Third-party device IDs may use cross-app/site data to provide personalized advertising experiences for users. When third-party device IDs are unavailable, you can create and activate first-party data to improve ads personalization in your apps.
When permitted by you and your app users, AdMob’s first-party data solutions can help you create value in the following ways:
- AdMob generates first-party identifiers on your behalf to help identify users within your apps when third-party device identifiers are unavailable.
- AdMob’s first-party data features can help you enrich your apps’ inventory to improve ads personalization.
In this article:
- About publisher first-party ID
- Identity controls (Beta)
- Ads Activity report - Identity tab (Beta)
- App analytics connection (Beta on iOS)
- User insight surveys (Beta on iOS)
About publisher first-party ID
Publisher first-party ID is an identifier assigned to a unique user within your apps. Publisher first-party ID helps you deliver more relevant and personalized ads by using data collected from your apps, and it cannot be used to link user activity from your apps to third-party apps.
Your users can opt-out of ads personalization based on publisher first-party ID through in-ad controls. Ads personalization using publisher first-party ID respects existing privacy settings, including IAB TCF strings, NPA, RDP, TFCD, and TFUA.
Identity controls (Beta)
By default, publisher first-party ID is turned on in your apps when third-party device IDs are not present. You can always choose to disable it in your SDK (iOS | Android) or in your AdMob account.
This control must be turned on for apps in your account to use data associated with publisher first-party ID, as well as AdMob's first-party data features such as app analytics connection and user insight surveys.
Ads Activity report - Identity tab (Beta)
If you want to review how different identifiers perform across your inventory, you can use the “ID type” dimension in the Identity tab of your Ads Activity report. Access the Ads Activity report on the Reports page in your AdMob account.
Options for this dimension include:
- Third-party ID: Ads that were personalized using third-party device IDs, such as IDFA or Ad ID.
- First-party ID: Ads that were personalized using publisher first-party ID.
- No personalization: An ID was present, but ads personalization was not allowed because the user opted out through the device, regulatory mechanisms, publisher-offered controls, or another reason.
- No ID: No ID was included in the ad request.
App analytics connection (Beta on iOS)
Enrich publisher first-party ID profiles by sending analytics data from your apps to AdMob to improve ads personalization.
To use app analytics connection, your apps must be integrated with Google Analytics for Firebase and linked in AdMob. Learn how to link your apps to Firebase. When linked, turn on app analytics connection in the publisher data tab.
User insight surveys (Beta on iOS)
Enrich publisher first-party ID profiles with user insights created in your apps to improve ads personalization.
User insight surveys are automatically served in standard rewarded or interstitial ad units to create first-party data from your users without asking them to leave your app. User insight surveys may ask your users about topics including their interests or purchase intent to help advertisers deliver relevant ads.
Learn more about affinity and in-market audience targeting.
You can turn on user insight surveys through the control in the publisher data tab.
When turned on, AdMob delivers user insight surveys to your own inventory in place of a revenue-generating ad. To help maximize revenue potential, AdMob optimizes the delivery of user insight surveys according to other bids in the open auction.
To understand how user insight surveys affects your monetization strategy, there are 3 metrics in a survey reporting summary near the control:
- Total survey impressions: The number of surveys that rendered to the user.
- Response rate: The percentage of surveys that received a response.
- Opportunity cost: The estimated revenue you might have received on ad requests that participated in an auction instead of serving a user insight survey.