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PeopleStage release notes 2025

Q4 2025

9 December, 2025

Improved Google Ads audience match fields

You can now include additional customer data fields when creating Google Ads audiences in PeopleStage. This enhancement significantly increases the match rate of recipients in your custom lists.

Previously, Apteco uploaded only email addresses for custom list matching. Google Ads can now use additional fields in the matching process to identify more of your audience members.

You can now map the following fields:

  • Email
  • Phone
  • First name
  • Surname
  • Country
  • Postcode
  • Mobile device ID

Note

This feature is currently available in PeopleStage. We're planning to add a selection interface in Orbit's channel editor to make field selection easier.

Bug fixes

  • We’ve fixed an issue that prevented you from setting percentage values on volume constraints.
  • We’ve fixed an issue where parameterised live data segments failed to trigger when pulling contacts from a pool.

Q3 2025

25 September, 2025

New Journey selections by campaign run

You can now ensure that only recipients belonging to the same campaign run are selected to move forward using a new checkbox feature in journey selections or segments. This filters selections based on the specific journey instance a person is currently on.

This applies to these segment types:

  • Audience
  • Content
  • Delivery

An important example of this would be control groups. Previously, the system reviewed all campaign runs within your timeframe and identified recipients who had participated during that period. This could mix control groups from different campaign runs.

Now, you can maintain consistent groupings throughout the entire campaign sequence:

  • Control group A (week 1) stays together through all stages
  • Control group B (week 2) remains a separate, unified group
  • Each group maintains integrity regardless of campaign frequency

Q2 2025

16 May, 2025

Improved Dotdigital API v3 integration

We've upgraded our dotdigital integration to use API v3, which provides improved functionality and control over your communications.

Note

To use API v3 features, you must change your rate settings in dotdigital from Flat to Tiered.

Key improvements

  • Unified contacts support: Improved contact list management and email address or mobile number keying
  • Enhanced email capabilities: Marketing batch sends and transactional individual sends with template support
  • Expanded SMS functionality: Marketing sends with STOP command support and operational sends with link shortening
  • Template flexibility: Use pre-defined SMS templates from dotdigital or your own templates

New functionality

Email communications

  • Marketing email sends

    • Send batch emails using unified contacts keyed by email addresses
    • Retrieve URNs linked to contacts in the response gatherer

  • Transactional email sends

    • Send individual emails using transactional email templates
    • Receive responses via webhook only

SMS communications

  • Marketing SMS sends

    • Send batch SMS using unified contacts keyed by mobile numbers
    • System honours opt-outs automatically
    • Uses dotdigital SMS templates
    • No link shortening or response handling available

Note

For batch SMS sending, you must upload contacts only and then manually send the SMS to the address book.

  • Operational SMS sends

    • Send individual SMS using your own templates
    • No opt-outs are honoured
    • Link shortening is available
    • Responses are returned via webhook

Q1 2025

13 February, 2025

Bug fix

  • The FastStats Service now correctly backs off and retries when it encounters HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) errors from Google Firebase. This improves reliability when sending push notifications.