Identifying Users

To target the same visitor across different channels (desktop, mobile, email), Experience OS must be able to identify the visitor (user) on each of the distinct platforms with the same Customer Unique Identifier (CUID). The CUID can be any unique value you use to identify your visitors, such as an email address or their CRM ID. We recommend using hashed email addresses for your CUIDs, as this simplifies the implementation of Experience OS email campaigns.

For additional functionality, such as Triggered Emails and exporting audience data, users must be matched in addition to being identified. This is done by uploading a list of user emails in a data feed of users who consented to receive emails. For details, see Opted-in Email Addresses.

Identifying users via events

You can identify users by sending one of the following events to Experience OS with the CUID as a parameter:

• Signup
• Newsletter Subscription
• Login 
• Identify User

Identifying users from external email campaigns

When Experience OS recognizes a user on your site by an external identifier like their email address, they are called an identified user. Identified users can be targeted with triggered emails, email recommendations, and more.

When a user enters their email address on your site, you can use an event to send the information to Experience OS. Events can include login, newsletter, or signup, as well as the Identify User API.

You can also identify users who arrive at your site from any external email campaign using their hashed email address or external identifier, using the following procedure:

1. When sending links to your site in email campaigns from your ESP, include a parameter to capture the user’s hashed email address or external identifier. For example, instead of including a link to www.mysite.com, include a link to www.mysite.com/?uid=${email}$ or www.mysite.com/?uid=${cuid}$.
   If you can't use a hashed email address, you can use the regular email address.
   If you have some hashed, and some regular email addresses, use different parameters for each type (for example, uid for regular email addresses, huid for hashed).
2. In Experience OS, create a new custom code campaign (Web Personalization › New Campaign › Custom Code).
3. Set the trigger to Page Load and the frequency to Once per session, and then click Next.
   
4. In the targeting settings, set Where to page url contains ?<parameter name>= or page url contains &<parameter name>= and deselect Ignore URL parameters (this is critical). Parameter names are case-sensitive, so make sure the name is exactly as it appears in your URLs.
   
5. Click Next and select New Variation.
6. Select the template Email Identification or Hashed Email Identification. If you're using an external identifier, select Hashed Email Identification, and then make the changes to the template described in the next step.
   
7. Specify the name of the parameter that contains the email address.
   If you're using an external identifier: In the JS tab, in the identify event, change the value for type from he to external.
   
   
8. Save the variation and the experience.
9. If you use hashed email as your identifier, and have some hashed and some regular email addresses, create another experience with one variation targeting URLs that have the second parameter. Use the appropriate template (Email Identification or Hashed Email Identification).
10. Save the variation, save the experience, and click Save and Publish to publish the campaign.

You should now see an increase in identified users, particularly when you send out major email campaigns.

View the number of identified users

To view the number of identified users over a specific time period, go to Audiences › Audience Explorer and use the condition Identified User is True. Use the time selector to specify the time range.

You can then view User Segment Data to see information about identified users.

User identification types

When unidentified visitors enter a site that contains the Dynamic Yield script, they are given a unique Dynamic Yield identifier, called DYID. The DYID is stored in the cookies, session storage, and local storage of the browser. This enables us to track and target the user based on their behavior and metadata as long as they are using the same browser on the same device and do not delete the cookies and cache.

However, there are two additional levels of information about users you can provide Dynamic Yield which will enable richer targeting options and experiences.

Identified users

For Experience OS to target the same visitor across different channels (desktop, mobile, email) the visitor must be identified on each of the distinct platforms with the same Customer Unique Identifier (CUID). Users are identified when an event or API is sent to Experience OS with a CUID, but you can also identify site visitors that have been invited to your site in an email campaign. 

Matched users

Experience OS doesn't store any personally identifiable information (PII) about users. So, for example, when we receive an email address that identifies a particular user, we hash the email address before storing it to protect user privacy. This means that Experience OS can't use the email address or identify users externally without additional steps.

To enable triggered emails and audience export, identified users must be matched to an email address or other identifier. This is accomplished by creating a data feed of opted-in email users. The feed consists of one column of identifiers. Dynamic Yield then hashes these identifies and checks for matches among identified users. When a match is found, these users are called matched users, and are eligible to be included in triggered emails and audience exports. The unhashed email addresses are stored separately from our other data in a highly-secured location.

Learn more about email address feeds.