When should I use an Event vs. a Custom object data element?

Hey @drew p12​! Daniel from Customer Support Engineering here 🔧 

An event is a good way to track exactly when a user carries out an action. If a user pays for a subscription, you might want to trigger a "subscription paid" event to keep track of it. With events, you can trigger Outbound messages to send in an instant. You might want to trigger a verification email when a user triggers a "sign up" event, for example. Plus, you can pass metadata for more granular info on the event. If a user triggered a "bought book" event, you might want to set the metadata to be a book title like "Brief Answers to the Big Questions".

Custom objects, on the other hand, can't trigger messages. They are moreso a storage unit for data that might not be available via Intercom. You can populate a custom object via the Messenger snippet, but it's most typically used with a custom action. A custom action can grab data from your own API endpoints, so custom objects are very useful for grabbing relevant info from your side and instantly bringing it into Intercom.

Imagine a scenario where a user buys a product, and they trigger an event "bought product" with "product name" metadata included. This allows you to easily track when a user bought a product, and what they bought, and send a "purchase confirmed" email automatically. But if you want to track some additional data to associate permanently with a lead (or even a conversation!), and you can't get the relevant info without querying your own database, then a custom object is what you'll need.

Hope this helps!