Glossary
The process of matching and merging data points from different systems and channels to determine that they belong to the same real-world customer, even when each system uses a different identifier.
Why It Matters
A customer who buys in-store, browses on mobile, and emails support typically looks like three different people to three different systems unless something explicitly connects them. Identity resolution is the technical work that makes it possible to recognize “this is the same person” across every channel — without it, personalization is structurally impossible, no matter how sophisticated the front-end experience is.
This is part of our Customer Ecosystems capability — the layer that gives a brand one consistent view of a customer across every channel they use.
See the full Customer Ecosystems capabilityHow accurate is identity resolution in practice?
It depends heavily on data quality and the matching signals available — email, phone, device ID, loyalty number. No system achieves perfect accuracy, but a well-designed one gets close enough to make personalization and unified reporting reliable.
Does this require personally identifiable information?
Often it involves some PII (email, phone) as matching keys, which makes privacy-compliant handling of that data — consent, retention, security — a core part of implementing this correctly, not an afterthought.