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Data Foundation Considerations and Best Practices
Generally, we recommend using the Individual portion of your data foundation as much as possible. When executing a journey that uses content personalization or decisioning attributes from the Unified Individual portion of the data foundation, keep these considerations and best practices in mind.
Using the Wrong Context of a Person
A Unified Individual is created by relating separate Individuals that have been imported from different external data sources. As part of the import process, some imported fields, such as First Name, can have different values from each data source. Customers define reconciliation rules as part of Identity Resolution and prioritize which data source value to use when activating an audience to Marketing Cloud Engagement.
Your reconciliation rules could result in messaging a person using the wrong context. For example, a person buys themselves a gift for home and receives an email confirmation on their personal email. However, the email content is personalized with the wrong shipping address (uses their work shipping address instead of home address).
Example:
- Each brand within Cumulus has a different external system, each importing data to Data 360. The person John Smith signed up for the Cumulus email newsletter with Brand A of the company. Separately, John Smith later signed up with Brand B. Finally, John Smith eventually signed up on a mobile app with Brand C.
- The Unified Individual for John Smith can have 3 separate Individuals from 3 different systems: “John.Smith.1” (System A from Brand A), “John.Smith.2” (System B from Brand B), and “John.Smith.3” (System C from Brand C). Each system imports a different Full Name, contact point, contact point preference, lifetime value, and loyalty level for John Smith.
- To prioritize the values used as part of activation, Cumulus must create Reconciliation Rules to define how Data 360 selects the value from a shared field. In this example, Cumulus selects to prioritize the Email Address from System A (Brand A), the Full Name value that comes from System C (Brand C), the Contact Point Preference that comes from System A (Brand A), and the most recently updated system value for Lifetime Value and Loyalty Level (System A, B or C).
| Source System | Individual ID | Email Address | Full Name | Contact Point Preferences | Lifetime Value | Loyalty Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System A from Brand A | John.Smith.1 | js@example1.com | John Smith | Promotional | 20 | Bronze |
| System B from Brand B | John.Smith.2 | js@example2.com | John Smith, Jr. | Transactional | 30 | Silver |
| System C from Brand C | John.Smith.3 | js@example3.com | Johnny Smith | Don't Message | 50 | Gold |
| Reconciliation Rule | N/A | Source Priority Order: System A | Source Priority Order: System C | Source Priority Order: System A | Last Updated | Last Updated |
To create an aggregate representation of the person John Smith in a single data extension for the data foundation, Cumulus segments and activates at the Unified Individual level. The resulting data extension contains one row, with each attribute either selected from one of the three Individual profiles (prioritized based on their Reconciliation Rules) or aggregated among them (from a Calculated Insight).
| Individual ID | Email Address | Full Name | Contact Point Preferences | Lifetime Value | Loyalty Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John.Smith.1 | js@example1.com | John Smith | Promotional | 100 | Bronze |
| Source Priority Order: System A | Source Priority Order: System A | Selected by Reconciliation Rule: Prioritize System C | Selected by Reconciliation Rule: Prioritize System C | Created by Calculated Insight | Selected by Reconciliation Rule: Last Updated |
If Cumulus launched a net-new journey that uses only the Unified Individual portion of the data foundation, then it could lead to a confusing experience for John Smith because of the contextual difference between the contact point selected and the personalization or decisioning attributes assigned to them in the data extension.
In this case, the person John Smith would receive a message to js@example1.com from Brand A using the Full Name Johnny Smith, which John Smith only ever submitted when signing up with Brand C. Or, Cumulus could decision a journey based on the Silver loyalty level, which would be wrong in this context (John.Smith.1 was Bronze) or wrong in aggregate (the highest value in the Unified Individual is Gold).
