A known customer is a person a CDP can identify by a stable identifier such as an email address, account ID, or customer ID, as opposed to an anonymous visitor tracked only by a soft signal.
Category
Identity
Also known as
known profile; identified customer
The known-versus-anonymous split is fundamental to a CDP: it unifies both, but personalization, consent, and lifecycle flows become more reliable once a visitor crosses into known status. The moment of becoming known, through login, signup, or purchase, is where soft-ID behavior gets stitched to a real profile.
In practice
Design for the transition, not just the known and anonymous states. The highest-value tracking work is capturing a hard ID as early as it is legitimately available and connecting the earlier anonymous activity to it.
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