About data segments that use Mobile Device IDs

To provide a comprehensive and consolidated view of your Audiences and make audience management and optimization simpler, you’ll find the following improvements in Google Ads:

• New audience reporting
  Detailed reporting about audience demographics, segments, and exclusions is now consolidated in one place. Click the Campaigns icon and open the “Audiences, keywords and content” tab and click Audiences. You can also easily manage your Audiences from this report page. Learn more About Audience reporting.
• New terms
  We’re using new terms on your audience report and throughout Google Ads. For example, “audience types” (these include custom, in-market, and affinity) are now referred to as audience segments and “remarketing” is now referred to as “your data”. Learn more about the Updates to Audience terms and phrases.

Data segments that are built using Mobile Device IDs (MDIDs) help you re-engage with customers who were active within your app. You can re-engage with them across Search, Shopping, and YouTube and can create these data segments using one of the following methods:

• Uploading the MDID information that you collected from your customers with their consent and using the uploaded list to reach and re-engage with them.
• Collecting the MDID by using Google’s app software development kit (SDK) and analytics tool Firebase or a third-party app analytics tool that fires events based on the customer’s actions within your app. You can then set up rules to create data segments based on the specific events of interest to you.

Note: Targeting or excluding a segment of Mobile Device IDs only works for searches made on the Google app.

Benefits

Here are some of the benefits of using data segments that contain Mobile Device IDs:

• Advantage of using data segments that contain MDIDs over Customer Match:
  • Increase Google Ads campaigns’ coverage to users who engage directly with your app.
• Advantages over data segments for Search ads:
  • You can create data segments based on specific actions carried out by the users within your app when you use either Firebase or a third-party app analytics tool.
  • You can reach users who do not visit your website, but only engage with your mobile app.
  • Upload the MDID list of your customers to reach them in Google Ads.

Using data segments that contain Mobile Device IDs

Advertisers who want to target data segments that contain Mobile Device IDs need to follow these two steps:

1. Collect the MDIDs for the list that you can upload to Google Ads.
2. Create the User List for list collection to be used for Google Ads campaigns based on the collected MDIDs.

How it works

Collecting the Mobile Device IDs list

Let’s say that you are the advertiser and the app owner for the website https://www.example.com/someresource.

• URL Scheme = https
• Path = www.example.com/someresource

You can use the Demo project as an example.

• Android - https://www.example.com/someresource?gmpaid=1:300830567303:android:9b9ba2ce17104d0c&adid={IDFA}&anid=applovin&aclid={DID}&cs=AppLovin&cm={AD_TYPE}&cn={CAMPAIGN_NAME}
• iOS - https://www.example.com/someresource?gmpaid=1:300830567303:ios:09b1ab1d3ca29bda&idfa={IDFA}&anid=applovin&aclid={DID}&cs=AppLovin&cm={AD_TYPE}&cn={CAMPAIGN_NAME}

When a user clicks the link https://www.example.com/someresource from within the app, the analytics partner populates values for {IDFA}, {DID}, {AD_TYPE}, and {CAMPAIGN_NAME}. The deep link looks like this: https://www.example.com/someresource?gmpaid=1:300830567303:android:9b9ba2ce17104d0c&adid=testAAID&anid=applovin&aclid=testClickID&cs=AppLovin&cm=testAdType&cn=testCampaign
You, the app owner can now examine your web logs and see that device ID “testAAID” completed a specific action in your app. You can add this device ID to a “Device ID upload list” so that you can reach and re-engage this user.

You can export the Device ID using Big Query to escalate the process. Learn more about big query export schema.

Note: You can use third parties other than GA4F like Emma, Appsflyer, and Adjust.

Uploading Device ID lists via Google Ads

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Shared library drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Audience manager.
4. Click the Audiences tab at the top of the page.
5. Click the plus button to create a new audience list.
6. Give your audience list a name.
7. Under “List members,” click the drop-down arrow and select Upload Mobile Device IDs.
8. Select the mobile app platform and browse for your specific app name. You can select only one app per list upload that matches with the type of IDs being uploaded. Note: A single list upload can’t include both advertising IDs (Apple IDFA/Android AdID).
9. Create your Mobile Device ID file using a typical advertising ID; either an Apple ADFA or Android AdID, but not both within a single file. You can use this template or upload a plain text (unhashed) .CSV file with a single column labeled "Mobile Device ID". Mobile Device IDs cannot be combined with any other type of customer data (email addresses, phone numbers, zip codes, etc).
10. Select Choose File and upload your list of User IDs according to the formatting guidelines. Once you’ve selected your data file, click the checkbox to indicate you agree with Google's Customer Match policies.
11. Select the circle to customize the Membership duration and Description.
12. Click Upload and Save List. You’ll see this message after you save it: “Your customer list has been successfully saved.” If there are any formatting errors in your file, you will receive a notification.
13. After a list is saved, it will show an “In progress” status until it has finished uploading, which can take up to 24 hours. You’ll see a list status change in the Google Ads UI when the file has been uploaded, matched successfully, and is eligible to serve (has met the minimum size). If you see “In progress” for more than 24 hours or if you see “error with the last upload,” it means that the system has timed out. You need to ask your client to re-upload the list to fix the issue.

If you have technical questions concerning the Google Ads API (for example, questions directly related to API or SDK usage, errors received from the API or SDK, etc.), please use the troubleshooting steps found on the API Technical Support page.

If you have questions concerning Google Ads API that relate to the Google Ads UI specifically, please click “Contact us” at the bottom of the page.

Uploading Device ID lists via the Google Ads API

• The mobile ID field is part of UserIdentifier type in OfflineUserDataJobService to allow listed users to upload user data based on AAIDs (Android Advertising IDs) and IDFAs (Identifier For Advertisers).
• The UserList must have the upload_key_type set to MOBILE_ADVERTISING_ID when uploading mobile IDs.

Learn more about audience targeting using the API.

Both the Google Ads UI and the Google Ads API also support adding customers to a current segment, removing specific customers, and replacing a segment of customers with a new segment.

Collecting and creating user lists

List collection can be done in multiple ways, depending on your interactions with your users.

1. By scanning customer devices during store visits or collecting information offline in some other way, while ensuring you adhere to Google’s first party data policy. To create a segment based off of this collection, you could upload the collected MDIDs through the Google Ads interface or the API.
2. By using Firebase or another third party analytics tool to collect App Events based on a user’s actions within the app. To create a segment based off of this collection, you can create rules on App Events to create audience segments based on rules about events of interest.

When list collection and segment creation are complete, an audience segment of users becomes available to be utilized in Google Ads.