How does title matching work for personas in Unify?

Unify uses a flexible "fuzzy matching" system for persona title matching with Salesforce and other data sources, including in Champion Tracking. This approach provides greater flexibility when configuring personas without requiring exact title matches.

How fuzzy matching works

The fuzzy matching system operates by:

• Matching personas using a "contains" search - the contact's title must contain every single word from your configured persona

• Ignoring capitalization differences

• Ignoring punctuation marks

• Filtering out extraneous words that don't affect the core meaning

• Does not expand abbreviations to full words (e.g., "CTO" will not match "Chief Technology Officer," and "VP" will not match "Vice President")

• Treats abbreviated and full forms as different words - you may need to create separate persona entries for common variations

When performing persona matching, Unify compares the titles from your connected data sources (such as Salesforce) against the personas you've configured in Unify's settings.

This means that titles in your data sources don't need to match exactly with the persona inputs you configure in Unify.

If you configure a persona as "Supply Chain Director" in Unify's settings, it will successfully match contacts in Salesforce who have the title "Director, Supply Chain". The system recognizes that both contain the key words "Supply Chain" and "Director," regardless of their order or the comma punctuation.

Similarly, if you configure a persona as "Vice President Marketing," it will match contacts with titles like "Vice President of Marketing" or "Vice President of Marketing - Blue Apron at Wonder." The system recognizes the core keywords "Vice," "President," and "Marketing" while filtering out common words like "of" and extra context like company names or divisions.

However, fuzzy matching has important limitations. For instance, "VP Data" would match "VP of Data" but would not match "Vice President of Data" because the system doesn't expand abbreviations like "VP" to their full forms. Similarly, "CTO" would not match "Chief Technology Officer" because the system treats these as different words - you would need to add both as separate persona entries to capture both title variations.

Important considerations for fuzzy matching

While fuzzy matching provides flexibility, it can sometimes match more broadly than intended. For example, a persona configured for "Engineering Executive" might match someone with the title "Head of AI Partnerships" because it contains executive‑level keywords like "Head."

• Use exclude titles: Add keywords to the "exclude titles" section of each persona to filter out unwanted matches (e.g., exclude "sales," "partnerships," "account executive"). Note that exclusions take precedence over inclusions - if a title contains an excluded keyword, it will be filtered out even if it also matches your include titles. For example, excluding "director" will also exclude "Executive Director" or "Director of Marketing" even if those are explicitly listed in your include titles. To avoid this, exclude specific title variants (e.g., "Director of Operations," "Facilities Director") rather than broad terms.

• Review and refine: Monitor your play metrics and enrollment logs to identify unexpected matches and adjust persona configurations accordingly

• Be specific with core keywords: Focus on the most distinctive keywords for each role rather than generic terms

Note: Exclude titles within personas are more effective than separate exclusion segments, as they apply to all prospecting for that persona and work with net‑new contacts not yet in your CRM.

Benefits of fuzzy matching

This flexible approach allows you to:

• Configure personas using relevant keywords that capture title variations

• Avoid the need to create multiple persona entries for similar roles

• Account for different title formatting conventions across your data sources

• Ensure comprehensive coverage of roles without exact title matching requirements

When setting up personas, focus on including the core keywords that represent the role or function.

To ensure comprehensive matching coverage, create separate persona entries for common abbreviations and their full forms (e.g., both "VP" and "Vice President," or both "CTO" and "Chief Technology Officer").