Updating Consents and Subscriptions when an Email is shared across multiple accounts.

[DanSpigs1]

I have a use case where the Primary Identity Namespace is a unique ID representing a customer's account. However a customer can have multiple accounts, all with the same email address associated to them, and as a result there are multiple profiles with the same email account. When a customer opts out of a subscription, or unsubscribes entirely, how can I update that new status for all profiles with that email address? If I identify the email field as an identity would that carry the updates across while still maintaining the unique profiles for each customer's unique account ID?

[somen-sarkar · Accepted solution]

Hi @DanSpigs1 ,

Using email addresses as an identity can lead to "profile collapse," where different profiles with the same email address are merged. This can negatively impact the unified profile perspective. For more insights on this topic, please refer to the following articles:-

https://www.pedromonjo.com/2024/07/email-address-identity-aep.html

https://www.pedromonjo.com/2022/10/profile-collapse.html

Opt-out or unsubscribe actions should ideally be managed at the profile level. If a customer unsubscribes from one account, it does not necessarily mean they want to unsubscribe from all other accounts associated with the same email address. This distinction is crucial to maintain accurate and meaningful customer interactions. Given the complexity of this use case, I suggest having a deeper discussion to thoroughly understand the requirements and implications. This will help ensure that implementation is  most effective and customer-friendly solution.

Thanks,

Somen

[DanSpigs1]

Thank you for your response, this is exactly what my testing is bearing out.  With regards to your comment if a customer unsubscribes their email on one account and it is not recognized across all accounts would that not potentially lead to legal issues for the various international privacy laws?  Regardless that is the behavior I have been asked to solve for.  Reading through your notes we do have a separate identifier which is set as the primary identity, is there a way to avoid profile collapse but still update preferences across a shared email address? 

[DanSpigs1]

Another question, how does AEP handle multiple identity fields?  If there are 3 fields, 1 matches and 2 do not does it still collapse them based on the lone field or does it recognize there's more that don't match and keep them separate?  Thanks

[somen-sarkar]

Depending on the merge policy setup, the data fragments collapse can be avoided if it is set to "None". If the merge policy is set as "Private Graph" then in case of any match of identifier then it should combine those data fragments. Pls check the below article for more details.
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-platform/profile/merge-policies/overview#id-st...

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-platform/identity/home#what-is-identity-servic...

Thanks,

Somen

[DanSpigs1]

Thanks Somen, I will dig in on those.  Follow up question, once a field is set as identity, it appears that even saying to no longer use it as identity doesn't prevent the stitching from occurring, is there a way to revert to previous state and at least prevent new incoming profiles from being added?  Or is the system now set like this forever?  It's our dev environment but this still could cause major testing issues.  Thanks

[somen-sarkar]

Identity map is fully controlled from Adobe end and changes are not allowed. Suggest to raise a ticket with Adobe support to get their viewpoint .