How Identity Resolution Works

Summary: When someone visits your website, the Delivr pixel checks their browser cookie against our identity graph of 400M+ records. If there is a match, the event is enriched with the visitor's name, email, company, job title, and 100+ other fields. This page explains how that process works.

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The Resolution Flow

flowchart TD
    A[Visitor lands on your website] --> B[Pixel fires an event]
    B --> C[Cookie ID captured from browser]
    C --> Q{Opted out, or in the EEA, UK or Switzerland?}
    Q -->|Yes| F[Raw event stored]
    Q -->|No| D{Cookie in identity graph?}
    D -->|Yes| E[Match found]
    D -->|No| F
    E --> G[Enrich with contact data]
    G --> H[Resolved event with 100+ fields]
    F --> I[Event, plus company from IP where available]

    style E fill:#22c55e,color:#fff
    style F fill:#6b7280,color:#fff
    style H fill:#22c55e,color:#fff
    style I fill:#6b7280,color:#fff

Every configured page view, click, and scroll generates an event while collection is enabled. The difference between a resolved event and a raw event is whether we could safely match the visitor's cookie to a known identity.

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Step by Step

1. The Pixel Fires

When a visitor loads a page on your site, the Delivr pixel JavaScript runs in their browser. It captures:

• A cookie ID (a unique identifier stored in the visitor's browser)
• The page URL they're viewing
• The event type (page view, click, scroll, etc.)
• Browser and request metadata (user agent, IP address, screen size, referrer)

This happens for configured page loads and interactions while collection is enabled. The visitor does not interact with the pixel itself.

2. Cookie Lookup

The cookie ID is checked against Delivr's identity graph, a database of 400M+ records that maps browser cookies to real people.

The identity graph is built from multiple data sources and updated continuously. When a cookie ID matches a record in the graph, we know who the visitor is.

3. Enrichment

When a match is found, the event is enriched with data from the identity graph:

flowchart LR
    A[Cookie ID] --> B[Identity Graph]
    B --> C[Person Record]
    C --> D[Contact Info]
    C --> E[Company Info]
    C --> F[Demographics]

    D --> D1[Name, email, phone]
    D --> D2[Job title, LinkedIn]
    E --> E1[Company, domain, industry]
    E --> E2[Revenue, employee count]
    F --> F1[Location, seniority]
    F --> F2[Department, education]

A resolved event includes the original event data (URL, timestamp, event type) plus all enrichment fields. You can query for resolved events using filter=resolved:eq:true in the API.

4. Storage and Access

Events are stored and available through the API within seconds. You can:

• Query in real-time via the On-Domain Events API
• Export to CSV for CRM import via the Export Events guide
• Build audiences based on visitor behavior

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What Makes a Cookie Resolvable

Not every visitor can be identified. Resolution depends on the visitor's browser and cookie persistence:

flowchart TD
    A[All Website Traffic] --> B{Classified bot or crawler?}
    B -->|Yes| C[Outside addressable set; cookie may still match]
    B -->|No| D{US-based IP?}
    D -->|No| N{EEA, UK or Switzerland?}
    N -->|Yes| P[Not resolved; identity withheld]
    N -->|No| E[Outside addressable set; cookie may still match]
    D -->|Yes| F{Browser type?}
    F -->|Chrome, Edge, Firefox| G[Cookie persists up to 400 days]
    F -->|Android| H[Cookie persists reliably]
    F -->|Safari / iOS| I[Cookie expires every 7 days]
    C --> J{Cookie in identity graph?}
    E --> J
    G --> J
    H --> J
    I --> J
    J -->|Yes| K{Sec-GPC asserted?}
    J -->|No| M[Not resolved]
    K -->|Yes| P
    K -->|No| L[Resolved]

    style C fill:#6b7280,color:#fff
    style E fill:#6b7280,color:#fff
    style P fill:#6b7280,color:#fff
    style L fill:#22c55e,color:#fff
    style M fill:#6b7280,color:#fff

The key factors:

• Classified bots and crawlers are excluded from addressable traffic. Automation that the classifier misses can remain in all-traffic counts and generate many events.
• Safari and iOS visitors can resolve, but Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) shortens cookie lifetime and makes consistent identification more difficult.
• International traffic is excluded from the addressable benchmark because the graph is US-focused. An existing matched cookie can still resolve outside the US, except in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, where we never resolve a visitor regardless of what the graph knows.
• Chrome, Edge, and Firefox on desktop have the highest resolution rates because cookies persist for months

See Understanding Resolution Rates for more detail on what affects your rate.

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How Your Site Data Is Stored and Used

Pixel data is stored on Amazon Web Services in the United States. Every event, and every visitor resolved on your site, is stored under your organization and kept separate from other customers' data. Raw visitor-level pixel data is kept for no more than 13 months from collection.

Your site data stays yours:

• We never show your events or resolved visitors to another customer.
• We never build an audience or segment for anyone else from traffic to your site.
• Nothing we deliver to another customer identifies your company, your site, or a visit to it.

The identity graph is built from Delivr's own and licensed data sources, together with two things pixel deployments contribute:

• Identifier links. The graph keeps the link between a cookie ID and a hashed email. These links carry no page URLs or browsing behavior and are not tied to your organization. Hashed emails are personal data, not anonymous data, so deletion and privacy requests apply to them.
• Pooled intent signals. Event-level signals, with your account and organization removed, are pooled with Delivr's other sources to improve the identity graph and topic-level intent data. Results are topic-level and never name your company, domain, or pages. You can opt out by written notice, and we stop within 15 days. Signals already pooled in aggregate are not affected.

The full terms are in the Customer Site Data section of the Terms of Service and in the Data Processing Addendum.

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Resolved vs. Raw Events

Here's what you get in each case:

Raw events are useful for traffic analysis and bot filtering. Resolved events are what drive sales outreach and marketing campaigns.

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Next Steps

• On-Domain Events API -- Query events and filter for resolved visitors
• Event Types Reference -- What each event type captures
• Understanding Resolution Rates -- Why rates vary and what affects them
• High-Intent Visitors -- Turn resolved events into a daily lead list