Experience Platform · Data lifecycle
Retain or delete
The store has 1.2 million profiles in Real-Time Customer Profile and a licence for 1 million. They are not all worth the same, and they are not all deleted with the same tool. AEP has four, with different timelines and effects, and everything they delete is permanent.
Example assumptions
Example store, profile figures and licence.
Real-Time Customer Profile · licence
Profiles remaining
What stays in each group against a licence for 1 million. And over time, which anonymous profiles are deleted and which events expire.
Privacy Service · Data Lifecycle · expirations
Each group, its tool
One card per group: tool, scope or timeline, and what follows from the decision you made.
The recommendation
A written retention policy per group, each group with its tool, and audiences aligned with what expires
Deleting in AEP cannot be undone, so the decision is not technical: business and legal sign it off. The technical part is not using the wrong tool.
- 01
Each case, its tool
Anonymous visitors who never return: Pseudonymous profile data expiration. Old events: Experience Event expirations. Corrupt data: record delete. Erasure: Privacy Service, always.
- 02
Written and signed policy
Which group is deleted, from when and who approves it. Corrupt data can go without debate; leads without consent cannot.
- 03
Aligned audiences
No audience can look back further than the expiry of its events. Review reactivation audiences before turning an expiry on.
- 04
Test it and measure it
Configure it first in a development sandbox, measure with Query Service how many profiles fall into each group and repeat the measurement every month.