For marketers today, identifying and understanding customers across channels and devices remains an enormous challenge. Most marketers struggle with fragmented data and anonymous website visitors that prevent them from connecting insights about customer behaviors and preferences. This results in inconsistent, frustrating experiences for customers as they engage across different touchpoints.
Identity resolution provides a solution to this fragmented view of the customer by matching identifiers and profiles across devices and channels. By connecting data points from an anonymous website visit with a user’s profile in a mobile app, for example, identity resolution allows marketers to gain a unified, 360-degree view of each customer. This enables the delivery of seamless, personalized experiences based on a holistic understanding of individual behaviors, needs and interests across every interaction.
How Identity Resolution Works
Identity resolution is the process of connecting customer data across different identifiers, devices, and channels to create unified customer profiles. Rather than having fragmented data spread across various touchpoints, identity resolution matches identifiers like cookies, device IDs, and login credentials to unique individuals. This enables connecting all the interactions and attributes associated with a customer into a single profile.
Some of the key ways identity resolution works:
- Connecting devices and identifiers: Identity resolution uses both deterministic methods (like login credentials) and probabilistic methods to connect devices and identifiers that belong to the same user. This could mean matching an email address with a mobile ad ID or browser cookie, for example.
- Building a 360 customer view: By resolving customer identities across data sets, marketers get a complete 360 view of each customer rather than just anonymous or individual channel insights. All touchpoints like website visits, mobile app usage, call center records, in-store purchases, emails opened etc. can be tied back to unique customer profiles.
- Persistent profiling: Identity resolution provides persistent customer profiles that can be maintained over time by reconciling new identifiers and data back to existing profiles. So even as a customer logs in on a new device, uses a different email address etc. their profile stays up-to-date.
With a unified customer view powered by identity resolution, marketers are no longer operating blind with fragmented, anonymous data. This lays the foundation for true 1:1 personalization and understanding the entire customer lifecycle.
Benefits of Identity Resolution
Identity resolution enables marketers to deliver personalized experiences, improve targeting and messaging, and increase engagement and loyalty.
By connecting customer data across devices and channels, marketers gain a single unified profile for each customer. This complete 360-degree view allows them to:
- Craft hyper-personalized experiences tailored to each customer’s needs, behaviors and preferences. Identity resolution gives marketers the insight they need to segment audiences and serve up the right content, offers, recommendations and journeys.
- Improve targeting and messaging. With a holistic understanding of each customer, marketers can fine-tune targeting, eliminate wasted spend, and ensure messages resonate across channels. They can also coordinate messaging across channels to reinforce brand consistency.
- Increase engagement and loyalty. Consistent, relevant experiences keep customers engaged. By proactively addressing needs and anticipating desires, marketers foster deeper connections and brand affinity. Enhanced lifetime value results from reduced churn and increased repeat purchases.
In summary, identity resolution powers personalization that delights customers and drives growth. Unified customer profiles are the foundation for next-level customer experiences.
Real World Examples
Identity resolution delivers impressive results across industries. Here are some examples:
Retail
A major retailer implemented identity resolution to get a unified customer view across web, mobile, stores, and call centers.
- After launching, they saw a 23% increase in email click-through rates from personalized messaging.
- Online sales rose 15% due to better product recommendations.
- In-store offers sent to customers’ mobile apps drove a 12% lift in same-store sales.
Financial Services
A top bank uses identity resolution to connect customer data from banks they’ve acquired.
- They increased share-of-wallet by 11% by recognizing existing customers opening new accounts.
- Hyper-personalized lending offers led to a 18% rise in loan volume.
- Knowing customers’ full portfolio enables tailored wealth management advice resulting in 13% growth in assets under management.
Travel
A leading airline matched customer profiles across web, apps, and airport kiosks with identity resolution.
- They cut check-in times by 43% by auto-populating personal details.
- In-flight offers personalized to customers’ preferences increased ancillary revenue by 22%.
- Recognizing elite status travelers across channels improved their NPS score by 15 points.
Getting Started with Identity Resolution
Implementing an identity resolution solution can provide tremendous benefits for marketers, but it does require upfront investment and ongoing management. Here are some tips to make your implementation as smooth and successful as possible:
Prioritize Your Goals
- What are the key uses cases you want to enable? Personalization? Predictive analytics? Measurement across devices? Identify your top priorities to guide your implementation.
Assess Your Existing Tech Stack
- Take stock of your current marketing, analytics, and customer data platforms to determine integration needs and opportunities to consolidate. Identity resolution works best when integrated into your core systems.
Start Small, Then Scale
- While identity resolution can have enterprise-wide impact, it’s often best to start with a limited implementation focused on high-value use cases. Learn and fine-tune your approach before expanding more broadly.
Plan for Data Governance
- Identity resolution provides a unified customer view, which requires diligent data governance to maintain accuracy and privacy compliance. Develop strong data stewardship processes.
Find the Right Solution Fit
- Work with technology partners who understand your needs and can deliver tailored identity resolution capabilities out-of-the-box or through custom implementation. In-house vs external solutions both have pros and cons to weigh.
Expect Challenges
- No major marketing technology initiative comes without hiccups. Anticipate technical complexities, internal alignment issues, and changes to workflows. With proper planning, these can be overcome.
Getting identity resolution right takes work, but pays dividends through optimized customer experiences. Focus on key business goals, build cross-functional buy-in, and find the right technology partner to smoothly navigate implementation. The ability to consistently recognize and serve customers across every channel will be transformative.
