Bad Identity Resolution Creates More Problems Than It Solves

Most companies assume their identity resolution system is working—until they start seeing duplicate records, mismatched profiles, and wasted marketing spend.

If your identity resolution strategy isn’t delivering accurate, actionable data, it’s costing you money. The key to fixing it? Measuring accuracy and effectiveness.

Let’s break down the right metrics, benchmarks, and tests to ensure your identity resolution is actually doing its job.

1. Match Rate: How Many Identities Are Being Resolved?

Match rate measures how often your system can successfully connect multiple data points to a single identity.

How to Calculate Match Rate:

(Number of resolved identities / Total identities in the dataset) x 100

What Good Looks Like:

✔ B2C companies: 80-95% match rate (higher availability of personal identifiers)
✔ B2B companies: 60-80% match rate (multiple contacts per account make matching more complex)

What a Bad Match Rate Means:

🚩 Low match rate = Too many fragmented customer records, leading to duplicate targeting and wasted budget.
🚩 High match rate but poor data quality = False matches, merging unrelated records together.

2. False Match Rate: Is Your System Merging the Wrong People?

A high match rate doesn’t mean your system is accurate. False match rate tells you how often your system incorrectly merges two different identities.

How to Calculate False Match Rate:

(Number of incorrect merges / Total merges) x 100

What Good Looks Like:

✔ False match rate under 5% for deterministic matching
✔ False match rate under 15% for probabilistic matching

What a High False Match Rate Means:

🚩 Merging two different customers into one profile can wreck personalization and attribution.
🚩 Your AI model might be too aggressive in linking identities, creating bad data instead of clean data.

3. Identity Resolution Latency: How Fast Are Matches Being Made?

Resolution latency measures how quickly your system updates and links new customer interactions.

What Good Looks Like:

✔ Real-time or near real-time identity resolution (seconds to minutes) for high-engagement businesses
✔ Batch processing within 24 hours for companies with slower customer cycles

What Slow Identity Resolution Means:

🚩 If it takes days or weeks to resolve identities, marketing and sales teams are working with outdated data.
🚩 Customers who just interacted with your brand might still appear as anonymous users, leading to disconnected experiences.

4. Data Coverage & Completeness: Are You Using Enough Data Points?

The more verified data points your identity resolution system uses, the higher the accuracy.

What Good Looks Like:

✔ Using a mix of deterministic (exact) and probabilistic (behavior-based) matching
✔ Pulling from first-party data sources (CRM, website behavior, transaction history)
✔ Ensuring data is updated in real-time or at least daily

What a Low Data Coverage Score Means:

🚩 Your system is missing key identifiers, leading to disconnected records.
🚩 Marketing, sales, and support teams don’t have the full customer journey.

5. Marketing & Sales Impact: Is Identity Resolution Driving Revenue?

If your identity resolution strategy is working, you should see clear improvements in marketing and sales performance.

Key Business Metrics to Track:

✔ Higher conversion rates – Fewer duplicate leads and better targeting = more deals closed
✔ Lower cost per acquisition (CPA) – No wasted spend on duplicate or misidentified prospects
✔ Higher customer lifetime value (LTV) – Better data = better retention and upsell opportunities

What a Drop in These Metrics Means:

🚩 Identity resolution isn’t fixing data problems—it’s making them worse.
🚩 Sales and marketing aren’t getting the right insights, leading to missed opportunities.

How to Improve Identity Resolution Accuracy

✔ Audit your data sources – Remove outdated or unreliable third-party data.
✔ Use a mix of deterministic and probabilistic matching – Avoid over-reliance on either one.
✔ Optimize AI models regularly – Identity resolution isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it system.
✔ Monitor key accuracy metrics continuously – Don’t assume it’s working—prove it with data.

Want to See Identity Resolution in Action?

If your match rates are low, your false matches are high, or your marketing and sales teams are working with bad data, it’s time to fix your identity resolution strategy.

View the Identity Resolution Slide Deck to see how it works. If you’re ready to start using identity resolution the right way, you can purchase it here.