zkipster Audience is a powerful tool that allows you to store and manage your contacts data seamlessly, using data that is exclusive to each individual (unique identifiers) to ensure contact profiles are unique and updated accurately to avoid important data being overwritten or duplicates being created.
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🔍 What Is a Unique Identifier?
A Unique Identifier is a type of value that must be unique for each contact in your Audience contact list. The UID field is used by the system whenever data is being added to Audience to crosscheck with existing contact profiles and prevent you from creating duplicates and compromising the accuracy of your Audience database.
The best Unique Identifier for you to set up will depend on what data you already have from your contacts and, amongst that, what piece of data is unique to each individual contact.
The most common fields set as unique identifiers are:
Primary Email Address
External ID
Custom Fields*
*Please note: Not all custom fields or default fields are available to be set as UIDs. Please refer to this section below to learn what fields can be set as a unique identifier.
🛡️ Why Unique Identifier Fields (UID) Matter
Using UIDs helps you:
Prevent duplicate contact profiles during manual or automated imports of contact data.
Maintain data consistency when syncing between zkipster Events and Audience.
For example, if John Doe is already a contact in your Audience account with the primary email john.doe@zkipsterevents.com and you set up the 'Primary Email' field as the UID, when someone else imports a spreadsheet that includes the same email address on that field, the system will detect the match, prevent a new duplicate contact from being created and trigger an Error:
To learn more about how to resolve errors when importing data to Audience, see the article: How to resolve data conflicts in Audience.
⚙️ How to Configure Individual Fields as Unique Identifiers in Audience
Go to the Configurations Menu
Navigate to the left-hand side menu and open the 'Configurations' page. Under the Unique Fields section, click 'Individual UID Fields' to manage your UID.
Default Unique Field - zkipster Contact ID
Every Audience contact automatically gets a zkipster Contact ID - this is always unique to each profile and cannot be changed.
Choose Up to 3 Additional Unique Fields
On top of the 'Contact ID' field, you can define up to three additional UIDs by clicking on the 'Add Option +' button and using the dropdown menu to select the field:
Please Note: You don’t need to add all three additional UIDs - only define those that make sense for your data.
If you need to remove a UID, simply click on the 'minus' icon on the right side of the field:
Validate the Field
If the field you select already has duplicate values in your existing Audience contact list, a red exclamation mark will appear.
If the select field values are all unique across your existing contact database, you’ll see a green check mark, and you can proceed.
Click on 'Save Changes'.
⚙️ How to Configure Combined Fields as Unique Identifiers in Audience
As an alternative configuration to using a single Field as a Unique Identifier, zkipster Audience allows you to combine either 2 or 3 Fields to determine the conditions that must be met for a Contact to be considered unique.
When 2 or 3 Fields are selected as Unique Identifiers, a duplicate is only flagged if all Fields match an existing Contact.
Go to the Configurations Menu
Navigate to the left-hand side menu and open the 'Configurations' page. Under the Unique Fields section, you can manage your UID. Click 'Combined UID Fields' to set up or activate this option.
Choose either 2 or 3 Fields to use as your Unique Identifiers from the 'Combined UID' dropdown menu
In the example GIF above, I have selected First Name, Last Name, and Email. This means that Contacts can share 2 out of 3 of these Fields while still being considered unique.
If you need to remove a UID, simply click on the 'X' icon on the right side of the field:
Validate the Field
If the Fields you select already have duplicate values in your existing Audience contact list, a red exclamation mark will appear, along with the error message, 'Value not unique across Contacts'.
If the selected Field values are all unique across your existing contact database, you will see a green check mark, and you can proceed.
Click on 'Save Changes' when you are finished.
🔁 Using Unique Identifiers with zkipster Events Integration Enabled
When using the integration between zkipster Events and zkipster Audience, the UID field(s) is what zkipster uses to identify if guest data being imported from Events should result in the creation of a new contact profile in Audience or if it should update an existing contact.
zkipster Events integration with Individual Fields as UID
For example, if the 'Email' is the field I defined as the UID on both Events and Audience, when I select to add guests from Events as contacts in Audience, the system will crosscheck the data from the 'Email' field being imported from Events with the emails already present in Audience. If a contact is located with the same email address on the 'Email' field as a guest being imported, instead of a new contact being created, the system will update the existing contact with the same email address.
To define the UID that should be used when syncing data across Events x Audience:
1 - Open the 'Integrations' page in Audience.
2 - From the top section, select the UID field in Events and match with its equivalent field in Audience.
Example:
If “Email (Primary)” is the UID:
A guest profile with john.doe@zkipsterevents.com on the 'Email' field is imported from Events into Audience -> zkipster searches for existing contacts with primary email 'john.doe@zkipsterevents.com' and locates a contact -> Importing will update the existing contact.
zkipster Events integration with Combined Fields as UID
Combined Fields allow you to select two or three data points to define whether a Contact is unique. Audience will then only match a Guest in an Event to a Contact in Audience if all selected fields match exactly.
Common combinations include:
First Name + Last Name + Email
First Name + Last Name + External ID
Email + Last Name + External ID
Why Use Combined Fields?
Prevent Overwriting: Ensures that family members sharing the same email and address are treated as two distinct Contacts.
Data Integrity: Reduces the risk of "false matches" where Guests with common names or shared contact details might otherwise be merged incorrectly.
Flexibility: Ideal for organizations transitioning from legacy systems that do not use a single unique ID or CRM code.
How to Set Up Combined Fields as UID
1 - Navigate to Integrations: From the left-hand sidebar, click on Integrations.
2 - From the 3 dropdown boxes at the top of the screen, select the UID Fields in Events and match with their equivalent Fields in Audience.
3 - Configure your Automation Settings to define the action that is taken in Audience when a guest is created, deleted, or updated in zkipster Events.
4 - Save your changes and toggle zkipster Events ON, from the top of this screen.
🧩 Which Fields Can Be Unique Identifiers (and Which Cannot)
Not all contact fields in Audience can be used as UIDs. Only fields that accept a single, plain value are eligible. These include:
Standard text fields such as Email (Primary), External ID, First Name, Last Name, Nickname, Note, Salutation, Suffix.
All custom fields that are type Text Box or Number.
However, fields that support multiple inputs or alternative formats are not allowed. These include:
Multi-value or multi-choice fields (e.g., labels or tags)
Custom fields with formats: Color, Single Choice, Multiple Choice
Color fields
Alternative contact fields
Address fields
Socials fields
Relationships fields
These types of fields are excluded because they do not guarantee a single, unique value per contact—something that’s essential for effective deduplication and integration.
✅ Best Practices
Use stable, unique values—emails or CRM IDs are often ideal.
Avoid fields that can potentially have shared values in the future, like Last Name or Organization.
Double-check for potential contact duplicates before setting a field as unique.
By properly configuring unique fields, you ensure smoother imports, cleaner data, and more efficient guest management across all zkipster tools. Need further help? Please reach out to our Support team via support@zkipster.com or refer to our Help Center.