How accurate is the data?
Over time people change jobs, locations, email addresses etc. As a result, what is accurate today when it’s collected may not be accurate tomorrow when it’s used. Website visitor data is always moving. Each field is updated with the latest available data from one of USA's largest data co-operatives.
The majority of email interaction data is highly accurate as it is sourced directly from the company’s email routing service. Opens and clicks data can be hampered by various factors, however Blackpearl has proprietary algorithms to clean this data.
How do we identify website visitors within the same household?
We use a multi-layered identification approach to ensure
accurate matching. We begin by matching based on browser metadata, such as
cookies and user agent data. This allows us to uniquely identify a device
within a household, even when IP addresses are shared among family members. IP
address matching is used as a secondary method, but we are aware that IP
sharing within a household can lead to overlaps.
To mitigate misidentification risks, our matching process
prioritises browser-specific signals over shared network identifiers like IP
addresses. We also regularly re-index and refine our identity graph using fresh
data to maintain the accuracy of our profiles. While occasional mismatches can
occur due to shared devices, our waterfall approach minimizes this risk by
relying on more granular device-level data whenever possible.
Where does the data come from?
There are two sets of data that are used and integrated in Pearl Diver:
- Email interaction data
- Website visit identification
Email interaction data is sourced from your email metadata if you have connected the Black Pearl Mail email tracking product. Pearl Diver records the addresses of who receives, opens and clicks your emails.
Website visitors are identified and matched using an identity resolution graph from one of USA's largest data co-operatives to provide demographic and firmographic data. These data sets are matched to highlight where there is overlap between your website traffic and email interactions.
How do we ensure only US individual’s data is being collected?
We exclusively store and work with profiles of individuals
based in the USA. Our data cooperative only ingests US-based profiles, and all
data sources contributing to our cooperative are required to adhere to strict
guidelines to ensure only US data is shared.
We employ several verification mechanisms, such as
geolocation checks, to ensure that the profiles in our database are US-based.
If we ever identify a profile that originates from outside the USA, we take
immediate action to a) remove the profile from our databases and warehouses;
and b) notify the source of the data to ensure they also remove the non-US
profile from their systems. This process ensures compliance and helps maintain
the integrity of the data we provide.
What is an Identity Graph?
An identity graph is a collection of data that links multiple identifiers or touchpoints of a specific user or entity across various devices, channels, and platforms. It helps companies and marketers to create a unified view of an individual or a household across different interactions, devices, and platforms. By consolidating data from various sources, an identity graph provides a more comprehensive and accurate representation of an individual's behavior and preferences.
Identity graphs typically include data such as email addresses, phone numbers, social media handles, website cookies, device IDs, and other identifiers that can be used to track user activity. By analyzing this data, companies can better understand their customers' behavior and preferences, and deliver more personalized and relevant experiences across various channels.
Identity graphs are commonly used in digital marketing, where they help to improve targeting, segmentation, and attribution. They can also be used in other industries such as finance, healthcare, and telecommunications, where the ability to identify and link customer data is essential for providing personalized and seamless experiences.
What is the Data Co-Operative?
The cooperative was built from a model where billions of consumed signals are received from its members daily to deliver the culmination of useful data. The Co-Op ecosystem was created to ensure fixed priced access to undisrupted data and services with no dependencies on traditional third party suppliers.
For privacy reasons, we cannot share company names, but the member’s categories include:
- Email service providers
- Account based marketing
- Demand side online ad platform
- Supply side online ad platform
- Sales lead accelerators
- Marketing automation
What are the governance processes to ensure the companies in the data co-op
are being compliant in their data gathering?
As a member of the data cooperative, Pearl Diver
participates in a governance framework designed to ensure compliance among all
members regarding data gathering practices. The cooperative implements the
following key processes to ensure compliance:
- Data Provenance:
- Each member, including Pearl Diver, is required to provide clear
representations and warranties regarding the origin and legal rights to the
data they contribute. These assurances are captured through membership
agreements. The cooperative uses a combination of manual and automated reviews,
including machine learning models, to ensure the contributed data aligns with
the contributing member's business practices.
- Continuous Monitoring and Compliance:
- The cooperative employs advanced data observability platforms, such as Monte
Carlo, to monitor data for freshness, volume, and schema consistency. This
helps detect any anomalies or deviations in the data contributed by members. If
any compliance issues arise, the cooperative's system flags and categorises
them for further review.
- Privacy and Consent Management:
- Members are required to implement consent management systems that comply with
regulations like CCPA and GDPR. These systems track and time-stamp consent to
ensure that the data shared within the cooperative is legally authorised. The
cooperative regularly audits these processes to maintain transparency and
accountability.
