Managing Personas in AIQ: Merging, Archiving, and Deletion
AIQ provides several tools for managing personas, including merging accounts, archiving personas, and handling bulk uploads. This guide explains how these processes work and what limitations exist.
Issue 1 — “A shopper is missing”
Likely Cause
The shopper was merged into another persona.AIQ automatically merges personas when they share the same phone number or email address, ensuring duplicate profiles are consolidated into a single account.
Fix
Use the merge search operator:
merge:[email or phone]
Examples:
merge:6035551212 merge:[email protected]
If the shopper appears, they were merged.
Issue 2 — “The wrong email or phone is attached to a persona”
Likely Causes
Duplicate signups
Shared contact info
Staff entering temporary/placeholder data
Stale POS or Ecom PII syncing in
Fix
Navigate to Persona in question, select "History" and "Merges". Locate the profile/merge information that has incorrect Phone Number or Email causing the merged account behavior, and Update the correct PII in the Merges Tab to separate accounts after overnight sync.
Issue 3 — “Transactions are showing under multiple personas”
Likely Causes
Partial PII captured at checkout
POS created duplicate Ecom Profiles
Recent purchase hasn’t merged yet (24-hour processing delay)
Fix
Determine the correct phone/email
Update PII on the correct persona
Wait for the merge to process overnight
For POS systems: shopper may need a new transaction before updated PII syncs.
Issue 4 — “A purchase was made within 24 hours and the merges look wrong”
Reason
AIQ merges overnight. Recent data may not be processed yet.
Fix
Wait 24 hours for merging/unmerging to complete.
Issue 5 — “Staff added placeholder data and now merges are incorrect”
Cause
Fake phone numbers/emails (e.g., 1234567890, [email protected]) were used and accidentally merged with real shoppers.
Fix
Correct the PII in Traits
Reach out to Support if the data must be removed entirely
Retrain staff to avoid placeholder entries
Best Practices to Prevent Merge Issues
Always collect accurate phone + email
Never enter fake PII for checkouts
Strengthen staff training for POS behavior
Only use Name + DOB merging if your use case requires it
When to Escalate to Support
You need PII removed from a merged record
A shopper cannot be located via merge searches
A merge created impossible point totals
You can’t determine the correct “master Persona”
Support can safely adjust PII or undo merges that cannot be corrected through the UI.