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When Maestra merges two customer profiles — or has to resolve a conflict between them — it doesn’t pick the “winner” at random. There’s a fixed priority hierarchy that decides which profile keeps its email, phone, and identifier, and whose data is preserved in the merged profile. This page explains the rules, when they apply, and how they play out in practice.

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When the priority rules apply

The same hierarchy is used in two situations:
  • Merging is blocked by a conflict. Two profiles can’t be merged because their email, phone number, or external ID contradict each other. Maestra uses the priority rules to decide which contact stays attached to which profile.
  • Merging succeeds and Maestra needs to pick a source of truth. When both profiles carry valid but different data (name, birthday, preferences, segment membership, and so on), the rules decide whose values are written into the merged customer profile.
In both cases, the lower-priority profile’s conflicting data is overwritten — or, when merging is blocked, reassigned — in favor of the higher-priority one.

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The priority hierarchy

Maestra evaluates the two profiles against the following criteria, in order. The first criterion that distinguishes them decides the outcome; ties fall through to the next criterion.
1

There is account access via this contact

The profile whose contact (email or phone) can be used to log in to the account wins. Account access is the strongest signal that the contact really belongs to that person.
2

The contact is confirmed

A confirmed contact — one that has been verified through double opt-in, an SMS code, or a similar check — outranks an unconfirmed one.
3

There is account access via any contact or discount card

Even if the specific contact in conflict doesn’t provide login access, having login access through some other contact or a discount card still raises the profile’s priority.
4

The profile has orders, promo codes, or points activity

A profile with a real purchase or loyalty history outranks an empty profile. This includes orders, issued promo codes, and any movement of loyalty points (earning, spending, or expiring).
5

The profile has any confirmed contacts

If neither profile has account access or order history, the one that holds at least one confirmed contact (of any kind) takes priority.
6

The profile has the most recent personal action or registration date

As a final tiebreaker, Maestra compares the date of the latest personal action — a site visit, an email open, a click, a registration — and keeps the more recently active profile as the higher-priority one.
“Personal action” means an action the customer themselves performed: opening an email, clicking a link, visiting the site, placing an order, registering. Backend events that didn’t originate with the customer don’t count for this tiebreaker.

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How conflicts are resolved in practice

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Example 1 — Phone number with account access beats a conflicting email

Profile A has a phone number that can be used to log in to the account. Profile B has a different email on file, and that email conflicts with one already attached to Profile A. Because Profile A satisfies the top criterion (“there is account access via this contact”), it stays the higher-priority profile. The conflicting email is kept with Profile A, and Profile B’s claim on it is dropped.

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Example 2 — Equal order history, decided by the latest personal action

Two profiles both have orders, neither has account-level access, and neither contact is confirmed. They tie on every criterion until the last one. Maestra then looks at the most recent personal action on each profile. If Profile A’s customer opened an email yesterday and Profile B’s customer last visited the site three months ago, Profile A wins. A site visit and an email open are both valid signals here.

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Example 3 — Priorities are re-evaluated when status changes

Priority isn’t frozen at merge time. If a contact later becomes confirmed — for example, the customer completes a double opt-in — Maestra re-evaluates the hierarchy. Data can shift between profiles as their relative priority changes, so the “winner” of a conflict today may not be the winner tomorrow. This dynamic re-evaluation is what keeps the merged customer profile consistent with the strongest available signals at any given moment.

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Segmentation history after a merge

When two profiles are combined, Maestra keeps the segmentation history of both. For each individual segmentation, it preserves the version with the most recent update date — that’s the snapshot that reflects the customer’s current state. If two segmentation records share the same update date, Maestra falls back to the higher (more recent) segmentation ID as the tiebreaker. This applies to every segmentation independently, so the merged profile can end up with segmentation data drawn from both source profiles.
If a merge result looks wrong — for example, the “wrong” email survived a conflict — walk the two profiles through the hierarchy above one criterion at a time. The first criterion that distinguishes them is the one that decided the outcome.

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What gets overwritten

When the higher-priority profile is chosen, the following data is taken from it and written into the merged customer profile, overwriting the lower-priority profile’s values where they conflict:
  • Email and phone number (when these are the source of the conflict)
  • External identifiers and IDs
  • Personal data fields where both profiles hold different values
Non-conflicting data from the lower-priority profile is still preserved — for example, an order placed under the lower-priority profile stays in the merged order history. Only fields where the two profiles actively disagree are overwritten.
Overwriting is irreversible from the merged profile. If you need to recover an overwritten value, you’ll have to look at the pre-merge change history, not the current customer profile.

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Compliance note

The priority rules are designed to keep the merged customer profile consistent with the contact the customer actually controls and has confirmed. This aligns with consent requirements under GDPR, CCPA, CAN-SPAM, and other applicable privacy laws — the profile attached to a confirmed, login-capable contact is treated as the authoritative one for marketing communications.