Profile Merge Rules Overview
With Profile Merge Rules you can control which data sets are used for segmentation and can target users accurately across multiple devices.
Data collection and targeting with anonymous and authenticated profiles
Typically, audience segmentation and targeting relies on data collected from all users on a device. Data collection and targeting based on device-level data has some disadvantages. For example, you cannot distinguish between multiple users who share a device or accurately target users across multiple devices. Device-centered data collection is no longer sufficient for digital marketing campaigns or cross-device targeting.
Profile Merge Rules fundamentally changes how Audience Manager collects data and segments users for targeting. It lets you work with 2 distinct types of profiles, a device profile and an authenticated profile.
A device profile is tied to an ID for a given device such as a cookie ID or mobile device ID.
It includes:
- Rule-based traits realized when a user is not authenticated.
- Onboarded traits tied to a device ID such as cookie-based, third-party data.
The authenticated profile is tied to a user ID passed in when a person logs in to your site.
It includes:
- Rule-based traits collected across devices when a user is authenticated.
- Onboarded traits in an offline file linked to the same user ID.
These different profiles control the data you can use for segmentation. For example, with an authenticated profile, you can build accurate segments based on data from multiple devices for a single user. This means you can deliver a consistent brand experience to customers across multiple devices. Audience Manager achieves this by storing the mapping of the different devices a person uses for their online activities to their authenticated profile. These mappings are called the Profile Link Device Graph.
Advantages
With Profile Merge Rules you can:
- Target users based on authenticated profile, anonymous profiles, or combinations of both.
- Target a specific customer across their devices.
- Build a device graph based on deterministic data.
- Fine tune the data in your segments based on different profiles.
- Gain additional insight into your audience.