Examples of identity rules using personal data

This topic includes examples of identity rules and IDENTITY events that use personal data to perform identity resolution.

As an alternative to using personal data, your organization can use unique identifiers to perform identity resolution. We recommend your organization uses this approach regardless of whether you pass Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to Sitecore Personalize.

You can view a tenant's identity rules in system settings.

We recommend that you familiarize yourself with identity resolution before you review the examples.

Identity rule using one guest attribute

Your organization can configure an identity rule to require a single guest attribute to identify a guest as a customer. For example, a guest's email address.

The identity rule for this configuration looks similar to the following image:

Using this same example, your organization can send an IDENTITY event that contains the following:

The email attribute with [email protected] as the string value.

If the string value for the email attribute is the same as an existing guest, Sitecore Personalize does the following:

Migrates the guest's browsing data to the existing guest and retires the other guest.

If the string value for the email attribute is not the same as an existing guest, Sitecore Personalize creates a new guest with visitor as the guest type.

The following IDENTITY event meets the required identity rule because it contains the required email attribute of [email protected].

RequestResponse

{
    "channel": "WEB",
    "type": "IDENTITY",
    "language": "EN",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "page": "home page",
    "pos": "myretailsite.com",
    "browser_id": "56860bff-94ba-4d84-aa37-2b5a83d5411b",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "title": "Mr",
    "firstname": "John",
    "lastname": "Doe",
    "gender": "male",
    "dob": "1980-01-23T00:00",
    "mobile": "+3531234567",
    "phone": "+353123456",
    "street": ["Ashford House", "Tara Street", "Dublin 2"],
    "city": "Dublin",
    "country": "IE",
    "postal_code": "D2"
}

When Sitecore Personalize receives the IDENTITY event, it evaluates the identity rule as follows:

Sitecore Personalize locates the email attribute and evaluates the id attribute for the identity rule, email. It searches the platform to find a guest with an identical string value, "[email protected]" for the email attribute. If it finds the identical string value for the email attribute, it migrates the guest data including current session data to the guest with the customer guest type.
The string value for the email attribute is retained to use for identity resolution in the future, along with personalization.

Sitecore Personalize retires the guest with the visitor guest type.
If Sitecore Personalize does not find a guest with an identical string value, "[email protected]", for the email attribute, it creates a guest with a visitor guest type.

If a string value for the email attribute is not provided, Sitecore Personalize creates a new guest with the visitor guest type.

Identity rule requiring multiple guest attributes

Your organization can have identity rules that require several guest attributes to identify a guest as a customer. For example, the guest's first name, last name, and email address.

The identity rules for this configuration look similar to the following image:

Identity rules using multiple guest attributes

Using this same example, your organization must send an IDENTITY event that contains values for the email, firstname, and lastname attributes, for Sitecore Personalize to identify a guest. The IDENTITY event in the following image meets the required identity rules because it contains string values for the email, firstname, and lastname attributes:

RequestResponse

{
    "channel": "WEB",
    "type": "IDENTITY",
    "language": "EN",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "page": "home page",
    "pos": "myretailsite.com",
    "browser_id": "56860bff-94ba-4d84-aa37-2b5a83d5411b",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "title": "Mr",
    "firstname": "John",
    "lastname": "Doe",
    "gender": "male",
    "dob": "1980-01-23T00:00",
    "mobile": "+3531234567",
    "phone": "+353123456",
    "street": ["Ashford House", "Tara Street", "Dublin 2"],
    "city": "Dublin",
    "country": "IE",
    "postal_code": "D2"
}

When Sitecore Personalize receives the IDENTITY event, it evaluates the identity rule as follows:

Sitecore Personalize searches the platform to find a guest with identical string values for all of the following attributes:
- "firstname": "John"
- "lastname": "Doe"
- "email": "[email protected]"
If it finds identical string values for all attributes, it migrates the guest data including current session data to the guest with the customer guest type.
The string values for the firstname, lastname, and email attributes are retained, to use for identity resolution in the future, along with personalization.
If Sitecore Personalize does not find a guest with identical string values for the email, firstname, and lastname attributes, it creates a guest with a visitor guest type.

If the value for any one of the email, firstname, or lastname attributes is null, Sitecore Personalize creates a new guest with the visitor guest type.

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