This week, Google have announced the long awaited news that cross-device remarketing will be enabled on the Google Display Network and Doubleclick for users that are logged into their Google accounts instead of just using cookies and mobile IDs.
What does this mean?
Up until now, cross device remarketing could only happen when a user had visited both mobile and desktop sites in order to be remarketed across devices. Now, a user who visits a mobile site can later see ads on desktop, apps and other devices.
How will this affect advertisers?
Accurate targeting
Frequency caps and audience lists will be more accurate. Previously, a user who visited mobile, and then desktop would be considered two users which meant being added to two audience lists and two frequency cap settings. The new cross-device tracking would reduce any overlap, wasted impressions and over-serving impressions to the same user.
Smarter creatives
The accuracy of cross-device remarketing can allow advertisers to be smarter with creative elements and allow sequential targeting. For example, showing an initial ad on mobile which is followed up with complimentary ads on desktop.
Budget allocation
More and accurate conversion data by device will allow for better budget allocation across devices – seeing an increase in mobile conversion rate would reduce spend and reliance on desktop activity and vice versa.
The concern?
As Google states, this is only available for logged in users – which, based on the proportion of “not provided” data in GA, only accounts for 10-15% people online. This means that as much as it is an improvement, the vast majority of cross-device remarketing will still fall under the usual process of cookies and mobile IDs, which is often unreliable. More deterministic approaches need to be looked at for accurate cross device tracking, such as integrating website sign-in account data to Adwords remarketing lists.
If you’d like to find out how we can support your remarketing strategy, get in touch with our Display team today.
