In the age of data-driven marketing, delivering personalized experiences requires accurate customer identification across devices and channels. Adobe Experience Platform’s Identity Service tackles this challenge by managing identity graphs, ensuring that every interaction, whether online or offline, connects to the right customer profile. However, managing this effectively involves configuring Identity Graph Linking Rules, which prevent erroneous profile merging, also known as “graph collapse.”

Why Are Identity Graph Linking Rules Important?

Imagine two people using the same device—perhaps a father and son browsing a retail site. If their identities aren’t properly handled, their profiles could be wrongly merged, leading to inaccurate customer data. To avoid such errors, Adobe Experience Platform allows for precise control through linking rules that ensure identities are correctly assigned and merged.

Here’s a closer look at how these rules function:

1. Unique Namespace Configuration

A unique namespace ensures that no two profiles with the same identifier (e.g., a CRM ID or email) are mistakenly merged. Configuring unique namespaces in the Identity Service UI prevents shared devices or erroneous identity inputs from collapsing identities into a single profile.

For example, if two users log into the same tablet but use different accounts, their CRM IDs should not merge into one identity graph. This rule ensures that their profiles stay separate and accurately reflect their individual interactions.

2. Namespace Priority

When multiple identifiers exist for a single profile, namespace priority determines which identifier takes precedence. This is especially important in cases where customer data comes from both online and offline sources. By ranking namespaces in the Identity Service UI, you can ensure the most critical data is used for real-time customer profiling.

For example, if you rank a CRM ID higher than a cookie ID, the CRM data will guide decisions about experience event linking and profile behavior, ensuring more reliable personalization.

3. Identity Optimization Algorithm

The identity optimization algorithm works behind the scenes to enforce the rules set by your unique namespaces and namespace priorities. This algorithm helps to maintain clean, accurate identity graphs by preventing unwanted profile merges. It ensures that only relevant identities are linked based on your defined configurations.

4. Simulating Graph Behavior

Before rolling out these rules across your entire data set, Adobe Experience Platform provides a Graph Simulation feature. This lets you preview the impact of your linking rules, helping you fine-tune your configurations before they’re applied to live data. It’s a critical step in avoiding surprises and ensuring your identity graph functions as expected.

5. Identity Settings UI

The Identity Settings UI is where you control all these linking rules. This intuitive interface allows you to set up unique namespaces, prioritize identifiers, and test how your identity graphs will behave in various scenarios. This UI gives marketers and data teams full control over identity management.

Conclusion

As customer journeys become more complex and spread across multiple touchpoints, the accuracy of identity graphs is critical to delivering personalized experiences. Adobe Experience Platform’s Identity Graph Linking Rules provide the flexibility and control needed to manage these identities effectively. By configuring unique namespaces, assigning priority to critical identifiers, and leveraging the optimization algorithm, brands can ensure their customer profiles remain accurate and up-to-date.