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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Identity Planner

💰 $110,000 - $165,000

Data StrategyMarketingTechnologyAnalytics

🎯 Role Definition

At its core, the Identity Planner is the architect of our customer understanding. This strategic role is all about connecting the dots of customer data across a complex ecosystem of digital and offline channels. You're not just managing data; you're creating a coherent, persistent, and actionable single view of the customer. This individual is the central nervous system for our first-party data strategy, ensuring that we can deliver personalized, relevant experiences while respecting user privacy and navigating the ever-changing landscape of data regulations. You'll be the go-to expert for how we identify, link, and activate customer identity to drive business growth, marketing effectiveness, and product innovation.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Digital Analyst / Marketing Analyst
  • CRM Manager or Specialist
  • MarTech Platform Manager
  • Data Steward or Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Director of Data Strategy & Identity
  • Head of Audience Planning & Activation
  • Principal Identity Strategist / Architect
  • Senior Manager, Marketing Technology

Lateral Moves:

  • Senior Product Manager (Data & Identity Products)
  • Marketing Technology (MarTech) Strategist
  • Data Governance Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Spearhead the development and execution of the enterprise-wide identity resolution strategy, ensuring a persistent, accurate, and unified view of the customer across all digital and offline touchpoints.
  • Serve as the primary business owner and subject matter expert for the Customer Data Platform (CDP) and other identity-related technologies, driving roadmap development and platform optimization.
  • Design and implement sophisticated audience segmentation frameworks based on resolved identities, enabling advanced personalization for marketing campaigns, customer service interactions, and product experiences.
  • Partner closely with marketing, analytics, and product teams to translate business objectives into technical requirements for identity capture, stitching, and activation.
  • Oversee the governance of identity data, establishing and enforcing standards for data quality, hygiene, and metadata management to ensure the reliability and integrity of the unified customer profile.
  • Continuously evaluate and benchmark the performance of our identity graph, tracking key metrics such as match rates, persistence, and coverage, and providing regular reports to leadership.
  • Act as the key liaison with legal and compliance teams to ensure all identity-related processes and technologies are fully compliant with global privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and others.
  • Develop comprehensive test-and-learn agendas for new identity signals and resolution methodologies, staying ahead of industry shifts like the deprecation of third-party cookies.
  • Architect data flows and integrations between the CDP, identity platforms (e.g., LiveRamp, Neustar), and the broader MarTech/AdTech stack (e.g., ESPs, DMPs, DSPs).
  • Educate and train internal stakeholders on the value and proper use of the identity framework, fostering a data-driven culture centered on a deep understanding of the customer.
  • Lead the vendor selection process for new identity technologies, conducting RFPs, proof-of-concepts, and technical evaluations to ensure solutions meet business requirements.
  • Define and manage the 'golden record' for customers, creating the business rules and logic that determine the single source of truth for every data attribute.
  • Collaborate with data engineering teams to operationalize identity models and build scalable, resilient data pipelines for identity data ingestion and processing.
  • Analyze the impact of identity resolution on key business outcomes, such as customer lifetime value (CLV), marketing ROI, and customer engagement.
  • Create detailed documentation, including data dictionaries, process flow diagrams, and strategic roadmaps for the enterprise identity program.
  • Champion a "privacy-by-design" approach to all identity initiatives, ensuring customer trust is maintained as a top priority.
  • Monitor the industry landscape for emerging identity solutions, partners, and consortiums, providing recommendations on strategic opportunities and potential threats.
  • Translate complex identity concepts into clear, compelling narratives for non-technical audiences, including senior leadership, to secure buy-in and investment.
  • Define use cases for leveraging the resolved identity graph to power predictive models, customer journey orchestration, and next-best-action decisioning.
  • Manage the operational health of the identity ecosystem, troubleshooting data discrepancies and working with technical teams to resolve issues in a timely manner.
  • Define requirements for the collection of first-party data signals across web, mobile app, and in-store experiences to enrich customer profiles and improve identity resolution.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis related to customer identity and behavior.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader data strategy and roadmap, ensuring identity is a core pillar.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate their unique data needs into engineering and platform requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning, retrospectives, and other agile ceremonies within the data and marketing technology teams.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Customer Data Platforms (CDP): Deep, hands-on experience with at least one major CDP like Segment, Tealium AudienceStream, Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), or mParticle.
  • Identity Resolution Technologies: Proficiency with identity vendors and concepts (e.g., LiveRamp, Neustar, Throtle) and an understanding of deterministic and probabilistic matching.
  • SQL & Data Querying: Strong ability to write complex SQL queries to interrogate large datasets, perform analysis, and validate data quality.
  • Data-Privacy Regulations: Solid working knowledge of GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and other privacy frameworks and how they impact data collection and identity management.
  • MarTech/AdTech Ecosystem: Familiarity with the interconnectedness of the marketing technology stack, including DMPs, ESPs, personalization engines, and analytics tools.
  • Data Modeling & Architecture: Understanding of data modeling concepts and the ability to design data flows for customer identity.
  • API & Integration Concepts: Knowledge of how systems connect via APIs and ability to define requirements for data integrations.
  • Data Visualization: Experience using tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Looker to build dashboards and communicate insights about identity data.

Soft Skills

  • Strategic Thinking: Ability to see the big picture and connect identity management to overarching business goals and market trends.
  • Stakeholder Management: Exceptional skill in building relationships, managing expectations, and influencing decision-making across diverse teams (technical, marketing, legal, leadership).
  • Problem-Solving: A talent for untangling complex, ambiguous problems and developing clear, logical, and scalable solutions.
  • Communication & Storytelling: Can translate highly technical concepts into clear, concise, and compelling language for any audience.
  • Project Management: Organized and disciplined, with a proven ability to manage complex projects, define scope, and drive initiatives to completion.
  • Adaptability: Thrives in a fast-paced environment and can quickly pivot strategies in response to technological shifts and regulatory changes.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative, computational, or marketing-related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree (M.S. or MBA) with a focus on Data Science, Marketing Analytics, or Information Systems.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Marketing / Digital Marketing
  • Computer Science / Information Technology
  • Statistics or a related quantitative field
  • Business Administration

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5-8 years of relevant experience in data management, marketing technology, or digital analytics, with at least 3 years in a role directly focused on customer data, segmentation, or identity resolution.

Preferred: Experience working directly with a Customer Data Platform (CDP) in a strategic or administrative capacity. Background in a direct-to-consumer (DTC) or multi-channel retail environment is a significant plus.

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