How to Set Up Automated Daily Incremental Backups for Your Keap Contacts Using a Third-Party Tool
Keap is a powerhouse CRM for many businesses, but even the most robust platforms benefit from external data redundancy. Relying solely on a single platform for your crucial contact data can pose significant risks. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to implement automated daily incremental backups for your Keap contacts, leveraging third-party automation tools to safeguard your valuable information against accidental deletions, data corruption, or platform-specific outages. Protecting your contact database is not just a best practice; it’s a business imperative for continuity and resilience.
Step 1: Understand the Need for Third-Party Backup
While Keap offers robust data management, an independent, off-platform backup strategy provides an additional layer of security. This isn’t about distrusting Keap, but about adopting a comprehensive data recovery posture. External backups ensure business continuity if unexpected issues arise within any single system, including human error, data sync problems, or even a temporary service interruption. An incremental backup strategy specifically captures changes since the last backup, minimizing storage requirements and backup times, while ensuring you always have the most current version of your contact data outside of Keap’s ecosystem. This proactive measure prevents costly data loss and ensures your sales and marketing efforts remain uninterrupted.
Step 2: Choose a Suitable Third-Party Backup Tool & Destination
Selecting the right tools is paramount. You’ll need an automation platform like Make.com (formerly Integromat) or Zapier to facilitate the data transfer, and a secure destination for your backups. Popular choices for the destination include Google Sheets for smaller datasets, a dedicated cloud database (e.g., Airtable, PostgreSQL, MySQL via AWS RDS), or even a secure CSV repository on Google Drive or Dropbox. Consider your data volume, security requirements, and budget when making this choice. For incremental backups, a database or a structured spreadsheet with unique identifiers for each contact will be most effective, allowing you to easily compare and update records.
Step 3: Establish Keap API Connection and Permissions
To extract data from Keap, your chosen automation tool needs secure API access. This typically involves generating an API key or setting up an OAuth 2.0 connection within Keap’s administrative settings. Ensure the API user or connection has the necessary permissions to read contact data. Restrict permissions to the minimum required to maintain security best practices. During this step, you’ll connect your automation platform (e.g., Make.com) to your Keap account, authorizing it to perform actions like “List Contacts” or “Retrieve Contact by ID.” Thoroughly test this connection to confirm that your automation tool can successfully communicate with Keap’s API and access the necessary contact fields.
Step 4: Design Your Incremental Backup Workflow
The core of an incremental backup is identifying *new* or *changed* contacts. This requires a smart workflow. One common approach is to track the `date_updated` field for Keap contacts. Your automation scenario should: 1. Fetch contacts from Keap that have been created or updated since the last successful backup (store this “last run” timestamp). 2. For each fetched contact, check if it already exists in your backup destination (e.g., using Keap’s `id` as a unique identifier). 3. If new, create a new record in your backup destination. 4. If existing, update the corresponding record in your backup destination. This logic ensures you’re only processing modified data, saving API calls and processing time.
Step 5: Implement and Test the Automation Scenario
With your tools selected and workflow designed, it’s time to build the automation. In Make.com or Zapier, this will involve setting up a trigger (e.g., a scheduled run), an action to fetch Keap contacts, and subsequent actions to search, create, or update records in your chosen backup destination. Start with a small batch of test data to ensure the logic works flawlessly. Verify that new contacts are added correctly, existing contacts are updated with their latest information, and no data is accidentally duplicated or overwritten. Pay close attention to data mapping between Keap fields and your backup destination’s columns/fields to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Step 6: Schedule and Monitor Your Daily Backups
Once thoroughly tested, schedule your automation scenario to run daily. Most automation platforms allow you to set specific times for execution. Consider off-peak hours to minimize any potential impact on Keap’s performance. Crucially, set up monitoring and alerts. Configure notifications to inform you of successful runs, but more importantly, of any failures. This ensures you’re immediately aware if a backup process doesn’t complete, allowing for prompt troubleshooting. Regularly review the backup logs provided by your automation platform to confirm consistent operation and data integrity, ensuring that your safety net is always in place and functioning as expected.
Step 7: Plan for Data Recovery and Maintenance
A backup is only as good as your ability to restore from it. Develop a clear data recovery plan. Document where your backups are stored, how they are structured, and the process for restoring contacts back into Keap should a data loss event occur. This might involve manual import, or for larger datasets, a reverse automation process. Regularly audit your backup destination to ensure data accuracy and completeness. Periodically test your recovery process to ensure it works as expected under pressure. Maintenance also includes reviewing your automation for any changes in Keap’s API or your third-party tool’s functionality, ensuring long-term reliability.
If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Unbreakable Keap Data: Mastering Incremental Backups for HR & Recruiting
