Snowflake recently published its 2023 Modern Marketing Data Stack Report to explore the marketing tool landscape and showcase strategic initiatives to help brands create data-forward strategies. We’re honored that our identity resolution platform, Merkury, was selected as a Leader in the Identity and Onboarders category.
“Snowflake is a critical partner for our Merkury products and solutions. Snowflake's ability to integrate with all the major martech and CDP providers allows us to deliver modern, cloud-based data management solutions to power personalized, connected experiences for our clients — regardless of their tech stack,” said Matt Seeley, Merkle’s head of data and identity solutions.
Let’s look at why identity is so critical in today’s environment and how Merkury and Snowflake can help brands capitalize.
Why Identity Matters for Today’s Marketers
Identity resolution is a must-have for modern marketers. Today’s consumer journeys begin with research across numerous channels before making a final purchase. We used to think about the purchase path as a funnel that moved predictably from awareness, to consideration, then finally to conversion. But the funnel no longer applies, and when digital touchpoints are everywhere – from watches and gas pumps to smart appliances and hotel elevators – the customer journey is less linear than ever.
Layer on increasing consumer privacy regulation and big tech restrictions, and organizations have a major challenge. They need to link these engagements back to a unique person so they can drive the real-time, privacy-safe experience that consumers demand. That’s where identity resolution comes into play.
What Makes Merkury the Ideal Solution
Merkury is among the few enterprise identity platforms that bring together the accuracy and sustainability of client first-party data, quality PII-based third-party data, and robust cookieless media and technology platform connections.
Merkury’s magic all starts with the person ID. The person ID combines everything an organization knows about an individual, including digital behaviors, buying preferences, and identifying information like a name, email address, physical address, or device ID, into one single profile.
It also identifies unknown consumers through its comprehensive identity graph of 268 million US adults — and pulls in data from third-party sources to create a more complete, well-rounded picture of each individual. This happens through the Merkury tag: a small snippet of code that identifies anonymous site or app visits and associates them with a Merkury person ID.
In other words, Merkury doesn’t just recognize the cookie or the device. The Merkury tag and person ID work together to recognize the whole person. All of this data is combined into one, single, unified profile, which stays up-to-date and available to every system across the organization. This is enterprise identity resolution.
For more on Merkury, please visit our dedicated page.
The Powers of Merkury and Snowflake Together
Earlier this year, we announced the availability of Merkury on the Snowflake Data Cloud. Snowflake’s report nailed why this matters for organizations:
“Merkle's identity resolution platform, Merkury, is integrated with the Snowflake Data Cloud to empower companies to leverage first-party data as a competitive differentiator. By bringing Merkury to Snowflake, it flips the traditional data management model, ensuring unparalleled security and accessibility. This enables businesses to harness and grow first-party data as a strategic asset, gaining deeper insights to better serve customer and prospect needs. With Merkury and Snowflake, companies can take control of their data, turning it into a valuable resource to understand customers and drive business growth.”
With this launch, Merkury became one of the first large-scale enterprise-level identity resolution products to be built on the Snowflake Data Cloud, offering joint customers a seamlessly integrated solution. Snowflake's ability to integrate with all the major martech and CDP providers translates to modern, cloud-based data management solutions to power personalized, connected experiences for brands, regardless of their tech stack.
To read the full report on how data-forward marketers are unifying, analyzing, and activating data to boost revenue, visit this link.
