Identity resolution, single view of the customer, golden record and identity hash, lots of ways to talk about a single thing, how do you tie the digital footprint to the physical person.

What is involved in identity resolution?

Creating and mapping identifiers
Stitching multiple identifiers together in an identity graph
Creating an interaction timeline

The main user in the business of identity resolution is generally the marketing team to effectively target customers and IT Security/ fraud to confirm if there is maliciousness in an interaction.

What identifiers exist and how are they used

There are two main kinds of identity resolution methods:

Detemanistic - taking confirmed data of a person (generally data a customer gives you)
Probabilistic - taking data and assuming it is the same person (view in an interaction)

Type of deterministic data

Email
Phone number
Address
Credit cards
Device
Usernames

Just because you have deterministic resolution doesn’t mean it’s not flawed. I can use a different credit card, I can use a shared computer or I can get something shipped to my work address.

You generally end up consolidating these data points to create a single view where your identity graph breaks at something being different. Same card, same address, different email = new identity graph.

Here is my current identity graph across multiple devices and touch points:

This logic of identity stitching and breaking is a key component of building your audience model.

Type of probabilistic data

IP address
Device type
3rd party cookies
Browser type

Although individually it might seem redundant - knowing I use Chrome is pretty insignificant, however, when combined in a systematic way you can create a probabilistic fingerprint.

WHAT IS A FINGERPRINTING

Generally for an application to know who you are it will look at a cookie ID to see if you are the same person, however, if you delete cookies it won’t know who you are.

See it in action

This function creates a unique fingerprint of your device, browser, screen size, plug-ins, IP address etc to create a unique ID that is not bound to cookies.

SO WHAT

Resolving customer identity efficiently and effectively allows for increased media efficiency, cross-device personalisation, increase conversion rates, better retention strategies, enhanced predictive analytics, better user journeys and decreased fraud to name a few.

Talk to us today about how you can build a best-in-class customer resolution model and deliver personalisation at scale.

What is Identity Resolution.