What is a Mobile Advertising ID (MAID)?

Traditional marketing relied heavily on cookie data, but as we’ve explained in a previous article, cookies do not work in apps, which can become problematic in a mobile-first environment. To target consumers in app, advertisers rely on Mobile Advertising IDs (MAIDs). An advertising ID is a user-specific, resettable identifier which is most commonly looked at as the a window into customers’ most preferred device – their smartphone. Through an anonymous identifier provided by the mobile device’s’ operating system, MAIDs help developers identify who is using their app. Some of the formats of mobile advertising identifiers include Google’s version, known as GAID (Google Advertiser Identification) and Apple’s, called IDFA (Identifier For Advertisers). They all operate in an anonymous way and can always be switched on or off by the user. 

Are Mobile Advertising IDs the new super cookie?

Design vector created by Freepik

Compared to cookies, mobile advertising IDs have a much longer lifetime and in addition to that are app-agnostic, meaning that they are the same in each app within the same device. Marketers use MAIDs to get an invaluable information about user activity, which help them determine if an ad has been served to a specific user. Some years back advertisers tracked anonymous data by the actual device – unique device identifier (UDID) but because the UDID is tied to a hardware it was not resettable. Mobile identifiers changed over time to include more privacy-friendly tools for advertisers and to give users more control over their own privacy.

Personalization conquers everything

Mobile advertising IDs are the key to personalization, and the biggest differentiator when it comes to serving users with content that is not only relevant to their needs, but also personally tailored to them. While being completely anonymous, and fully manageable by the user, they open the doors for advertisers to understand the fragmented user journey. Thanks to enriched and precise audience data and more sophisticated mobile advertising IDs, mobile ads can become even more relevant and targeted.