White Paper: The Evolution of Consumer Identity: 10 Predictions for 2015

THE EVOLUTION OF
CONSUMER IDENTITY
10
PREDICTIONS
FOR 2015

GIGYA.COM | 2
THE FUTURE OF
CONSUMER
IDENTITY
Growth in consumer demands for personalization, omni-channel experiences and data transparency
caused leading brands to reevaluate the way they collect, store and apply customer identity data in 2014.
!
As 2015 draws near, we’ve taken stock of growing trends, examined industry forecasts and consulted our
crystal ball to compile a list of ten consumer identity-related predictions poised to impact your business
over the course of the next year.

PREDICTION #1:
Apple will become an identity provider.

GIGYA.COM | 4
APPLE WILL BECOME AN
IDENTITY PROVIDER.
While the introduction of Apple Pay in 2014 marked Apple’s first real foray into identity, 2015 will be the year
that Tim Cook and crew stake their claim as a true third-party consumer Identity Provider (IdP).
!
With over 200 million credit cards on file, deep relationships with financial institutions, knowledge of users’
on-device browsing behaviors, and insight into app downloads and usage, Apple has the ability to provide its
millions of customers with unprecedented relevance and convenience as they move across the web.
!
By making Apple ID usable outside of the brand’s own products and services, Apple has the
potential to majorly disrupt the identity landscape and position Apple ID as the new standard for
consumer identity in 2015.

PREDICTION #2:
Payment providers will become
mainstream IdPs on mobile devices.

GIGYA.COM | 6
PAYMENT PROVIDERS WILL
BECOME MAINSTREAM IDPS ON
MOBILE DEVICES.
According to The Goldman Sachs Group, worldwide mobile commerce sales will account for nearly half of
total web sales by 2018. With more than 60% of consumers likely to choose social over traditional registration
when using mobile devices, expect to see a spike in share of social logins for payment providers like PayPal,
Amazon and Google.
!
On top of making it fast and easy for consumers to authenticate at site entry, these payment providers
reduce barrier to checkout by pre-populating purchase fields with shoppers’ existing payment details,
simplifying the mobile checkout process to just a few taps.

PREDICTION #3:
Regional regulations about consumer
data will increase.

GIGYA.COM | 8
REGIONAL REGULATIONS
ABOUT CONSUMER DATA WILL
INCREASE.
As countries across the globe become increasingly protective of their citizens’ data,
countries from Germany to Brazil are considering laws around international data storage
and the use of local data centers.
!
With consumer identity quickly becoming integral to how businesses “know the customer,”
regional identity data regulation will continue to tighten over the course of 2015.
As Russia rolls out its local storage mandate, countries across the world are sure to follow suit,
forcing multi-national corporations to re-think how they store and use international customer data.

PREDICTION #4:
First-party identity data will continue to
replace third-party cookie data.

GIGYA.COM | 10
FIRST-PARTY IDENTITY DATA
WILL CONTINUE TO REPLACE
THIRD-PARTY COOKIE DATA.
Not only is being unknowingly “cookied” and tracked across the Internet a violation of consumer privacy, but
third-party cookies provide merely a peek at device-specific browser history that may or may not belong to a
known user.
Cookies are simply not effective across mobile devices, which now comprise
up to 55% of total monthly Internet activity in the US. As customer demands for
privacy and personalization escalate in 2015, so will the adoption of identity
data among leading businesses aiming to construct a permission-based,
omni-channel view of their customers.

PREDICTION #5:
Facebook will maintain its majority
position as an IdP.

GIGYA.COM | 12
FACEBOOK WILL MAINTAIN ITS
MAJORITY POSITION AS AN IDP.
Despite fierce competition across the social
login landscape, Facebook has managed to
cling to its position as the majority IdP across
devices, industries and locations.
!
In fact, the world’s largest social network even
made incremental gains following the addition of
new Facebook Login consumer data controls in
Q2 2014. These new features, which include
line-by-line permissions and anonymous login,
have had a positive impact on consumers’
perception of the social network and usage of
Facebook as an IdP, which we will continue to
see throughout 2015.

PREDICTION #6:
Yahoo’s presence as an IdP will
disappear.

GIGYA.COM | 14
YAHOO’S PRESENCE AS AN IDP
WILL DISAPPEAR.
It’s hard to believe that Yahoo’s quarterly share of social logins has fallen from a notable 18% to a dismal 6%
in just one year.
!
Not to mention, the network’s once 21% share of logins across North America has dropped 15 percentage
points since Q3 2013. Once an identity provider of note, Yahoo will continue to face a steady decline as
networks like Facebook and Google+ edge the company out of the IdP game.
Despite its attempt to own consumer identity on its “home base” by barring
Facebook and Google+ login across major Yahoo properties, Yahoo will have
to find a way to increase the value of users’ Yahoo identities to continue to
rank as a third-party IdP - a move that the network is unlikely to make.

