Why Autotrader builds profiles for people, not devices

Autotrader's personalization engine builds a profile of what each visitor is interested in and scores how likely they are to buy.

Richard, Senior Software Engineer at Autotrader, explains what changes when those profiles are built per person instead of per device. Repeat ad views and dealer calls across a phone and a laptop add up, so the score reflects the whole journey.

From the talk "Build or buy: real-time identity resolution at Autotrader", recorded at Big Data London 2026.

Watch the full talk: https://snowplow.io/events/build-or-buy-real-time-identity-resolution-at-autotrader