The Sendable Relationship Quietly Defines Your Contact Identity
Duplicate contacts, inconsistent Journey entry, or the same human appears under multiple ContactKeys.
Trust & provenancePRODUCTION
Evidence tierPRODUCTIONOfficial sources1Other sources0Last verifiedNot recorded
Evidence tier describes my hands-on relationship with the content. Official sources describe platform contracts/documentation. Production observations should not automatically be treated as official limits.
For DE entry sources, the sendable relationship field is used when resolving the record into the Contact Model and becomes the ContactKey/SubscriberKey identity. An inconsistent identity rule creates durable contact-model problems.
What to check
- Which DE field is mapped to Subscribers on SubscriberKey?
- Is that value stable across brands/sources/channels?
- Do any existing contacts use a different key for the same person?
Make it cheaper next time
- Define identity before onboarding new sources.
- Treat SubscriberKey/ContactKey as an architecture decision, not a convenient column.
subscriberkeycontactkeysendable deidentity