Alternatively, if Cumulus used the Individual portion of their data foundation (example below) for some elements of their campaign, such as the content personalization for Full Name. In this case, the person John Smith receives a message to js@example1.com from Brand A using the Full Name John Smith, the same value that had submitted when signing up with Brand A.
| Individual ID | Email Address | Full Name | Contact Point Preferences | Lifetime Value | Loyalty Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John.Smith.1 | js@example1.com | John Smith | Promotional | 20 | Bronze |
| John.Smith.2 | js@example2.com | John Smith, Jr. | Transactional | 30 | Silver |
| John.Smith.3 | js@example3.com | Johnny Smith | Don't Message | 50 | Gold |
Missing Data About a Person
You can activate Data 360 at both the Individual level and Unified Individual level. At the Individual level, each instance of a person is activated from each data source. In comparison, the Unified Individual level uses pieces from multiple data sources. When you’re using a Unified Individual, Data 360 selects a single identifier from one of its related Individuals. However, the identifier used to represent a person in your data foundation can be different than the identifier used for the person in the subsequent journey. As a result, your journey lookups, such as decision splits, might not be able to find data about the person in the Unified Individual portion of the data foundation. This scenario is more common for event-based journeys triggered from third parties, which often lack the context of which identifier is used to represent the Unified Individual in the data foundation. But, this scenario can also occur with audience-based journeys.
Example: Each Cumulus brand has a different back end, each importing data to Data 360. The person John Smith signed up for the Cumulus email newsletter with Brand A. Separately, John Smith later signed up with Brand B. Finally, John Smith signed up on the Cumulus mobile app with Brand C. As a result, the Unified Individual for John Smith has three separate Individuals from three different systems: John.Smith.1 (System A from Brand A), John.Smith.2 (System B from Brand B), and John.Smith.3 (System C from Brand C). Each Individual has a different full name, contact point preference, lifetime value, and loyalty level and a unique send address.
| Source System | Individual ID | Email Address | Full Name | Contact Point Preferences | Lifetime Value | Loyalty Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System A | John.Smith.1 | js@example1.com | John Smith | Promotional | 20 | Bronze |
| System B | John.Smith.2 | js@example2.com | John Smith, Jr. | Transactional | 30 | Silver |
| System C | John.Smith.3 | js@example3.com | Johnny Smith | Don't Message | 50 | Gold |
Then, Cumulus activates its full audience at the Unified Individual level to use for its data foundation. Due to the nature of the Unified Individual, only one record for the person John Smith is activated (John.Smith.1), using attributes sourced from different Individuals or aggregated among them.
| Individual ID | Email Address | Full Name | Contact Point Preferences | Lifetime Value | Loyalty Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John.Smith.1 | js@example1.com | John Smith | Promotional | 100 | Bronze |
| Source Priority Order: System A | Source Priority Order: System A | Selected by Reconciliation Rule: Prioritize System C | Selected by Reconciliation Rule: Prioritize System C | Created by Calculated Insight | Selected by Reconciliation Rule: Last Updated |
Activated Audience for Journey Builder Entry
The Cumulus team from Brand B later creates a journey in Marketing Cloud Engagement and configures a decision split to look at the lifetime value of a person at the Unified Individual level. As part of the activation, Cumulus selects a contact point priority order for System B, resulting in an activation of Individual ID John.Smith.2.
In Marketing Cloud Engagement, when John.Smith.2 reaches the decision split, Journey Builder attempts to look up the corresponding lifetime value for that contact. However, Cumulus configured the decision split to look at the Unified Individual portion of the data foundation, which contains only a single row and identifier for John Smith (John.Smith.1). When Journey Builder attempts to make a decision split for John.Smith.2, it can’t resolve the lookup because that identifier isn’t within the Unified Individual portion of the data foundation. As a result, John.Smith.2 is exited from the journey.
Alternatively, Cumulus could use the Individual portion of their data foundation (example below) for their campaign. In this case, the Individual portion of the data foundation would contain all three unique identifiers for John Smith and, as a result, be able to resolve the lookup for John.Smith.2.
| Individual ID | Email Address | Full Name | Contact Point Preferences | Lifetime Value | Loyalty Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John.Smith.1 | js@example1.com | John Smith | Promotional | 20 | Bronze |
| John.Smith.2 | js@example2.com | John Smith, Jr. | Transactional | 30 | Silver |
| John.Smith.3 | js@example3.com | Johnny Smith | Don't Message | 50 | Gold |
