IDs Defined

Resonate accepts HEMs, MAIDs, and IP Addresses for Direct Data Onboarding.  

Our preferred priority order of ID types are HEMs, MAIDs, and then IP addresses.

HEMs are recommended because emails are a stable ID that represent a known customer that is unique to an individual. When sending HEMs, we recommend MD5 due to the persistence of the IDs as the longest and most continuously available ID.

If you do not have emails, MAIDs are also a reliable identifier for individual-level insights but are not as widely available due to Apple’s consumer privacy options. Though still extremely valuable, IP addresses are naturally matched at a household-level, so we recommend emails or MAIDs first if you have access to those IDs.

Hashed Emails (HEMs)

HEM is short for Hashed Email. Unlike a third-party cookie, the email address is a stable ID that represents a known customer. It is unique to that individual and remains persistent across all devices, apps, and browsers.

Through hashing, consumer email addresses are transformed into anonymized identifiers that obfuscates personally identifiable information, resulting in a useful people-based anonymous identifier.

“Hashing” is simply a process of encoding email addresses using a cryptographic hashing function. This process creates an unrecognizable string of characters, or hash, to represent the email. Each hash has a fixed number of characters, depending on the type of hash function used. 

 Resonate accepts the following hashed emails:

1. MD5 (preferred): MD5 (Message-Digest algorithm 5) is a widely used cryptographic hash function that creates a 32-character hexadecimal number. For example, ec55d3e698d289f2afd663725127

2. SHA-1: SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) generates a 40-character hexadecimal number. For example, A94A8FE5CCB19BA61C4C0873D391E987982FBBD3

3. SHA-256: SHA 256 is a part of the SHA 2 family of algorithms, and generates a 64-character hexadecimal number. For example, 051f26bd6cde782239bf52e56854d3feeca75ae5a84508d1ff9a1868ba167ee5

Mobile Advertising IDs (MAIDs)

The mobile advertising ID, also known as a mobile ad ID or a MAID, is a sequence of alphanumeric characters assigned to a mobile phone or tablet by the device’s operating system, either iOS or Android.

The mobile ad ID's creation allowed mobile applications to pseudo-anonymously collect data about the usage patterns of a mobile phone.  The mobile operating systems, primarily Android and iOS, control how MAIDs work, including allowing users to opt-out of their usage.

Connection to a specific device also means that you can enrich MAIDs with additional insights—like personal interests, propensity to buy, and more. This allows you to segment and drive more personalized mobile ad campaigns.

IP Addresses

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a unique number assigned to every device on a network. Every single device that is connected to the internet has an IP address.

The purpose of an IP address is to handle the connection between devices that send and receive information across a network. IP addresses allow computing devices (such as PCs and tablets) to communicate with destinations like websites and streaming services, and they let websites know who is connecting.

Resonate accepts IPv4 addresses. IPv4 addresses contain a series of four numbers, ranging from 0 (except the first one) to 255, each separated from the next by a period — such as 5.62.42.77.