Understanding Resolution Rates

Summary: Resolution works on US desktop and Android traffic, where cookies persist. Within that segment, identification rates are 20-30%+. Bots, Safari/iOS, and international traffic are filtered out because they can't be resolved -- so the raw headline number reflects your traffic mix, not the quality of resolution.

What Is a Resolution Rate?

When someone visits your website, the Delivr pixel fires an event. If we can match that visitor to a real person in our identity graph, that event is resolved -- meaning we know who they are (name, email, company, job title, etc.).

Your resolution rate is the percentage of events that get resolved.

How to Read the Number

Not all website traffic comes from people who can be identified. Your raw resolution rate includes everything -- and a large portion of that traffic will never resolve:

flowchart TD
    A["All Raw Traffic (100%)"] --> B["Remove bots (15-50%)"]
    B --> C["Remove Safari/iOS (35-40% of US)"]
    C --> D["Remove international traffic"]
    D --> E["Resolvable pool (~20-25% of raw)"]
    E --> F["Resolved: 20-30%+ of this pool"]

    style A fill:#6b7280,color:#fff
    style E fill:#3b82f6,color:#fff
    style F fill:#22c55e,color:#fff

When you filter down to just the traffic that can resolve (US visitors, real humans, non-Apple browsers), resolution rates are typically 20-30%+.

Think of it like email open rates: the headline number includes a lot of recipients who never see the email (spam filters, inactive accounts), making the rate look lower than reality.

Resolution Rates by Browser

These are typical ranges. Your actual rates depend on your site's traffic mix.

The Apple factor: About 36-40% of US browser traffic comes from Safari or iOS devices. This is an industry-wide limitation that affects every identity resolution provider, not just Delivr.

Cookie Rate vs. Person Rate

You may see two different rate metrics. They measure different things:

Cookie rate: What percentage of unique cookie IDs resolved?

This is the lower number. One Safari visitor generates a new cookie ID every 7 days due to ITP. So one person who visits your site 4 times in a month shows up as 4 unresolved cookies -- making the denominator artificially large.

Event rate: What percentage of total events resolved?

This is slightly higher because resolved visitors tend to generate more events per session. It's a more useful metric for understanding how much of your visitor activity is enriched.

Neither number is wrong, but understanding which one you're looking at explains why two people can look at the same data and see different rates.

What Affects Your Rate

Things that raise it

• More US desktop traffic: Chrome and Edge visitors resolve at the highest rates
• Returning visitors: People who've been seen before are more likely to match
• B2B sites: Business visitors on managed devices with persistent cookies resolve better than consumer traffic
• Higher traffic volume: More data points improve identity matching over time

Things that lower it

• High mobile/iOS share: If 60%+ of your traffic is iPhone, your headline rate will be lower
• International audience: Traffic from non-US IP addresses doesn't go through resolution
• Low traffic volume: Sites under 1,000 monthly visitors may not generate enough signal for consistent matching
• Bot-heavy sites: News, content, and SEO-heavy sites attract more crawler traffic

How to Check Your Rate

In the Dashboard

Your project dashboard shows resolution statistics on the overview page, broken down by day.

Via the API

Use the event_counts endpoint to calculate your rate for any time window:

Total events:

curl "https://apiv3.delivr.ai/api/v1/event_counts?pixel_id=YOUR_PIXEL_ID&start_ms=START_MS&end_ms=END_MS" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN" \
  -H "x-organization-id: YOUR_ORGANIZATION_ID"

Resolved events only:

curl "https://apiv3.delivr.ai/api/v1/event_counts?pixel_id=YOUR_PIXEL_ID&start_ms=START_MS&end_ms=END_MS&filter=resolved:eq:true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN" \
  -H "x-organization-id: YOUR_ORGANIZATION_ID"

Unique resolved people (distinct by email hash):

curl "https://apiv3.delivr.ai/api/v1/event_counts?pixel_id=YOUR_PIXEL_ID&start_ms=START_MS&end_ms=END_MS&filter=resolved:eq:true&distinct=hem" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN" \
  -H "x-organization-id: YOUR_ORGANIZATION_ID"

Divide resolved by total to get your rate.

What Matters More Than the Rate

The resolution rate tells you how much of your traffic is identified. But for sales and marketing, what matters is:

1. Are you getting enough leads? A 5% rate on a site with 50,000 monthly visitors means ~2,500 resolved events per month -- potentially hundreds of unique contacts.

2. Are they the right people? Resolved visitors come with full enrichment: name, email, company, job title, seniority, industry, and more. One identified VP of Sales on your pricing page is worth more than 100 anonymous page views.

3. Is the data actionable? Each resolved event includes the page visited, time, and full contact details -- ready for CRM import or outbound campaigns.

Next Steps

• On-Domain Events API -- Query your resolved events
• High-Intent Visitors -- Build a daily lead list from high-value page visitors
• Export Events to CSV -- Export resolved visitor data for your CRM