Introducing Resonate Digital Twins: Fast Answers to New Questions, Grounded in Real People

Key Takeaways: 

• Brands and agencies regularly face questions their existing data can’t answer, and traditional custom research can take more than six months to answer them. 
• Resonate Digital Twins are AI representations of real people, each built from one actual, ID-matched person’s data, that answer new questions the way that person would. 
• Every result is validated against real evidence the model never saw, then projected across the US adult population at the individual level. 
• The output is a targetable audience you can explore, segment, and activate, delivered in about five days. 

At some point in your marketing career, you’ll hit the same wall every other marketer does: You need to answer a question about an audience, but you don’t have a long enough timeline or the budget to justify custom research.  

Fielded studies and focus groups are great for the real human baseline they provide, but they have two big downsides: They’re expensive, and they take—at minimum—weeks. Agencies pitching a new client don’t have the time or the money to go with the custom research route. Same for brands planning a fast-moving launch or sweating under the looming deadline of a new market or pricing decision. 

There’s a new answer to the age-old problem of “too little money, too little time.” It’s Resonate Digital Twins, which gives you a faster path from a new question to an answer you can act on. 

What Is Resonate Digital Twins? 

First, let’s start with a basic definition: A digital twin is an AI representation or simulation of individuals used to predict and anticipate their behavior and responses. It’s a model that can be built on real data or a real customer and then outputs synthetic data, which you’ve likely heard of due to its rapid proliferation in the marketing industry.  

Now, let’s move on to Resonate Digital Twins. We create digital twins grounded in real people’s responses, ask questions of those twins, and then use our methodology to turn the responses into synthetic data attributes we deliver at the individual level.  

Essentially, we survey our digital twins the same way you’d survey real people. In fact, each twin is built from one actual, ID-matched person in our US Consumer Study using that individual’s own data. Their survey answers are then combined with deterministic consumer data and our predictive consumer intelligence, which reveals the “why” behind human behaviors. 

Then, we ask a question, and each twin answers in its own words, as the person it represents would. Those answers then become synthetic data: new, individual-level attributes you can use like any other attribute in the Resonate Ignite Platform or Resonate Cortex. That means you have an actual, activatable audience you can put real media against right away. 

How Does Resonate Digital Twins Work? 

Resonate Digital Twins turns every source of real human evidence into individual-level predictions you can activate in seven steps: 

1. Define the question. We start with the decision you need to make, such as who prefers what, who’s likely to switch, or how people will respond to a message. 
2. Gather the evidence. We pull in everything that’s relevant to your question. Our foundation is a robust identity graph and directly collected data on more than one million people. That includes more than 100 million human responses to our US Consumer Study and more than 30 billion daily observed behaviors. We add your own surveys and trackers, AI deep research across published polls, studies and benchmarks, and Census and known public data. 
3. Build the frame. We assemble real, ID-matched people from our identity graph and your own file, grouped into cells as small as a few dozen people. 
4. Set target context. We use the evidence to set targets for each cell: a prior estimate of how many people in each cell hold each view. Those targets are applied to the twins’ answers afterward, never fed to the AI, so results stay anchored to real data. 
5. Interview the twins. Each person in the frame has a digital twin: an AI representation grounded in their real and modeled attributes and built to predict how they think, feel and respond. We ask each twin your question and capture its answer in its own words. The answers provide individual-level detail and, in addition, give plain-English reasons why they chose the way they did. 
6. Validate against hold-out evidence. We grade every build against evidence the model never saw to confirm the results hold up. 
7. Project and deliver. We score every individual in the adult US population, not an aggregate estimate, and then we use that data to create audiences specific to your need, which we then deliver into Ignite, Cortex, or your CRM. That gives you a targetable audience you can explore, segment, and activate. 

From defining your question to delivering validated results, the process takes about five days. 

What Makes Resonate Digital Twins Different from Other Synthetic Offerings? 

Four things set Resonate Digital Twins apart from other synthetic data approaches on the market: 

1. Individually grounded. Resonate Digital Twins start with a multi-ID identity graph and a foundation of directly collected data we use to build predictions on 250M+ US adults: more than 100 million human responses to our US Consumer Study from over a million people, plus more than 30 billion daily observed behaviors with 15K+ attributes on every US adult. We build our digital twins on that foundation and then extend the results to every US adult, not just the people who answered. 
2. Traceable results, validated against reality. Every twin answers in its own words, so you can see the reasoning behind each result. Sensitive judgment calls are anchored to published, independent research. Results are checked against real survey responses and, where possible, real-world outcomes. 
3. Days, not months. You get an audience within a week, instead of the weeks or months a custom fielded study takes. 
4. The only solution that turns answers into audiences. Other options stop at insight: a report, a slide deck, a population estimate. Resonate Digital Twins resolves every result to Resonate’s identity graph, so you walk away with an audience you can put media against. 

