#Device ID , #Programmatic , #Thought Leadership , #Advertising ID , #Consumer Privacy , #mobile advertising

A Call to Mobile Browsers

Written by Tom Desaulniers - 2 min read

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Today’s column, originally published on AdExchanger is written by Tom Desaulniers, co-founder and president at Go2mobi.

The mobile ad space is in transition. Mobile programmatic is exploding and global spend is at an all-time high. That has created a lucrative industry where the technology is getting smarter and the ad industry is following suit – with one exception.

The attribution problem is not a new one, and many would argue that there is a current solution available: cookie-based attribution. An alarming 91% of marketers still depend on cookie-based tracking that is probabilistically matched to identify mobile users, according to eMarketer.

But targeting across mobile web and desktop by probabilistically matching cookies is only a short-term solution. Cookie-based data and probabilistic methods are not good enough to create reliable persona-based audience targeting techniques on mobile platforms.

Apps, which take up almost 90% of users’ mobile time, already pass the unique advertising ID as a matter of protocol but mobile browsers do not. Mobile browsing still makes up an important part of the consumer journey, but without the advertising ID we’re mostly left in the dark.

Mobile browsers still use cookies for probabilistic matching and cookies do not work for advertisers or consumers in any way. Not only are cookies unreliable for advertisers, they’re not easily understood or accessible by consumers. Overall, cookies are a lose-lose situation within the ad world.

There is a better solution available if mobile web browsers would consider passing the advertising ID.