Hello @C_Evans ,
I understand that you are looking for ways to get your 1P data into AAM.
You can accomplish this via two ways:
1. Real-Time
2. Batch ingestion
Real-time ingestion will be specific to either online activities done by the users/devices or this can be direct DCS API calls.
Batch ingestion on the other hand is an offline method where you need to place precisely formatted files into AAM server for processing.
There is not right or wrong way, it completely depends upon the use-case you are trying to achieve here.
If you have your 1P data available in your CRM or in some backend then opting batch ingestion is the option.
If you are trying to collect the online behavior or want to ingestion data in real-time then APIs or DIL implementation is another way.
I am adding few documents for more details around these two data ingestion techniques.
DCS APIs
Batch Ingestion
I hope this helps!