PREDICTION #7:
Customer identity will become integral
to the success of marketing.

GIGYA.COM | 16
CUSTOMER IDENTITY WILL
BECOME INTEGRAL TO THE
SUCCESS OF MARKETING.
According to a recent Experian survey, only 24% of businesses claim to have a single view of their
customers across channels.
As consumers create an increasing volume of data across a growing breadth of touchpoints and
devices, a clear understanding of identity will become imperative to building meaningful customer
journeys and relationships.
Consumer-facing businesses
will need to reconstruct the way
they collect and manage
customer identities, and
marketing and IT will have to
work together to put a
comprehensive external identity
management strategy in place.

PREDICTION #8:
“Identity 3.0” will take hold.

GIGYA.COM | 18
“IDENTITY 3.0” WILL TAKE
HOLD.
In the late 1990s, Microsoft Passport helped introduce the concept of third-party identity
across the web by enabling consumers to login to various sites using a single username and
password. Facebook Connect and other social identity providers ushered in the second
generation of web identity, allowing users to login with existing social media identities while
providing brands with the information needed to personalize user experiences.
Yet as consumers’ real identities become increasingly intertwined with their virtual lives, we can
expect Identity 3.0 to come to full fruition in 2015.
!
Identity 3.0 goes beyond social identities to include next-generation authentication methods, increased
security and new applications of identity. 2014 saw the onset of Identity 3.0 as more consumers leveraged
payment providers like PayPal to verify their identities and streamline checkout across ecommerce
properties. The introduction of Twitter Digits, which allows users to authenticate using their phone numbers,
and ApplePay’s Touch ID, which uses biometrics to identify shoppers at the POS, also marked the beginning
stages of Identity 3.0.

PREDICTION #9:
Consumers will demand control over
their identity data.

GIGYA.COM | 20
CONSUMERS WILL DEMAND
CONTROL OVER THEIR
IDENTITY DATA.
As consumers share more personal information across the web, they are becoming increasingly wary of
how businesses are collecting and using their data.
!
A recent Gigya survey found that while over 80% of consumers have abandoned online registration because
they didn’t like the amount and/or type of information being requested, 45% are willing to share that
information if the brand makes it clear how it will be used.
!
Businesses must put transparency at the forefront of their data practices in 2015 and
proactively address these privacy concerns by letting customers know upfront
what data they want to collect, explaining how it will be used and allowing them
to easily opt in and out.

PREDICTION #10:
Identity will become central to
the Internet of Things.

GIGYA.COM | 22
IDENTITY WILL BECOME
CENTRAL TO THE INTERNET OF
THINGS.
The number of connected devices is expected to grow to more than 25 billion by 2020, and as consumers
continue to build their arsenal of smart gadgets in 2015, they will look to brands to enhance connectivity
and improve user experiences.
!
The wristband that measures users’ activity levels will soon be a commodity. But the one that evaluates their
heart rates and adjusts the speed of their treadmills based on their fitness profiles is golden.
!
Central identity between devices will take the Internet of Things to a whole new level, enabling them to
communicate with one another and create a personalized lifestyle for consumers.

To learn how Gigya can help your business navigate the future of customer identity, visit gigya.com, or call us
at 888.660.1469.
Gigya's Customer Identity Management Platform helps companies build better customer relationships by turning unknown
visitors into known, loyal and engaged customers. With Gigya’s technology, businesses increase registrations and identify
customers across devices, consolidate data into rich customer profiles, and provide better service, products and experiences
by integrating data into marketing and service applications.
Gigya's platform was designed from the ground up for social identities, mobile devices, consumer privacy and modern
marketing. Gigya provides developers with the APIs they need to easily build and maintain secure and scalable registration,
authentication, profile management, data analytics and third-party integrations.
More than 700 of the world’s leading businesses such as Fox, Forbes, and Verizon rely on Gigya to build identity-driven
relationships and to provide scalable, secure Customer Identity Management.
© 2014 Gigya Incorporated. All rights reserved. Gigya, the Gigya logo, and Customer Identity Management Platform are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Gigya
Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. !G
igya does not own any end user data or maintain any other rights to this data, other than utilizing it to make Gigya's services available to our clients and their end users. Gigya
acts as an agent or back-end vendor of its client's website or mobile application, to which the end user of our client granted permissions (if applicable). Gigya facilitates the
collection, transfer and storage of end user data solely on behalf of its clients and at its clients' direction. For more information, please see Gigya's Privacy Policy, available at
http://www.gigya.com/privacy-policy/.
ABOUT GIGYA

White Paper: The Evolution of Consumer Identity: 10 Predictions for 2015

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to White Paper: The Evolution of Consumer Identity: 10 Predictions for 2015

More from Gigya

Recently uploaded

White Paper: The Evolution of Consumer Identity: 10 Predictions for 2015