The first part of our series on Mobile Device ID Targeting attempted to describe something that can be difficult to understand – What the technology is, how mobile ID targeting allows us to time travel, and why this form of digital audience targeting can be so successful. But how does this technology work?
What is my Mobile Device ID and Who Gave Permission to Follow It?
A mobile ID is not a phone number. It is the number that allows your cell phone to travel between cell towers without dropping a call. It allows your phone to be tracked from location to location.
If you wonder why you’re being followed, it is simple: you gave an app on your phone permission to track where you are so that it can better provide its service. Accuweather, Wayze…any sort of map or weather or news app…they all want to track your location so they can provide you directions or a forecast or local news. Even if you’ve turned off tracking permissions on your phone, if you’ve allowed one of these apps to know your GPS location then you are being tracked. These apps share this data, and sell the data to providers. So, although we don’t know who a phone belongs to, we do know where that phone has been. We can also identify other devices or platforms to which that phone is connected.
How Do We Get This Information?
Apps sell this information to data providers, and the data providers make that data available for purchase. Again, your anonymity is still intact. We are not able to see data inside your phone or learn your identity through this information at Digital Record. We don’t even know your phone number. But we do know where your phone has been, so this builds first-party data we can use for marketing. As a digital media agency, we pick the locations, dates and times for which we want to identify the cell phones that were in that location, then build the list.
How Long Do These Lists Last?
We can use a mobile ID list as long as we feel it remains relevant. However, the further back in time you travel, the more the list of phones will degrade in quality. So, it really depends upon how tight your audience is. We will go back in time over a year to target a specific event, but if we’re just looking for, say, restaurant-goers, any more than a couple of months is probably too far out.
Another Key to Success
We don’t actually pay to purchase these audiences until we use them in advertising. We build audiences for future use, then run ads using the audience as a target and pay a CPM fee for the use. We are constantly building audiences without a fee and pay only for what we use.
Stay in touch to reach part 3 of this 4-part series, “Where Do Mobile Device ID Ads Run?”. Follow Digital Record now.