Data Types and Field Values

When you send data to Ours — through the Ingest API, Web SDK, webhooks, or any other source — the value you pass for a field determines whether Ours sets, ignores, or clears that field on a visitor.

Getting this right matters most when a source sometimes doesn't have a value to send. The wrong choice can wipe out a previously captured value — for example, an ad click ID captured on the landing page.

Top-level visitor properties

Applies to fields like email, first_name, external_id, phone_number, gclid, fbclid, and every other top-level attribute listed in Visitor Properties Overview.

Custom properties

Applies to entries inside the custom_properties object.

custom_properties use partial (merge) updates — sending a subset of keys never removes keys you didn't include. See Custom Properties for examples.

Difference from top-level fields: null does not clear a custom_properties entry. If you need to remove a custom property, contact support.

Why this matters

If you send { "gclid": null } as a top-level visitor property, Ours will clear the existing gclid on that visitor. This is intentional — it lets you explicitly remove a value.

Many source systems render missing fields as null in their payloads. Webhook templates, for example, often interpolate a merge tag as the literal value null when the underlying field is empty. If those payloads are mapped to top-level visitor properties, every subsequent event can wipe out previously captured attribution data.

Common pitfalls

• Webhook payloads with null merge fields — If a later event from the same webhook carries {"gclid": null} for a contact that didn't originally have one, the visitor's stored gclid will be cleared. See Webhooks Integration and GoHighLevel Integration for source-specific guidance.
• SDK calls with conditional values — ours('identify', { gclid: capturedGclid }) where capturedGclid resolves to null will clear the field. Use undefined or omit the key entirely if you don't have a value.
• Server-side JSON serializers that emit null for missing fields — Prefer leaving the key out of the payload over sending null.

How to say "I don't have a value"

Any of these will cause Ours to leave the existing value alone:

• Omit the key from the payload
• Send the key with undefined (this is dropped during JSON serialization)
• Send an empty string ""

How to explicitly clear a value

Send null as the value for a top-level visitor property:

{
  "email": "visitor@example.com",
  "phone_number": null
}

This unsets phone_number on the visitor record while leaving all other fields untouched.

Where this applies

These rules apply to every path that writes visitor properties:

• The /track and /identify REST endpoints
• The Web SDK: ours('identify', ...) and the visitor properties argument of ours('track', ...)
• Webhook sources with field mappings
• LeadGen, scheduling, and CRM source integrations (GoHighLevel, Calendly, Typeform, and others)

The same semantics apply everywhere so you can reason about a single set of rules no matter where the data enters Ours.