Struggling With Identity Resolution? Here’s a 6-step process for doing it right.

In the world of customer data, things get pretty complex. Imagine one person's info being scattered across different devices, accounts, products, and marketing efforts. For companies aiming to offer personalized experiences, it's crucial to bring all this data together. This process is called identity resolution, and it's the key to turning these separate pieces of information into something valuable for marketing, product managers, and sales teams. 

What is Identity Resolution?

Identity resolution is the process of connecting user actions and attributes across multiple touchpoints and systems to create a complete view of customer interactions as your customers move across devices and platforms. Its primary goal is to link data, both online and offline, to customer profiles, so you can get a 360-degree view of customer behavior.

Implementing Identity Resolution in the Cloud Data Warehouse: A Step-by-Step Guide

Now, let's delve into how to implement identity resolution in your cloud data warehouse. The key data source you’ll be using is the event data you’ve collected from your product analytics application.

Step 1: Define Your Objectives

Before diving into the technical aspects of identity resolution, it's essential to define your objectives. What specific insights do you hope to gain from this process? Are you looking to improve personalization? To  enhance data quality? Ensure privacy compliance? Bolster security? Clearly outlining your goals will help guide your implementation strategy.

Step 2: Collect Event Data

Your product analytics application likely generates a wealth of event data, gathered from interactions users have  with your product. Begin by collecting this event data and storing it in your cloud data warehouse. Ensure that you capture relevant attributes, such as user IDs, device information, and timestamps.

Step 3: Create Identity Graphs

Identity Graphs are the foundation of identity resolution. These are tables that contain known customer identifiers and serve as a map for stitching together customer interactions. To create effective Identity Graphs in your cloud data warehouse, follow these steps:

1. Identify Key Identifiers: Determine the identifiers that are crucial for linking customer interactions. These may be  email addresses, phone numbers, account IDs, or user-generated IDs

2. Data Transformation: Use ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes to transform raw event data into structured tables that include these user identifiers.

3. Map Identifiers: Create a structured mapping of how various identifiers relate to individual customers within your cloud data warehouse.

Step 4: Consolidate Customer Data

With event data and Identity Graphs in your cloud data warehouse, it's time to consolidate customer data. This step involves linking and deduplicating different customer actions. Here's how to proceed:

1. Integrate: Integrate data from various sources, including your event data and Identity Graphs, into a unified data repository in your cloud data warehouse.

2. Match Identifiers: Use your Identity Graphs to match customer identifiers across the different datasets that are in  your cloud data warehouse. This process helps link customer actions to specific profiles.

3. Deduplication: Identify and eliminate duplicate records to keep data accurate.

Step 5: Link Other Entities to Customer Data

To build a complete 360-degree view of your customers, you must link other entities, such as purchases or interactions, to individual customer profiles. Follow these steps in your cloud data warehouse:

1. Entity-Relationship Modeling: Create an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) in your cloud data warehouse to visualize the relationships between users and the business entities you’re interested in.

2. Data Integration: Integrate these entities into your customer data in your cloud data warehouse, making sure they are linked to the correct customer profiles.

3. Attribute Mapping: Map attributes related to these entities to customer profiles within your cloud data warehouse for comprehensive insights.

Step 6: Implement Deterministic and Probabilistic Methods

Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Matching: Understanding Customer Data

When it comes to handling customer data, the distinction between first-party and third-party data is crucial. Your data's source plays a significant role in identity resolution, which is all about understanding your customers better. First-party data, which comes directly from your customers, provides a solid foundation for accurate identity resolution. In contrast, third-party data, obtained from vendors, is more uncertain when it comes to matching identities.

There are two primary ways to match up data from these different sources.

Deterministic Identity Matching:

Deterministic identity matching is a tried-and-true method. This approach primarily relies on first-party data. It works by gathering "known identifiers" that other information is then attached to. For instance, when a user visits your website, they might initially receive an anonymous ID. If they later sign up or make a purchase, this anonymous ID gets linked to their email or user ID. Even when they switch devices, deterministic matching can connect these IDs, forming an identity graph.

Probabilistic Identity Matching:

Probabilistic matching, in contrast, uses non-deterministic data sources to make educated guesses about customer identities. Typically, third-party vendors provide the data needed for probabilistic matching. It works by considering factors like shared device usage, IP addresses, or fuzzy matching algorithms to piece together a user's identity.  Companies like Liveramp Identity are well-known in this field.

Step 7: Test and Refine Your Identity Resolution Process

Testing is a crucial aspect of implementation. Continuously monitor the accuracy and effectiveness of your identity resolution process within your cloud data warehouse. Adjust and refine your approach to align with your objectives.

Step 8: Use your new 360-Degree Customer View

Once you've successfully implemented identity resolution in your cloud data warehouse, you'll gain the power of a comprehensive 360-degree customer view. This newfound perspective opens the door to a multitude of valuable use cases. Here are some examples:

• Personalized Customer Experiences: Tailor your product offerings, marketing messages, and user interfaces to individual customer behavior, preferences, and history.

• Cross-Channel Engagement: Identify users across devices and channels for effective omnichannel marketing campaigns. For instance, if a customer abandons a cart on their mobile device, you can retarget them with personalized offers on their desktop.

• Precision Ad Campaigns: Suppress marketing to existing customers to avoid redundancy and focus your advertising efforts on acquiring new customers or re-engaging dormant ones.

• Seamless Online and Offline Integration: Bridge the gap between online and offline customer experiences. For example, if a customer shops online but frequently visits your physical store, you can optimize marketing campaigns to send them physical coupons or in-store promotions.

• Enhanced Analytics: Leverage your 360-degree customer view to gain deeper insights into cross-channel and cross-device user behavior. This valuable data can drive more informed product decisions and marketing strategies.

• Fraud Detection and Prevention: Identify and block fraudulent users more effectively by detecting unusual patterns of behavior within your enriched customer data.

Step 9: Continuous Improvement

Remember that your journey with identity resolution and the use of a 360-degree customer view is ongoing. Continuously assess your use cases and refine your strategies based on the insights you gain. Embrace a data-driven culture that leverages the power of your cloud data warehouse to adapt and respond to changing customer needs.

Conclusion

By implementing identity resolution in your cloud data warehouse, you can empower your product managers and analysts to unlock the full potential of a 360-degree customer view. By following this step-by-step guide, your business can stay agile and responsive to customer needs while driving better product decisions and delivering superior customer experiences.