Every brand has stated they want a unified view of the customer. We’ve been talking about it for 20 years. But as I recently observed through new industry research, many still don’t understand what it actually takes to achieve one—especially when it comes to identity resolution, writes Billy Loizou, APAC area vice president, Amperity.
Amperity recently contributed to a study of the Australian marketing landscape covering eCommerce, data, martech, and AI. The findings revealed an interesting contradiction: while most brands are investing in data unification and activation, few are seeing meaningful progress. Why? Because one of the most important ingredients—identity resolution—is still being overlooked.
The Identity Resolution Blind Spot
According to the report Digital, Marketing and eCommerce in Focus 2025, developing a unified view of the customer is a top investment priority. Over half of brands said they’re focused on unifying data, and nearly as many are investing in activation. In retail specifically, first-party data strategies and personalisation were ranked as key goals by more than half of respondents.
But ambition isn’t translating into results. Only 14 per cent of brands feel they’re making progress toward a unified view of the customer. And more than half say they’re falling behind on first-party data strategy.
What’s missing? Identity resolution. Despite its foundational role, only 25 per cent of brands identified it as a key area of investment.
That gap is telling. You simply can’t unify customer data without resolving identity. It’s the connective tissue that makes personalisation, consent management, and omnichannel activation possible. It helps you answer three critical questions:
- Who is this customer?
- What have they signed up for?
- Where does their data live?
Without those answers, the rest of your data strategy is on shaky ground.
Retail, AI & Privacy
In retail, the challenge is compounded by new privacy regulations. Yet only 30 per cent of retail leaders believe their teams understand the upcoming changes to the Privacy Act. Foundational capabilities like consent tracking and data lineage remain underdeveloped—again pointing back to the lack of identity resolution.
The local report’s findings also align with the same global maturity challenges as seen in Amperity’s latest 2025 State of AI in Retail report. The global report shows while 63 per cent of retailers believe AI will improve customer loyalty and 65 per cent expect it to increase customer lifetime value, only 43 per cent are currently using AI in customer-facing applications such as personalisation, chatbots or tailored marketing experiences. In fact, just 23 per cent are using AI in production to resolve customer identities or prepare data for marketing use, indicating significant untapped potential in customer engagement strategies.
Retail media’s data issue
This blind spot is affecting more than just internal marketing strategies—it’s eroding trust in broader initiatives like retail media.
The report showed that most brands don’t trust retail media networks. One reason is they can’t measure performance or quantify ROI. And that’s a data problem. Without identity resolution, you can’t size or segment audiences, tie exposure to outcomes, or build the kind of targeting strategy that delivers business results.
Instead, what passes for “targeting” is often just keyword-based ad placement. That’s not enough. Brands need to understand who their audience is, how big it is, and how it performs. And that starts with clean, resolved customer data.
At Amperity, we see this every day. Our clients use identity resolution to close the gap between data and outcomes—powering everything from personalisation and measurement to media activation and AI.
Without it, you’re essentially buying into a broken promise.
The AI Opportunity (& Risk)
Everyone’s talking about AI—and for good reason. Generative tools have made it easy to dip a toe in with content creation and personalisation. But more advanced use cases, like predictive analytics and autonomous decisioning, still require something most brands don’t have: clean, unified data.
AI is only as smart as the data beneath it. If your foundation is fragmented, your models will be too.
This is where identity resolution becomes more than just an operational necessity—it’s a strategic one. Whether you’re trying to personalise at scale, measure retail media effectiveness, or build responsible AI systems, the prerequisite is the same: trust in your customer data.
The Path Forward
For all the talk of data transformation, too many brands are skipping the step that makes transformation possible.
Identity resolution isn’t a niche capability. It’s the foundation of every AI-driven, customer-centric strategy, from privacy and consent to personalisation and growth. If Australian brands are serious about finally achieving a unified view of the customer, they’ll need to stop treating identity as an afterthought—and start building it into the core of their data investments.
