Exchange is a tool that helps you broaden the understanding of your customers and their behavior. Share customer data between the applications that you already own without the expense, delay, and complication of custom integrations.

Exchange provides a simple browser-based user interface that gives you the ability to define the data exchange.

1. Select the type of data that you want to exchange.
2. Select the product that is the source of the data.
3. Select the product that receives the data.

You can start using Exchange with just a few steps. Begin to create connections between Exchange-enabled products and business partners without delay or the need for custom integrations.

Here are the steps to put Exchange to work for you.

Request a user account and log in

To access Exchange, you need to request a user account. Exchange provides several user account options to address the following scenarios:

• A single user with a single account.
• A single user with access to multiple accounts maintained for an organization. For example, a company with multiple brands might request multiple accounts to create separate Exchange working environments.
• Multiple users with access to a single account. This approach would help a business that wants to provide a shared workspace for all team members.

1. Contact support if you need an Exchange account.
2. Let support know the scenario that you want to address:
   • Single user with a single account. Complete and submit the account request form.
   • Single user with multiple accounts. Complete and submit the form for each user. For each submission, enter the same username but a different account name.
   • Multiple users with a single account. Complete and submit the form for each user. For each submission, submit a different username and the same account name.

To grant access, the Exchange provisioning team assigns you a username and initial password. You can change the password, but not the username.

1. Go to http://exchange-us-1.goacoustic.com.
2. Enter your username and password.

If you gain access to multiple Exchange accounts, you will see the list of available accounts. Select the account that you want to work with. You can access only one account at a time and you can't view or share data or settings between accounts. 

Register endpoints

To exchange event or audience data between products or solutions through Exchange, a developer must register endpoints with Exchange for use in your account. You must have a valid license and access credentials for products and solutions that you register.

You can register endpoints with the endpoint registration wizard on the Endpoints tab or through the navigation menu.

The endpoint registration wizard lists endpoint providers that have collaborated with Exchange to complete some endpoint configuration work in advance. For endpoints that are listed in the wizard, provide information about your organization and Exchange account that is required to proceed with the registration process.

Endpoints that did not yet complete pre-registration preparations are not listed as options in the endpoint registration wizard. To register an endpoint that does not appear in the endpoint list, register the endpoint as a Custom endpoint.

Endpoint providers can deploy their business solutions on one or more servers or data centers. If the provider uses multiple data centers, you must specify a deployment when you register the solution as an Exchange endpoint for your account. Consult with the endpoint provider to determine the deployment information that you must specify and to get any required address or credential information.

1. On the Endpoints tab, click Register new endpoint to display the endpoint registration wizard.
2. Select the endpoint that you want to register and click Next.
3. Provide the information that the endpoint provider requires as part of the registration request. Click Next.
4. The wizard presents either of the following options:
   • One or more fields to enter account access information directly through Exchange. The required information is different for each endpoint. Typically, the endpoint requires that you provide the login credentials and other access information. If the endpoint is deployed on multiple data centers, you must select a deployment. Consult with the endpoint provider to choose the correct deployment.
   • Instructions for contacting or connecting to the endpoint provider to register the endpoint. Sometimes they include the endpoint provider's requires to process the registration request. Make note of the instructions before you click Next.
   • When you have many endpoints with the same configuration but for different purposes, it's useful to enter an endpoint alias to differentiate one endpoint from another. If you don't define an endpoint alias, one is generated for you.
   • Enter a description for the endpoint to provide better insight into the goal of the endpoint. If you don't define an endpoint description, Exchange uses the default one.
5. Once you entered registration information into the wizard, Exchange transmits it to the endpoint provider. The endpoint displays on the Endpoints tab as Pending. When Acoustic Exchange and the endpoint provider completes the registration, the endpoint status changes to Active. If the registration did not complete successfully, the endpoint status is Failed. Contact our support for assistance.

