Cross-device is hot (hey there, Atlas), and now data-management platform Lotame has tossed its hat into the ring with a feature built from AdMobius’ technology, a company Lotame acquired earlier this year.
The feature, announced Wednesday, uses a combination of deterministic and probabilistic algorithms to create device matches and cross-screen audience segments within Lotame’s DMP.
Targeted Victory, a digital agency focused specifically on political candidates and causes, was one of Lotame’s beta partners, of which there were several, said Lotame CEO Andy Monfried. The tool, which Monfried positions as an alternative to the big boys (Facebook, eBay and, ostensibly, Google) is now generally available.
Lotame’s cross-device offering is baked directly into its existing DMP functionality, Monfried told AdExchanger, thereby giving clients the ability to simultaneously tap into other parts of the Lotame system, including its audience insights tool. The combination aims to enable clients to optimize campaigns by determining which device – be it PC, smartphone or tablet – is driving the best results.
A media-agnostic DMP like Lotame is well-positioned to play in the cross-device game because it gives users what Monfried called “complete ownership” over their audience segments, as well as flexibility to use whatever exchange, DSP or SSP they want for their execution. Once links are established between devices, users can transfer audience data gathered from cookies to mobile device IDs and vice versa – a feature that particularly appealed to Targeted Victory cofounder Michael Beach.
“The ability to seamlessly port audience segments between devices is only going to become more important as media consumption continues to fragment across screens,” Beach said.
To establish said links, Lotame looks at about 3 billion online cookies and roughly 1 billion device IDs. Deterministic matches are made wherever possible.
For example, if a consumer logs into a website to access a feature or a piece of content and also logs into the same publisher’s app, that login data is captured and encrypted to strip out any personally identifiable information. And then, boom: It’s a deterministic match.
“While deterministic matching is the most accurate way to link different devices together, the methodology has one notable flaw: scale,” Monfried said. “The number of publishers with login data, or other data points that can trigger a direct match, is limited.”
In cases where there is no login verification or other established cross-device identity, Lotame turns to probabilistic “signals” to establish links, including consumption data (i.e., IP address, location, day parts and/or timestamp); visitation-related data (i.e., person visits a site and the time between visits); and device data (i.e., device make, model, operating system, screen size and resolution).
“Over time, our algorithm analyzes enough signals, and sees enough patterns between them, to tie different devices together with a high degree of confidence,” said Monfried, who had a few choice words for the other cross-device players already on the scene, including Tapad and Drawbridge.
“Competitive cross-device providers may utilize similar deterministic and probabilistic technology. However, they’re simply another point solution for advertisers to manage in an already crowded ecosystem,” said Monfried. “With web consumption continuing to fragment across screens, cross-device user identification needs to be a central feature within a data-management platform and not a standalone product.”
