Report: Google Readies Test To Target Users With Ads Across The Mobile Web And Apps

With the like of Facebook and Twitter encroaching into Google’s mobile ad network territory, the company is reportedly testing a way to track users as they migrate between the mobile web and mobile apps, giving advertisers a way to serve ads to users as they navigate the web and apps on their devices.

AdAge reports that Google has reached out to several ad tech firms to start testing its new ad-targeting technology which marries the tracking capabilities that trace user actions on the mobile web (via Google’s network of third-party publishers) and within mobile apps (on Google’s mobile app advertising network, AdMob).

A Google spokesperson confirmed the test with AdAge, “As an alternative to less transparent methods, we’re doing some tests to help businesses run consistent ad campaigns across a device’s mobile browser and mobile apps, using existing anonymous identifiers, while enabling people to use the established privacy controls on Android and iOS.”

This technology is not the cookie-replacement Google is said to be working on, according to AdAge. “Instead Google is taking the cookie dropped in a mobile web browser and connecting it with the mobile app equivalent of a cookie.”

Advertisers will be able to target users as they migrate between mobile web sites and mobile apps on their devices. What the solution does not offer is a way to track users as the move between devices.

Last year, Google launched estimated-cross device conversions that treats users signed-in to the companies Chrome browser as a proxy for understanding cross-device habits.

AdAge reports that Google executives have expressed confidence that the new solution is more reliable and offers wider targeting coverage than the existing use of cookies.