If you received registration instructions from the wizard, contact the endpoint provider to complete the registration. The endpoint status remains Pending until you contact the endpoint provider and the provider completes the registration.

Exchange syndication

In Exchange, syndication refers to the entire sequence of actions that occur between endpoints that provide and receive marketing data through Exchange: an event source endpoint publishes the event data and an event destination endpoint subscribes to the events. When you syndicate events, an endpoint cannot be both an event publisher and subscriber.

Audience syndication involves audience sharing where an audience source endpoint provides audience data to an audience destination endpoint. An endpoint must be designated as either the audience source or the audience destination.

Syndication methods

Depending on the capabilities of your product or business solution, your application can support some or all of the following methods:

• Event publisher
• Event consumer
• Audience publisher
• Audience consumer

Applications can push data to or pull data from Acoustic Exchange, except event publishers – these can only push event data to Exchange.

The combination of the type of data exchanged and the method used to connect to Exchange determines the specific public APIs you need to call or implement. The Integration manager lists the required APIs in the Implementation phase, based on the selected syndication types.

Subscribe to events

Events are online activities like adding items to a cart or downloading a mobile app. You can configure event subscriptions between an endpoint that publishes events and one or more endpoints that receive the event data. After you configure the syndication, Exchange processes the events automatically.

You must register the publishing and subscribing endpoints. As part of the endpoint registration, the endpoint provider registers the events that it can provide. Depending on the information that the provider supplies, Acoustic Exchange can display a description of the event and related event attributes.

1. On the Events tab, click Subscribe to events. The Event subscription window displays.
2. In the Select events column, select a provider > endpoint > event.
3. In the Select destinations column, select one or more endpoints to receive the event notification. The endpoint displays in the Pending subscriptions column.
4. Review the pending subscriptions. You can change the subscriptions as necessary.
5. Click Subscribe. Refresh the list of available event syndications.

Share an audience

Audiences are a collection of attributes and IDs that identify individuals and their behavior in various channels. Exchange gives you tools to specify a source and destination, map audience elements, schedule when to share, and indicate how to share the audience data.

You can share audiences only between endpoints that are registered with Exchange for your user account. However, you can also upload segmented identity data from your endpoint's own data mart to Exchange by using the Audience tab.

1. On the Audiences tab, click Share audiences and identifiers. You will see the first page of a wizard that guides you through the audience sharing process. The Summary section displays the result of your selections as you go on.
2. Select Share an audience. Optionally, select Upload identities to the Acoustic Exchange Identity Store, or both.
3. Select a target audience.
   1. Select an audience provider, e.g., Acoustic Campaign.
   2. Expand the provider listing and select an endpoint that is an audience source.
   3. Select an available audience for your endpoint.
4. Select a destination for the audience. Exchange lists endpoints registered as potential audience destinations.
   1. Select an audience destination.
   2. Expand the provider listing and select an endpoint that is an audience destination.
   3. Select an available audience. If there is no audience for the destination endpoint, you can create a new destination audience.
   4. Click Next to proceed.
5. Map databases, identities, and attributes (if available) on the Source to destination mapping page.
   1. Select a marketing database. Click the Source database field to specify the source of the audience data and the Destination database field to specify where to send the audience data.
   2. Map audience identifiers. Click the Source identifier field to select an identifier available in the target audience. Select a corresponding identifier in the Destination identifier field. You can map multiple source identifiers to a single destination identifier.
   3. Map audience attributes. You can map audience attributes only if they are present in the audience source and audience destination. Select attributes in the target audience and corresponding attributes in the destination endpoint. You can map a single source attribute to multiple destination attributes.
   Click the Source attributes. Select a corresponding attribute in the destination. You can click the Destination attributes field to change the mapping, if necessary. Repeat until you map all of the attributes you need. Click Next to proceed. Note: Exchange displays a list of attributes to map only if the source and destination databases each contain at least one audience attribute. 
6. Schedule when to share the audience. In the Share audience and identifiers field, select your share option. If you want to share the audience repeatedly, specify how often to repeat audience sharing. Select a date and time of day to share.
   • • Immediately The source endpoint begins the audience share process when you click Share. This option is the default selection.
     • At specific time Share the audience one time only, at a specific time. Specify a start date and time. When you specify time, GMT is used.
     • Intra-daily For Acoustic Campaign users only
     • Daily. Exchange includes audience data collected and provided by the source endpoint during the previous 1 day.
     • Weekly
     • Custom. Select one or more days of the week.