What Can Resonate Digital Twins Be Used For? 

Resonate Digital Twins supports use cases across the buying cycle, from winning new audiences to growing and protecting the relationships you already have: 

• Forecast scenarios: Predict how a market will respond to a message, offer, or scenario before you act. Data from Resonate’s Digital Twins was used to run a $5M dollar campaign in the NY-12 congressional primary, in which the Resonate candidate outperformed projections by more than 5%. 

• Guide campaign decisions early: Preview how an audience is likely to respond before you finalize the plan or launch a product, so you can adjust based on a real signal instead of a guess. A luxury jewelry brand had preference maps of the 25 largest US metro areas before buying a single billboard, showing exactly where its buyers live. 

• Explore new products, markets or segments: Understand a market or segment’s preferences before you invest in it. For the luxury jewelry brand, Digital Twins scored every US adult and found 23 million who lean toward the premium product but aren’t sold yet, delivered as an audience now in-market and helped refine an out-of-home strategy. 

• Reach hard-to-recruit audiences: Surface niche segments that a traditional panel can’t reach quickly or affordably. In a health audience prototype, we’re identifying adults likely to have undiagnosed Type-2 Diabetes, people that claims’ data and panels can’t find. 

• Test before you launch: Test a new offer, price, or message before committing spend. The luxury jewelry brand learned its biggest opportunity was really two groups with different reasons for their purchase choice, and each needed its own message. The same brand priced their lower-cost alternative 20% higher, and 88% of the people who preferred it switched to the premium product.  

• Understand the why: Mine open-ended responses to understand not just what your audience thinks, but why. In one state primary test, digital twin representation of voters’ own words showed the race turned on electability, not ideology. 

What Are Some Real Examples of Digital Twins in Action? 

First, let’s look at a case study that’s relevant for brands. 

A luxury jewelry brand needed to know who would choose its premium product over a lower-priced alternative. It had to be ready for the brand’s Q4 campaign, and a traditional survey couldn’t meet the budget or timeline. Resonate Digital Twins showed the brand:  

• Its biggest growth opportunity: shoppers who lean its way but can still be swayed 
• That price, not availability, is what pulls them away 
• That more than half of US adults aren’t in the market and can be left out of media plans 

The brand received four ready-to-activate segments, plus preference maps of the 25 largest metros for billboard planning. Two benchmark measures held back from calibration were matched within three points. 

Now, let’s look at an agency case study.  

“Our client needed more answers than we’d previously been able to give them. What’s more, they operate in a category lacking direct purchase data to leverage. This meant we needed to go straight to the source and ask consumers questions about their unique preferences,” says Julia Weiss, VP of Media at WPromote x Giant Spoon. “Resonate’s Digital Twins made it possible to see meaningful distinctions between potential customers that we previously couldn’t access. We quickly got answers to important client questions, and the insights from Digital Twins provided a real audience we could activate and target with media.”   

What Do We Deliver? 

Some market providers create and deliver digital twins you can interact and chat with. That’s not our approach. Instead, our experts will build the twins and ask them your questions, whether you only have one query or need a subscription to ask multiple questions each month.  

There are two ways to get the answers you need, fast:  

1. Get an Audience: Ask something we haven’t fielded. We model and scale to the full population so there’s a response associated with every individual. We deliver an audience you can put media against right away via Ignite or Cortex or as a managed service.
2. Get Insights: Ask something we haven’t fielded. This doesn’t get modeled and scaled to the full population but delivers the answers and responses as a report. It works like an AI-powered focus group: a fast, directional read. Insights are delivered via a summary report that, without activation involved. 

Ready to Answer Your Next Question in Days? 

To learn more about synthetic data in general, check out our handy primer on synthetic data and digital twins. If you’re ready to find out how Resonate Digital Twins can turn your next big question into an audience you can act on at speed, schedule a consultation today.  

Frequently Asked Questions 

What is a digital twin? 

A digital twin is an AI representation of a real person, built to predict how that person thinks, feels, and responds. Resonate Digital Twins are each built from one actual, ID-matched person’s data. 

What’s the difference between a digital twin and synthetic data? 

The digital twin is the model of the person. Synthetic data is the output: when a twin answers a question, its answer becomes a synthetic data point you can use like any other attribute. 

How long does it take? 

About five days from defining your question to delivering validated results. 

Can I bring my own research? 

Yes. Your surveys, trackers, and focus group findings are among the first inputs, and results can be calibrated to them.