Identity resolution is the unsung hero in GTM ROI. Fundamental to any sales & marketing endeavor is knowing who that buyer is – and what role they play in any buying team. It’s the difference between flying blind and flying smart. Whether or not you have a strong identity resolution framework is the main factor in determining and authenticating your knowledge of your buyer.
What is Identity Resolution?
Identity resolution is quite plainly the ability to resolve from a ton of data signals the identity of a buyer – who they are, who they work for. It’s the science of connecting the growing volume of person identifiers to a single individual as he or she interacts across channels and devices. In other words, Identity Resolution is the process of accurately associating data (or buying signals) with the specific people who interact with your business. With Identity resolution you can build a 360-degree view of your prospects, customers, and partners. It is the foundation to automating your lead-to-account matching process correctly.
What do Identity Resolution platforms (or CDPs) do?
In B2B sales and marketing it’s important to track buyer behavior and attach those buyers to a company and ultimately a company buying team. Millions of marketing leads lie dormant in marketing systems because they cannot be associated with a company. They can’t be scored on anything other than behavior. They can’t be routed to the right salesperson. Identity resolution platforms aggregate data from numerous buyer touchpoints, enrich that data with great third party information and then unify it with the company’s first party data. All of this data is organized into a unified buyer profile based on a system of rules, helping sales & marketing teams associate buyers to companies and ultimately to access accurate, up-to-date buyer information. This drives accurate segmentation and targeting. Once audiences (buyer segments) are created, sales & marketing teams can activate them in ABM outreach, connect them with various media platforms and evaluate how these groups are responding to their campaigns across multiple touchpoints.
Why is Identity Resolution so important today?
Time kills all deals. Time kills all leads. In today’s economic environment, speed is of the essence. Leading companies today with strong identity resolution platforms are able to take even the most limited of information in simple web forms, enrich them with great data, match them to a CRM account and route them to the right system or person in minutes. Identity resolution makes your underlying data (and profiles) more trustworthy, improves customer service, enhances operational efficiencies and increases data analytics reliability.
A lot of data goes into building the buyer profiles needed to personalize outreach and prioritize closeable business effectively. Accurately connecting firmographics, demographics, technographics, intent, fit, persona and engagement to a single buyer profile is critical to building the buyer profile we need to target buyers effectively. Identity Resolution and Profiles are the backbone of revenue targeting, and revenue targeting is the backbone of sales and marketing effectiveness.
What are the risks of adopting a solution with a bad Identity Resolution framework?
Worst case scenario, you’ll end up actively creating bad customer/prospect experiences as a result of incomplete and inaccurate personalization based off of bad buyer profiles. The right data attributed to the wrong buyer is ultimately wrong, and bad personalized outreach will make for a worse experience than no personalization at all.
Other common challenges along the way will include:
- Long lead to response times
- Incomplete or duplicate profiles
- Violation of consumer privacy regulations
- Data quality issues
- Fragmented view of customer journey
- Difficulty activating customer data across channels
How do I get THE BEST Identity Resolution framework?
With Leadspace, you can expect the best identity resolution available – just ask Forrester! In their 29-criterion evaluation of B2B customer data platform (CDP) providers, they researched, analyzed and scored the most significant current solutions available. Check out their report, The Forrester Wave™: B2B Customer Data Platforms, Q4 2023, where we were the only platform to score a solid 5 out of 5 in Identity Resolution & Profiles.
In this recent wave, Forrester came to find that, “B2B CDPs are using AI to improve audience creation and personalization.” They concluded that B2B CDP customers should seek a solution based on 3 major capabilities:
- Offer real-time data unification and identity resolution.
- Support buying groups and have buying group expanded capabilities on the roadmap.
- Use AI for insights, journey mapping, and next best action.
Leadspace’s perfect Identity Resolution score is extremely significant and at the heart of every B2B GTM platform. While other categories matter, it all starts with Identity Resolution and unified, active profiles. Without a good framework for that, the rest of the capabilities a CDP offers will lean towards being obsolete, as they’re not operating from complete, accurate and active buyer profiles to begin with. So, we’re quite excited with our evaluation.
Long story short, if you want the absolute best identity resolution and profiles available (hint: you do) contact us today and we’ll show you what makes our buyer profiles better than anyone else’s!
