EXM using different emails but only have 1 contactID in xdb

Question

We are having contactIDs with their an email address, but for specific engagement plans we have for the same user a different email address.

How can we define which mail to use when sending out. Today the fallback is always up to the default mail address in the xdb, but if we start building a preference center with multiple selections/categories and email addresses this is not working.

Also we need to capture all the optins and optouts for the different selections/Categories linked to their email address. the only solution we see now is to create a new ContactID in the xdb but than we loose the full power of the 1 view on a contact.

Answer 1

EXM gets the email address of the contact in the getXdbContactRecipient pipeline, specifically in the AssignEmailProperties pipeline processor of that pipeline.

You have two options:

1. Change the EmailAddressesFacetName in /App_Config/Include/EmailExperience/Sitecore.EmailExperience.Core.config to use a different facet to load the email address from OR
2. Replace the AssignEmailProperties pipeline processor with your own

In your case, it sounds like the second option is the way to go.

Answer 2

If I am understanding your question correctly, you have added the ability for users to provide more than one email address. The user may be the same, but they may prefer emails for some things to go to Email Address A and other things to go to Email Address B. If this is the case, then you need to find a different way to identify contacts, other than by their email addresses.

Look at it this way: if you know that it's the same user then you must inherently have a way to identify that user (e.g. User ID/username, account number, phone number, etc.) that is not using their email address. Use one of those things that are enforced to be unique for each user. This could actually be a "primary" email address, if email addresses are used as usernames and additional emails can be added to the account, as well. If this is the case, then once the user logs in you should know their "primary" email address and you can use this value as the Contact ID.

By identifying contacts by a value that is unique for each user, you can ensure that, regardless of what email address you plan to send an email, you only have one xDB contact per user.