The promise of reaching users on any device, is great — and marketers know they need a cross-device strategy, but do they really understand where to start? “Cross-device” might seem buzzword-ish, but it’s more than a passing fad. Nielsen estimates that Americans own an average of four digital devices and engage with media content across screens for more than 60 hours per week. These principles will influence how companies market and grow for the next fifty years. Here are four things marketers need to understand about cross-device.

It’s all about the customer journey

Mobile phones are becoming consumers’ primary device for accessing the internet — 65 percent of users start a purchase on their phone, but complete the transaction on another device, according to Google.

Consumers don’t make purchase decisions in one instance, or on one device. Someone looking to buy a new camera might hear about a new model from a friend via text message, then start their research on mobile search. Later, they might pick up the search on their laptop, once they’ve evaluated alternatives and are ready to purchase. Understanding the user’s behavior on each device helps marketers know when the purchase was made and ensure that the user won’t continue to be targeted for the same product after they buy it.

The fundamentals: deterministic and probabilistic identity

There are two main ways to identify a single person across multiple devices:

• Deterministic cross-device matching uses a stable identifier, usually an email addresses, to match multiple devices with a single user. This data can be generated through login events, purchases, or other processes where a user enters data identifying themselves. This method is generally understood to be more precise, but more difficult to scale, as there are limited websites and platforms with email logins.
• Probabilistic models use an algorithm to infer that two or more devices are likely to belong to a single person. For instance, the regularity with which a mobile phone and laptop use the same Wi-Fi network, have similar apps, move around together, etc. As the name implies, probabilistic models revolve around a probability that there’s a match. These models can often be tuned to set a higher threshold for precision, but deliver fewer matches or tuned for higher precision, but lower scale.

It’s actually not an either/or…

As deterministic and probabilistic approaches each have their own strengths and weaknesses, it often makes sense to leverage a combination of the two. Hybrid solutions, which combine the accuracy of deterministic data with the scale of probabilistic, are already becoming available, and will most likely become more common as cross-device targeting matures.

Understand the difference between precision and accuracy

It’s good to be aware of how cross-device metrics are defined. Within cross-device, the term “accuracy” isn’t as specific as one would think. When matching devices, accuracy accounts for the total number of matches correctly identified, in addition to predicted matches (including false positives). Alternatively, “precision” denotes the percentage of correct matches out of the total possible predicted matches. In other words, unlike an accuracy measure, precision numbers only include correct matches. Sometimes these words are used interchangeably, so it’s important to understand the difference so you know the right questions to ask.

Attribution is just as important as acquisition

Scaling up reach isn’t the only reason cross-device capabilities are important. Marketers also need to understand where and how the user converted. If a purchase was made on a desktop, was the user originally targeted via mobile? Capturing the entire customer journey and relating it back to a single user helps you understand what’s working and what’s not. For many retailers, mobile conversion rates are still much lower than on desktop. It’s therefore important to understand how many desktop conversions were influenced by mobile ads to make sure the value of those impressions are accurately captured

Mobile is evolving, becoming a platform that encompasses multiple devices and interfaces, and marketing strategy needs to evolve with it. As people spend more time on different devices, marketers need to move along with their customers. Fortunately, cross-device solutions are rapidly improving and are often baked into your media execution of choice. By understanding a few basic concepts you can tap into a massive opportunity as reaching your customers across devices evolves from a nice to have to a need to have.

AdRoll provides technology that enables advertisers to retarget online consumers across devices.

 

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