accumulation and redemption

​
How Channel Merging Works

Channel merging uses a secondary identifier (email or mobile number) alongside the customerId to recognize the same customer across different systems.
1

Choose a Merging Identifier

Configure your Gameball account to use either email or mobile number as the merging identifier.
Contact Gameball Support to enable channel merging, as it may be a premium feature. You can choose either email or mobile, but not both simultaneously.
2

Include Identifier in API Requests

Every API request from each channel should include:
  • The channel-specific customerId
  • The merging identifier (email or mobile) based on your configuration
Required Field: If your account uses email-based merging, you must include email in every API request. If using mobile-based merging, include mobile. Without the merging identifier, profiles won’t be unified.
3

Gameball Unifies Profiles

Gameball automatically merges activities based on the secondary identifier, creating a single unified profile for loyalty tracking.

​
Customer Journey Example

Let’s follow Sarah’s journey across different channels to see how channel merging works:

​
Scenario

Sarah shops with your brand across multiple channels:
Sarah visits your website and makes a purchase. Your web platform assigns her customerId: "web_user_12345".
POST /api/v4.0/integrations/orders
{
  "customerId": "web_user_12345",
  "email": "sarah@example.com",
  "channel": "web",
  "orderId": "ORD_WEB_001",
  "totalPaid": 150.00,
  "lineItems": [...]
}
Sarah earns 150 points from this purchase.
Later, Sarah downloads your mobile app. The app assigns her a different ID: customerId: "mobile_user_67890".
POST /api/v4.0/integrations/orders
{
  "customerId": "mobile_user_67890",
  "email": "sarah@example.com",
  "channel": "mobile",
  "orderId": "ORD_MOB_001",
  "totalPaid": 200.00,
  "lineItems": [...]
}
Sarah earns 200 points. With channel merging enabled, these points are added to her existing balance from the web purchase, giving her a total of 350 points.
Sarah visits a physical store. The POS system assigns her yet another ID: customerId: "pos_user_99999".
POST /api/v4.0/integrations/orders
{
  "customerId": "pos_user_99999",
  "email": "sarah@example.com",
  "channel": "pos",
  "orderId": "ORD_POS_001",
  "totalPaid": 100.00,
  "lineItems": [...]
}
Sarah earns 100 points. All three purchases are now unified under one profile with 450 total points.
Result: Even though Sarah has three different customer IDs across channels, Gameball recognizes her through sarah@example.com and consolidates all her activities into a single profile with 450 total points.

​
Supported Channels

Gameball tracks the source channel through the channel field in API requests:
Use "channel": "web" for transactions on your website.
This includes desktop browsers, mobile browsers, and web-based progressive web apps (PWAs).

​
Implementation Guide

​
Step 1: Enable Channel Merging

Before implementing, ensure channel merging is enabled:
1

Contact Gameball Support

Reach out to Gameball Support to enable channel merging for your account.
2

Choose Merging Identifier

Decide whether to use email or mobile number as your merging identifier.
Email-based merging works well for businesses with email registration. Mobile-based merging is ideal for markets where phone numbers are more reliable identifiers.

​
Step 2: Update API Requests

Include the merging identifier in all relevant API requests. Here’s where it’s typically needed:
Include email or mobile when submitting orders:
{
  "customerId": "channel_specific_id",
  "email": "customer@example.com",  // if using email-based merging
  "channel": "web",
  "orderId": "ORD123",
  "totalPaid": 100.00,
  "lineItems": [...]
}
Include email or mobile when tracking payments:
{
  "customerId": "channel_specific_id",
  "email": "customer@example.com",  // if using email-based merging
  "channel": "mobile",
  "paymentId": "PAY123",
  "totalPaid": 50.00,
  "paymentDetails": [...]
}
Include email or mobile when tracking customer events:
{
  "customerId": "channel_specific_id",
  "email": "customer@example.com",  // if using email-based merging
  "events": {
    "profile_completed": {}
  }
}
Include email or mobile when creating or updating customer profiles:
{
  "customerId": "channel_specific_id",
  "email": "customer@example.com",  // if using email-based merging
  "customerAttributes": {
    "displayName": "John Doe",
    "firstName": "John",
    "lastName": "Doe"
  }
}

​
Step 3: Test Across Channels

Testing is Critical: Before going live, test channel merging by making transactions from different channels with the same email or mobile number to verify profiles merge correctly.

​
Business Use Cases

Online and Offline StoresA retail brand operates an online store and multiple physical locations. By enabling channel merging with mobile numbers as the identifier, every transaction (whether online or offline) contributes to the customer’s unified loyalty profile.
Customers can shop online, earn points, then redeem those same points in-store—seamlessly.

​
Best Practices

Consistent Identifier

Always Include Merging IdentifierInclude the merging identifier (email or mobile) in every API request to ensure profiles merge correctly.

Channel Tracking

Set Channel FieldAlways include the channel field to track where interactions originate for analytics and reporting.

Data Quality

Validate IdentifiersEnsure email addresses or mobile numbers are validated and normalized (consistent format) across all channels.

Customer Communication

Inform CustomersLet customers know their loyalty account works across all channels for better engagement.

​
Common Questions

No, you must choose either email or mobile as your merging identifier. Choose based on which identifier is more reliable and consistent across your channels.
Without the merging identifier, Gameball cannot merge profiles. Each channel-specific customerId will remain as a separate profile. Always include the merging identifier in your API requests.
Changing your merging identifier after going live can be complex and may affect existing customer data. Contact Gameball Support to discuss migration strategies before making changes.
Yes, but you need to ensure the merging identifier is captured during guest checkout. Once the customer provides their email or mobile, include it in the API request to enable merging.

Create Customer API

API reference for creating and updating customers

Orders API

Track orders across channels

Payments API

Track payments across channels