Unified Profiles and Identity Management

The concept of individual identity plays an essential role in personalizing your customer experiences. Personalization aggregates all your customer data in one place for analysis and personalization purposes. The aggregated customer data helps you understand each of your customers on an individual level so you can engage with them more effectively across your various channels. Personalization uses specific identifiers to determine how to process web events, API events, and channel events to identify and aggregate users from various sources.

• Unified Account Profile
  If you market to businesses, the Unified Account Profile displays aggregate information that Personalization collects about a particular account. The Unified Account Profile provides a comprehensive view of each of your accounts according to the cross-channel interactions of customers and prospects.
• Unified Customer Profile
  The Unified Customer Profile provides a comprehensive view of each of your users—visitors, customers, prospects, and subscribers—based on their interactions with your various channels.
• Unique User Profiles
  To provide a unique experience for each of your customers, Marketing Cloud Personalization identifies each customer with a user profile. However, as users engage with your various channels, it’s possible to end up with multiple user profiles for the same person. When identity data comes from different sources, Personalization attempts to merge the information into a Unified Customer Profile.
• Identity Types and Attributes
  Personalization’s identity system uses deterministic matching to create a Unified Customer Profile for each of your customers. Specific identifiers, called identity types, determine how to process web events, API events, and channel events to identify users from various sources. Personalization includes several built-in identity types, such as email address and customer ID. If the built-in identity types don’t meet the needs of your organization, you can create additional identity types.
• Merge User Profiles
  One of Personalization’s key goals is to identify each of your customers with a Unified Customer Profile so that you can provide unique personalized experiences. However, as users engage with your various channels, it’s possible to end up with multiple user profiles for the same person. When identity data comes from different sources, Personalization uses specific identifiers to attempt to merge that data into a Unified Customer Profile. There’s no way to split a merged user profile.
• Merging Logic in the Salesforce Interactions SDK
  One of Personalization’s key goals is to identify each of your customers with a Unified Customer Profile so that you can provide unique personalized experiences. However, as users engage with your various channels, it’s possible to end up with multiple user profiles for the same person. The Marketing Cloud Personalization module of the Salesforce Interactions SDK supports anonymous and named user profiles by using a first-party cookie to track user behavior on your website. A user profile can transition from anonymous to named based on the setup of the identity types in your Salesforce Interactions SDK.
• Set Up the Identity System for the Salesforce Interactions SDK
  To create unified customer profiles for each of your customers, use Personalization’s identity system to configure the identifiers in the Marketing Cloud Personalization module of the Salesforce Interactions SDK. To merge user profiles from various sources, you designate an identity type to use when matching users between channels. You can use multiple identifiers in a web event.
• Identity System Setup for Open Time Email
  To create unified customer profiles for each of your customers, use Personalization’s identity system to configure the identifiers in your Open Time Email campaigns. To merge user profiles from various sources, you designate an identity type to use when matching users between your email service provider and Personalization. You can use only one identity type. If you send multiple identifiers in an Open Time Email campaign, Personalization ignores all but the designated identity type.
• Identity System Setup for the Event API
  With Personalization’s identity system, you can configure the identifiers in the Event API to create Unified Customer Profiles for each of your customers. To merge user profiles from various sources, you designate an identity type to use when matching users between the Event API and Personalization. You can use multiple identifiers in the Event API.
• Identity System Setup for Mobile Apps
  Use the Personalization identity system to identify and merge user profiles in your mobile app.
• Troubleshooting Identity System Issues
  Review these troubleshooting tips if you’re experiencing general identity system configuration issues or problems with user merges.