BigMailer Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a BigMailer-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI Workbench support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

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BigMailer is an email marketing platform and transactional email API for sending campaigns, managing lists, brands, and user resources. The REST API base URL is https://api.bigmailer.io/v1 and All requests require a Bearer token for authentication..

dlt is an open-source Python library that handles authentication, pagination, and schema evolution automatically. dlthub provides AI context files that enable code assistants to generate production-ready pipelines. Install with uv pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading BigMailer data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from BigMailer?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from BigMailer:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
userusers/meGETRetrieve authenticated user details (single object)
listslistsGETlistsGet lists in the account (response contains "lists" array)
brandsbrandsGETbrandsList brands available to the account (response contains "brands" array)
transactional_campaignsbrands/{brand_id}/transactional-campaignsGETtransactional_campaignsList transactional campaigns for a brand
campaign_sendbrands/{brand_id}/transactional-campaigns/{campaign_id}/sendPOSTSend a transactional campaign (commonly used, not GET)

How do I authenticate with the BigMailer API?

Include the API key in the request header: Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Sign in to your BigMailer account.
  2. Navigate to Account Settings → API Keys (or Developer → API).
  3. Create a new API key or copy an existing one.
  4. Use this key in the Authorization header as a Bearer token for all API requests.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.big_mailer_source] api_key = "your_bigmailer_api_key_here"

dlt reads this automatically at runtime — never hardcode tokens in your pipeline script. For production environments, see setting up credentials with dlt for environment variable and vault-based options.


How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

dlt ai init --agent <your-agent> # <agent>: claude | cursor | codex

This installs project rules, a secrets management skill, appropriate ignore files, and configures the dlt MCP server for your agent. Learn more →

2. Install the rest-api-pipeline toolkit:

dlt ai toolkit rest-api-pipeline install

This loads the skills and context about dlt the agent uses to build the pipeline iteratively, efficiently, and safely. The agent uses MCP tools to inspect credentials — it never needs to read your secrets.toml directly. Learn more →

3. Start LLM-assisted coding:

Use /find-source to load data from the BigMailer API into DuckDB.

The rest-api-pipeline toolkit takes over from here — it reads relevant API documentation, presents you with options for which endpoints to load, and follows a structured workflow to scaffold, debug, and validate the pipeline step by step.

4. Run the pipeline:

python big_mailer_pipeline.py

If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:

Pipeline big_mailer_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset big_mailer_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/big_mailer.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline big_mailer_pipeline show

This opens the Pipeline Dashboard where you can verify pipeline state, load metrics, schema (tables, columns, types), and query the loaded data directly.


Python pipeline example

This example loads lists and brands from the BigMailer API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

import dlt from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources @dlt.source def big_mailer_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.bigmailer.io/v1", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "token": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "lists", "endpoint": {"path": "lists", "data_selector": "lists"}}, {"name": "brands", "endpoint": {"path": "brands", "data_selector": "brands"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="big_mailer_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="big_mailer_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(big_mailer_source()) print(load_info)

To add more endpoints, append entries from the resource table to the "resources" list using the same name, path, and data_selector pattern.


How do I query the loaded data?

Once the pipeline runs, dlt creates one table per resource. You can query with Python or SQL.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("big_mailer_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.lists.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM big_mailer_data.lists LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("big_mailer_pipeline").dataset() data.lists.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.


What destinations can I load BigMailer data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

DestinationExample value
DuckDB (local, default)"duckdb"
PostgreSQL"postgres"
BigQuery"bigquery"
Snowflake"snowflake"
Redshift"redshift"
Databricks"databricks"
Filesystem (S3, GCS, Azure)"filesystem"

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.


Troubleshooting

Authentication failures

If you receive a 401 Unauthorized response, verify that the Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY> header is present and that the key is active.

Rate limiting

The API may return 429 Too Many Requests when request quotas are exceeded. Implement exponential backoff and respect the Retry-After header if it is provided.

Pagination

List endpoints return paginated results. Look for fields such as page, total_pages, or next_page in the response and iterate by passing page (and optionally per_page) query parameters as documented.

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.


Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI Workbench:

  • data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
  • dlthub-runtime — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

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