- Third-Party Audits and Security Posture:
- The cooperative engages in regular third-party audits, such as SOC-II, to
ensure the security and compliance of its data operations. Cloud infrastructure
is monitored by trusted partners like AWS, who oversee data access and prevent
unauthorised usage.
By maintaining this rigorous
governance framework, the cooperative ensures that all members, including Pearl
Diver, comply with data regulations, protecting the integrity of the data
exchanged within the network.
Regarding privacy compliance risks, Pearl Diver and the
co-op operate under strict data governance and compliance contracts, ensuring
that all members adhere to privacy laws, including handling opt-out requests.
Pearl Diver cannot offer indemnification for compliance risks related to
individual co-op members, as the responsibility for opt-out compliance lies
with each member individually. That said, we take privacy compliance seriously
and continuously monitor and address potential risks.
Why are members of the Data Cooperative anonymous?
The identities of co-op members are kept confidential for
several important reasons:
- Competitive Neutrality:
- Many of the co-op members are direct competitors. Keeping the membership list
confidential ensures that all members operate on an equal footing without
leveraging their knowledge of other participants for competitive advantages.
- Preventing Malicious or Competitive Targeting:
- Disclosing the list of co-op members could expose them to nefarious activities,
such as attempts to disrupt their operations or target them for competitive
reasons. Keeping this information private helps protect the cooperative's
integrity and the businesses involved.
- Protecting Proprietary Contributions:
- Pearl Diver has developed unique products based on contributions from the
co-op. Sharing the list of contributors could potentially allow external
parties to reverse-engineer some of the proprietary processes, which are a key
differentiator in the market.
How does Pearl Diver leverage the Co-op’s identity resolution graph without
passing data points from website visitors back to the Co-op?
Customer visitor data will stay strictly with Pearl Diver
and will not be shared with the data cooperative. We recognise the importance
of maintaining control over your data, and Pearl Diver operates independently
of the co-op in this regard. The data points from visitor cookies will not be
passed to the co-op for identity resolution or any other purpose.
As for leveraging the identity resolution graph, Pearl Diver
has access to a comprehensive identity graph that includes large percentage of
adults and business in the U.S., along with over 500 million devices and 2
billion emails. This allows us to resolve identities internally, using our own
data assets, without needing to pass or share your visitor data with the co-op.
Where is the value of this data as opposed to other data sources?
Data sources through the co-op are better because:
- It is data that is in active use and updated with corrections daily, rather than sourced from sources that quickly become out-of-date.
The data is under active development and the co-operative continues to grow so sources and additional data points are frequently added.
The identity graph allows for the connection of data points together that could otherwise be hidden.
All data is stored in the United States:
- Member Co-Op data is stored in the AWS cloud.
- Blackpearl Diver data is stored in the Microsoft Azure cloud.
There are two parts to our service 1) identifying attributes of a visit 2) matching those attributes with firmographic and demographic data. Attributes include data such as IP address, HEM, device id's and cookies. Exactly how we gather these and bring them together is part of our secret sauce. When we have these attributes, we access an identity graphic to match these to individuals and data about them as part of one of USA's largest data co-operatives.
For Pearl Diver to be able to identify a visitor, the visitor to your website needs to:
1. Be browsing on a device or browser that is associated with a specific person
2. Their information needs to exist in our identity graph - this means we need to have captured their data in our database to be able to find them when running our matching algorithm. While we work with one of the USA's largest data co-operatives to access demographic and firmographic details, we do not have data for all US based individuals.
3. The visitor needs to not be suppressed (e.g. they have opted out, using VPN, have the same email domain as the website they have visited. For example we filter out 'internal staff' visits to your website to not inflate visitor counts)
If any of the above are not applicable, the visitor will not be deanonymized and we will be unable to display their visitor information in your Pearl Diver system.
Outside of Pearl Diver, an average of 2-3% of typical website visitors become identified through filling out a form or submitting a query. Pearl Diver will increase this without requiring your customers to fill any forms, creating more identified prospects to work with.
Accounting for a portion of website traffic noted in your analytics tools being non-human, bots and SEO ranking systems, typically Pearl Diver will identify an average of 20-25% of human visitors. This will vary for each customer and on any given time period.
Are my identified website
visitor records unique?
When an identified record is listed in your Pearl Diver,
this is treated as a unique record. Should that person visit your website
again, you will see the same unique record's visit count update.
The only time you will see a second record for what appears to
be the same person, is if all their information from the second visit does not
match the initial e.g., they have a different email address/ phone number
identified that was not matched for the initial visit.