Data sources

Product Introduction

1. Definition: Knock Data sources is a specialized event ingestion and data synchronization layer designed for modern customer engagement infrastructure. It functions as a middleware engine that captures real-time event data from third-party platforms, data warehouses, and custom applications to trigger automated notification workflows and update user audience segments.

2. Core Value Proposition: The platform exists to eliminate the "engineering bottleneck" associated with building and maintaining custom notification logic. By providing a no-code interface for data mapping, Knock Data sources allow product and marketing teams to activate their data stack—including CDPs, reverse ETL tools, and transactional databases—to deliver personalized, multi-channel messaging (Email, SMS, Push, In-app) without writing custom integration code for every new lifecycle trigger.

Main Features

1. Pre-built Third-Party Source Connectors: Knock provides native, deep integrations with essential B2B SaaS building blocks such as Stripe (billing events), Clerk and WorkOS (authentication and identity), Supabase (database changes), and PostHog (product analytics). These connectors use secure webhooks to automatically ingest events, allowing users to map external data objects directly to Knock user properties or workflow triggers through a visual UI.

2. Custom Webhook Mapping and Transformation: For proprietary systems or niche tools, Knock offers a universal webhook ingestion engine. This feature includes built-in request verification to ensure data integrity and a transformation layer that allows non-technical users to map complex JSON payloads to specific Knock actions. This effectively turns any HTTP request into a structured event that can drive complex messaging logic, such as batching, delays, or conditional branching.

3. Real-time Audience and User Synchronization: Beyond simple triggers, Data sources facilitate the continuous synchronization of user attributes and relational data. By ingesting data from warehouses or application databases, Knock maintains an up-to-date record of user segments. This enables "Data Activation," where messaging is targeted based on real-time usage patterns, subscription status changes, or custom object relations (e.g., workspace-level attributes in a multi-tenant B2B environment).

Problems Solved

1. Pain Point: Engineering Resource Drain: Traditionally, developers must manually instrument every notification trigger, write boilerplate code for webhook signature verification, and manage the retry logic for failed deliveries. Knock Data sources replace this manual labor with a standardized infrastructure, reducing the time to ship new messaging from weeks to minutes.

2. Target Audience: This product is designed for Engineering Leads and Staff Software Engineers who need to scale notification infrastructure, Product Managers (PLG) focused on onboarding and retention experiments, and Marketing Operations professionals who require autonomy to update messaging copy and logic without opening Jira tickets for engineering.

3. Use Cases:

• Transactional Messaging: Triggering an "Invoice Paid" email immediately after a Stripe webhook is received.
• Lifecycle Onboarding: Automatically adding a user to a "New User" audience when a Clerk sign-up event occurs.
• Product-Led Growth (PLG): Sending an in-app nudge when a user reaches a specific usage threshold detected by PostHog.
• Security Alerts: Mapping WorkOS events to trigger instant multi-channel alerts for suspicious login activity.

Unique Advantages

1. Differentiation: Unlike traditional ESPs (Email Service Providers) that operate in silos, Knock Data sources are part of a developer-first "Customer Engagement Platform" (CEP) that supports Infrastructure as Code (IaC). It allows teams to manage notification templates and data mappings through the Knock CLI, GitHub integration, and environment-specific version control, bringing DevOps best practices to marketing automation.

2. Key Innovation: The integration of AI-native tooling (compatibility with Cursor and Claude Code) and agentic workflows. Knock allows developers to use natural language to build complex messaging journeys and perform lead qualification at the ingestion point. For example, an incoming signup event from a Data source can be processed by an AI agent to determine if the lead is high-value before triggering a personalized executive outreach workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How do I connect my product database to Knock without writing code? You can use the Knock Data sources interface to connect via pre-built integrations like Supabase or by using a reverse ETL tool (like Hightouch or Census) to send webhooks to Knock. Once the connection is established, you can map your database fields to Knock user attributes directly in the dashboard.

2. Does Knock handle webhook security and verification automatically? Yes. When using Data sources like Stripe or Clerk, Knock automatically handles the signature verification and security handshake. For custom webhooks, Knock provides a dedicated endpoint and verification settings to ensure that only authorized data sources can trigger your messaging workflows.

3. Can I trigger different messages based on the specific data in a webhook payload? Absolutely. Data sources allow you to map payload properties to workflow variables. You can then use "Branching" or "Step Conditions" within the Knock workflow builder to send different messages (or use different channels) based on the specific attributes of the event, such as the plan type, geographic location, or user role.