Identity resolution: the power of knowing your customer

In your CRM, you have a customer named Juan Pérez. In your email marketing platform, there's a user with the email jperez@gmail.com. In your loyalty program, another has the email juanperez@hotmail.com. And on your website, there's a particular anonymous visitor who browses every week.

Your business sees them as four different people, but in reality, they're the same customer.

When data isn't unified into a single profile, it's impossible to truly understand that customer's journey. The same issue happens with hundreds or thousands of other clients: the fragmented, duplicated data and anonymous records actually correspond to individual people. Without unification, the trends that drive your business get lost in the data.

What is identity resolution?

Identity resolution is the process of unifying the fragmented pieces of information into a single customer profile. Two main approaches are used to achieve this:

• Deterministic matching: connects records using unique identifiers like an email address, phone number, or customer ID.
• Probabilistic matching: connects records based on behavioral patterns and similarities, such as the same device, IP address, or browsing history.

Deterministic matching is the most reliable: every merge rests on a specific identifier, so it can be explained and, if needed, undone. It is the approach FLYDE uses to build the 360-degree customer profile.

Why is it key for marketing and data?

Identity resolution isn't just a technical exercise. It directly impacts your business results.

• Consistency: it prevents you from sending duplicate or contradictory messages.
• Personalization: it allows you to deliver relevant experiences across every channel.
• Accurate measurement: one customer equals a single profile and a single set of KPIs.
• Compliance: it simplifies consent management and privacy requests by centralizing data at a single control point.

Implementing identity resolution with a CDP

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) simplifies and automates identity resolution. At FLYDE, we do it this way:

• Connecting to multiple data sources to centralize customer data and eliminate silos. This includes sources like CRM, e-commerce, campaigns, loyalty programs, web browsing, and more.
• Data normalization to clean, standardize, and remove inconsistencies.
• Applying smart matching rules based on deterministic identifiers such as email, phone number, customer, loyalty and order IDs or the device fingerprint.
• Creating unique customer profiles that are enriched with every new interaction.
• Real-time updates so your teams always work with the most current information.

A practical example

A fashion retailer analyzing its databases discovers it has the same customer registered four times: with different emails, as an anonymous website user, and as a member of their loyalty program. These records need to be consolidated into a single unified profile to personalize loyalty campaigns, reduce duplicate mailings, and improve the customer experience.

The identity resolution process is implemented in several phases:

• Integration: first, the CRM, e-commerce, loyalty, email marketing, and web browsing are connected in a single central repository.
• Cleaning and normalization: formats are unified (e.g., phone numbers with and without country codes), and incomplete records are removed.
• Smart matching: deterministic rules (same email, same phone number, same loyalty ID or same device) are applied to consolidate duplicates.
• Unified profile: each customer now has a 360-degree profile, updated in real time with every new interaction.

You can expect to see results such as a reduction in duplicate email mailings, an increase in conversion rates for retargeting campaigns, and an improvement in the customer experience, as customers no longer receive repeated or contradictory messages across different channels.

Frequently asked questions about identity resolution

What is identity resolution? It is the process of merging into a single profile the records of the same customer spread across the CRM, ecommerce, loyalty, email and website.

What is the difference between deterministic and probabilistic matching? Deterministic matching links records that share an exact identifier, such as email, phone number or customer ID. Probabilistic matching links them by similar patterns and is less accurate. FLYDE uses deterministic matching.

Which identifiers are used? Email, phone number, customer, loyalty and order IDs, first-party web and device identifiers, and IDs from other platforms. They are normalised before matching: phone formats, capitalisation, spaces.

Can an incorrect merge be undone? In FLYDE, yes: every merge is logged and can be reversed.

What is a 360 customer profile? It is the resulting single profile: all of a customer's data, purchases and interactions in one record, updated with every new interaction.

How FLYDE fits in: the role of a Customer Data Platform (CDP)

With FLYDE, identity resolution is no longer a technical challenge. Our platform unifies each customer's scattered data into a single, reliable profile that can be activated across all your channels. It enables you to run smarter campaigns, perform more precise segmentation, and create personalized experiences that generate real value for your customers.

Want to see how it works in practice? Contact us to request a demo, and we'll show you how FLYDE can open up new possibilities for you.