Using identity resolution to understand your customers and optimize omnichannel marketing

Due to the current pandemic scenario and the rapid digitization of businesses, business owners are focussing a lot on providing a seamless experience to their customers across different channels.

They want to provide an effortless shopping experience to the customers, be it either from a mobile, a tablet, a brick-and-mortar store, or even from a social media platform.

The one thing that allows the brands and companies to stand out in this competitive market space is omnichannel marketing. It is a form of marketing where the business doesn’t have to be everywhere, but it needs to be only in places where their target customers are.

If a company can understand and find out their customers, then targeting them and reaching out to them when they want to buy something is a straightforward task.

What is Identity Resolution? How does it help in Understanding Customers?

Different platforms can be seamlessly integrated if each individual is identified and their movement and activities across different platforms are studied. To identify each individual, we use a technique called identity resolution.

It depends on different data collected from the customers and linking those data to distinguish one individual from another. This identity resolution service helps in tracking individuals across different platforms like apps, websites, or even physical shops and creating marketing plans that are personalized and efficiently targeted.

Here’s how Identity Resolution helps to understand customers:

With a singular enterprise Customer ID, Identity Resolution provides the database with the ability to segregate, collect, and connect points between multiple platforms, devices, and channels along the customer’s path to purchase.

Further, with the help of a private identity graph that functions in conjunction with a similar device graph, it strengthens an organization's ability to bind different device signals and disparate ID, making different customer profiles out of them, later pairing it with the person (Customer ID), allowing marketers to understand customers.

Why is Identity Resolution so important for Omnichannel Marketing?

76% of customers want brands to understand them and their purchasing pattern so that they can deliver appropriately as per their needs. The customers do not want to waste time searching for things they might need instead of expecting the seller to suggest things according to their taste.

For this, it is essential to identify every customer separately. This will also help in saving a lot of resources as there will be no need to target customers who will not buy the product, and the marketing can be done only for those who are potential buyers.

Identity resolution gathers data about a person from different touchpoints where the customer has been, and then the software integrates and filters the data to understand which individual is a customer or which individual is close to getting converted into a customer.

Once the customers are identified, they are targeted with tailored messages and offers that help win the trust of the customer. Without identity resolution, tracking will not be possible and will result in chaos, especially if the business is present both as a digital and a physical store.

For example, if a person visits an online store of a brand, chooses a product but doesn’t buy it, goes to the same brand’s offline store, gets a better deal, and buys the product from the shop.

The owner will then be confused as they will find a person liking products in the online store and not buying it every time, but they won’t realize that the same person is buying that exact product from their offline retail store.

How to Create Identities in the First Place?

The steps and procedures that one should follow to create identities are:

• Determine the various platforms through which customers can come; it can be through different devices or channels.
• Using the previously acquired data, a link between the platforms is made, and his life journey with the company is integrated with his purchasing patterns.
• Particular identifiers and attributes are attached to each individual, which helps in matching their multiple presences through every different platform.
• The customers are then validated to be sure if the same user is present on different platforms.
• The data is then activated to synchronize them with personalized, targeted content that helps in customer retention and acquisition.

What are the basic approaches in which Identity Resolution software works?

The identity resolution services work using two generic approaches. They are,

1. Probabilistic approach: In this approach, the user data is matched with identifiers like IP address, operating system, location, browser, or other data. After taking these into account, there is a probability that the persons grouped are the same individual. This is used for segmenting and targeting different groups of customers.
2. Deterministic approach: In this approach, more personal and identifiable data is used, including email address, mobile number, credit card number, or login credentials. Using this approach, the software can confidently distinguish one person from another.

Future of Identity Resolution in Omnichannel Marketing:

In recent times due to increased privacy concerns of the consumers, a lot of second and third-party data are now made unavailable to the general public. This makes individual businesses and brands gather data from their target audiences on their own.

Continuous engagement with the customers is maintained using the tools powered by identity resolution. Identity resolution also prevents the company from spending resources behind marketing their product for every person instead of just targeting potential customers and showing interest in the products.

Knowing the primary characters of a customer helps in grouping similar customers and targeting them based on their group characteristics. Companies like Informatica and Liveramp, who specialize in identity resolution services, will depend more on the buyer's intent than other factors like location and demography.

Conclusion:

Identity resolution is a potent tool used to track individuals across different platforms and target them with offers and products. They can monitor the buying pattern of all the customers and foresee trends and patterns in a particular industry. This provides businesses with the power to invest only in those willing to use their products.

Now that you know all the tips and tricks around identity resolution, we hope that you’ll be able to make the most of the current business opportunity. Remember, staying updated with the trend is one of the most important things to do!