     By default, recurring audience sharing continues indefinitely. To stop recurrence at a specific date, for the Repeat forever option, select No and select the date when you want to stop sharing audiences. 

7. Specify how much data to share. You can share all available data or data collected during  specific periods of time. If you configure repeated audience sharing, you won't have the option to specify a date range.
   1. If you see the Include all data option, select Yes to share all available data. Select No to enable the Date range field so that you can specify a date range.
   2. In the Date range field, specify a range of dates that provide the audience data that you want to share.
8. If you are sharing audience data with an existing database, specify how to use the shared records:
   • Add new records: Add the shared records to the existing segment.
   • Replace existing records: If the endpoint supports replacing records in the destination database, Exchange removes all records in the destination audience and replaces them with the audience you are sharing. If the endpoint does not support replacing audience records, Exchange adds the shared audience to the existing audience.
   • Remove specified records: Remove records that match the records you are sharing based on the value of the identifier you specify. Some endpoints require an exact match to the entire audience record.
   1. Specify the minimum number of records that the target audience must contain.

      Note: Acoustic Exchange cancels the audience sharing if the selected audience does not contain the required minimum number of records.

   2. Optionally, add a note that provides additional information for use by the destination endpoint. The destination endpoint is responsible for processing the information that you provide.
9. Click Share.

   Depending on when you scheduled the audience sharing, the audience data in the audience source endpoint becomes available for use in the audience destination endpoint. The amount of time that is required to complete the process depends on the amount of audience data that is shared.

Elements and workflows

Becoming familiar with the major Acoustic Exchange elements and workflows can help you to understand how to use Acoustic Exchange to exchange event and audience data between independent products and business solutions.

Who or what is involved?	What happens?
Acoustic Exchange Users: Business users like you who act in Acoustic Exchange to exchange audience and event data between independent products and solutions that they own or license.	Acoustic Exchange users register source and destination endpoints for use in their Acoustic Exchange accounts. Acoustic Exchange users must be registered users of the products or solutions that appear as Acoustic Exchange endpoints. Users select source endpoints as an event or audience source. Users select the destination endpoint as the event or audience destination. Event and audience data begins to flow from source to destination endpoints. For audience sharing, Acoustic Exchange users can specify how to map audience data between endpoints, when to schedule audience sharing, and how to add audience data to the destination database.
Source: A product or solution that generates event or audience data and passes the data to Acoustic Exchange.
Destination: A product or solution that consumes event or audience data that is generated by a Source endpoint.
Acoustic Exchange: Acoustic Exchange interacts with source and destination endpoints to pass events and audience data. Acoustic Exchange matches characteristics in the data that enable marketers to observe the same customer's activity in various channels.

Test drive: your practice environment

Test Drive opens in a separate tab and gives you an opportunity to work with sample endpoints, events, and audiences that Exchange provides. The actions that you take in Test Drive are identical to those in the Exchange business ecosystem. The events and audiences that you syndicate during your test drive contain actual event and audience data that Exchange prepared for you.

Test Drive provides an interface where you can immediately see the results of your actions. Exchange is pre-provisioned with sample endpoints, Test Drive: publisher and Test Drive: destination. These endpoints send and receive event and audience data according to syndications that you configure for your working environment.

Before you begin working in the Test Drive interface, complete some simple preparations in Exchange. Register the Test Drive endpoints in Exchange to make them available for your user account. The Test Drive overview guides you through the steps.