Braze: API-Triggered Message vs API-Only Message. What’s The Difference?

apiapi-triggeredapi-onlybraze
Written By Allan Heo

Read more for a full comparison between the two API features and understand how to set up each one!

api email

Naming Convention

We’ll be doing a full comparison between the API-Triggered Campaign/Canvas and the API-Only Campaign in Braze by approaching both features from multiple perspectives. But first, let’s clarify the naming convention:

In the dashboard, the latter is called “API Campaign” (without the word “Only”).

However, in the API documentation, they are called “API Only”. For a clearer distinction, we will call them API-Only for the remainder of this blog.

Setup

First, let’s discuss the differences in setup which will answer many initial questions.

API-Triggered is a Delivery Type that’s available in both Campaigns and Canvases. It’s that 3rd option all the way to the right that we typically don’t touch but reserve for the Engineering teams.

Campaign Screenshot
Canvas Screenshot

API-Triggered Messages (grouping both Campaigns and Canvases) require setup within the dashboard. In this aspect, they’re just like any other Scheduled or Action-Based messages; the copy, audience, and all the other settings will be set within the dashboard.

On the other hand, API-Only Campaigns do not require any dashboard setup. Yes, all the copy, segmenting, and even frequency capping will be set entirely from the API call.

Even if an Engineer had no idea how to build a Braze Campaign, they could certainly send messages from their Braze dashboard by reading the Braze API Documentations for API-Only Campaigns.

One connection to the dashboard that is possible for API-Only Campaigns is by creating an API(-Only) Campaign Tracker in the dashboard. This API(-Only) Campaign Tracker will provide a Campaign ID which can then be passed as a parameter in the API call, and this will allow us to track campaign stats on the Braze dashboard.

You can think of it as creating an “empty shell” for this API-Only Campaign.

Delivery

The Delivery is pretty much the same for both API-Triggered and API-Only Messages. The trigger for delivery will be determined from the server-side (or brand-side).

This means that both types of messages will not be delivered at a set time or based on a user-action; they will be delivered when the API call is launched based on the logic that is set from your team’s backend.

Say we’re working with a concert/event ticketing app that allows their users to add themselves on a waitlist until a specific show becomes available. When the show becomes available, the user will get an email.

We certainly cannot schedule this email to be sent as we cannot predict when the show will become available; this email also cannot be triggered by a user-action as the user also won’t impact when the show becomes available.

However, from the backend, as soon as we see that the show is available again, we can make an API call to either send the API-Triggered Message that is already setup in the dashboard or send an API-Only Message directly to the end-users with the message content created inside the API call.

Use Case

Both API-Triggered and API-Only Messages are great solutions for many of the same use cases. They’re commonly reserved for Transactional Messages, but there’s no reason that they cannot be used for Marketing Messages either.

The one major difference to note is the scalability of API-Only Messages.

Because API-Only Messages do not require any sort of in-dashboard setup, there’s no physical button clicks that’s getting in the way of launching these messages. This means that a script can be written to launch hundreds of variations of API-Only Messages programmatically.

Setting up 100 different API-Triggered Messages in the dashboard would be extremely time-consuming; that won’t be the case with API-Only Messages.

Of course, this is an extreme example; however, if this use case is relevant to anyone, please proceed with caution and perform thorough QA!

Trigger Properties

One cool advantage that API-Triggered Messages have over its counterpart is the capability to template Trigger Properties in the message body.

For example, if a user were to purchase items at a brick-and-mortar store, the POS system could make an API call to trigger an Order Confirmation email via API-Triggered Messages.

This API call can contain information about the items purchased at the store and pass it along as Trigger Properties within the API call. Then, the data under the Trigger Properties can be templated in the Order Confirmation email by using the Liquid syntax below:

Email Attachments

API-Only Messages put up a good fight when it comes to cool advantages!

In Braze, the only way to send Email Attachments is via API-Only Messages. The Email object has a special field for “attachments” that won’t be found anywhere else in Braze.

This has been a selling point for many teams to send their Transactional Emails via API-Only Messages if sending an attachment was a deal-breaker for them.

API Endpoints

API-Triggered Campaigns:

API-Triggered Canvases:

API-Only Campaigns:

Thank you!

API-Triggered Messages and API-Only Messages sure have their similarities, pros, and cons. Regardless, we hope that this blog was helpful for learning about the two different features and deciding which route is better suited for your use cases.

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to reach out with any questions. We’re happy to help! 🙏

fornowmarketing.com

allan@fornowmarketing.com

Allan Heo
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