Autotrader has tracked user behavior with Snowplow for about seven years, across its website, apps and retailer tools. Most visitors browse without signing in, so each Snowplow event carries a device ID rather than an account ID. A shopper who searches on a laptop and then messages a dealer from their phone shows up as two separate profiles.
Beth, Senior Software Engineer from Autotrader, explains why that matters for personalization, and how the team links devices when someone signs in or moves between the app and mobile web.
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