Imagine a future in which knowing every point of contact your customers have with you is not only possible but happens on a daily basis. Piecing together these complicated interactions becomes more difficult in the digital age, as a single consumer switches between devices.

Have you ever wondered, as a marketing director or strategist, how much deeper knowledge you could obtain by employing ID tracking to follow advertiser interactions across all platforms? If you could see your customers’ digital traces in crystal clear clarity, how much more powerful could your campaigns be?

Cross-device tracking is not only advantageous but also essential at a time when the typical customer utilizes multiple devices for online activity. This essay explores the complexities of cross-device tracking, elucidating issues like ID tracking and highlighting its critical function in developing focused, successful newsletter marketing campaigns.

Are you prepared to investigate how comprehending the modern consumer journey may be improved through the use of cross-device tracking?

The trip starts with a basic query: What is cross-device tracking, or the process of recognizing and connecting consumers across several devices, and why is it important in today’s marketing environment? Cross-device tracking essentially entails locating and connecting the various digital devices that a single user uses. This procedure is essential for developing a cohesive picture of a customer’s journey across several devices, from early interest in newsletters to the point of sale.

Cross-device tracking enables businesses to track customers’ online behavior by correlating activity across different devices. Using this technology, brands can put together pictures of how consumers use their products in the real world — not just how they shop on their websites but also how they use their apps and mobile devices. This information is vital to streamlining customer journeys and boosting onsite conversion rates.

To make good use of this type of tracking, marketers must utilize cross-device tracking on their e-commerce sites. This will help deliver ads to the same consumers across multiple devices and ensure users are profiled correctly without bias.

Without this kind of tracking, it will be nearly impossible to track user behavior and predict outcomes. To get a complete picture of how users interact with your product or service, you need to be able to track their behavior across all of their devices.

In a world brimming with data, the accuracy of attribution stands as a cornerstone of effective marketing. Cross-device tracking provides the lens to view this journey accurately, attributing each interaction to the right device and, consequently, the right consumer. But why is this so important? Consider a scenario where a consumer browses products on a smartphone but makes the final purchase on a desktop. Without cross-device tracking across different devices using id tracking, this connection between advertiser actions is lost, leading to misguided marketing insights and strategies.

Bridging the Data Silos

Cross-device tracking is not just about linking devices; it’s about bridging silos of data that exist across these devices. This integration allows for a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior, preferences, and patterns. In your role, how often have you faced the challenge of fragmented data? Cross-device tracking across different devices is the key to unlocking a holistic view of advertisers, empowering you to make data-driven decisions that resonate with your target audience.

Cross-device tracking wouldn’t be such a powerful marketing strategy for targeted advertising if it didn’t have the X-factor. But there are plenty of reasons why it is crucial for business success, and let’s see six reasonable grounds why it matters more than ever.

1. Identifies users: the first reason cross-device tracking matters so much is that it can track users regardless of the device type they’re using to access your store. Whether it’s a mobile device, a computer, or a Smart TV, you can see if a user ID profile matches many different devices.
2. Helps with data analysis: cross-device tracking enables you to identify if most of your users visit your website through their desktop computers or prefer using their mobile browser to access your site through their phones.
3. Identify patterns: having many data points allows you to identify patterns more easily and check if something is lacking regarding your products (or the website/mobile app). This way, you can quickly resolve issues, knowing where the root cause stands.
4. Lifts conversion rates: cross-device tracking could significantly boost conversion rates, as it provides more accurate results on shopping behavior. By tracking a user’s journey across multiple devices, businesses can better understand how customers interact with their brand and what leads them to purchase a product.
5. Saves money: advertising is a costly endeavor these days. However, suppose you track users and their shopping behavior. In that case, you can decrease your marketing expenses since you’ll target customers who are more prone to buy your products or services and avoid leads that are not profitable enough.
6. Creates a better overall experience: guessing is never a good idea in marketing. It might annoy customers who don’t want to be targeted with random ads. Cross-device tracking will help you tailor your marketing campaigns.

How Does It Work?

Cross-device tracking is a crucial tool that allows brands and digital marketers to follow their customers across devices. By integrating the customer’s online and offline activity, it’s possible to get an accurate view of customer preferences, purchases, and user behavior.

The idea behind this type of tracking is to find which devices belong to the same person. For example, if user X has a laptop and smartphone to access “randomshopname.com,” it is possible to link all devices to the same user, meaning they can now be targeted with specific ads.

And while this tracking does a great job at finding cross-device data and identifying patterns, it is a big worry for some customers to know they are being monitored by big tech companies that provide the information to 3rd party companies.

What are the Benefits of Cross-device Tracking?

Marketers can’t afford to be in the dark when it comes to the details of their customer’s journey and this is why cross-device tracking is so important.

The use of multiple devices throughout the customer journey has become the norm. According to Pew Research, 36% of Americans now have 3 digital devices. They use them to research options from wherever they are, using whichever device happens to be available at the time.

Nowadays, purchases are made whenever it is most convenient for your customer, and this is happening more and more when they are travelling. For additional details on this, see the eMarketer analysis, which indicates that mobile-based retail e-commerce sales have been increasing and are expected to account for 43% of all e-commerce sales by 2020.

What does this entail for modern marketers, then? This implies that you are blind to over half of your traffic if you do not have cross-device tracking. You are unable to effectively track consumer behaviour and allocate marketing budget towards journey optimisation without this data. Not persuaded? Let’s investigate the advantages.

Cross-Device Tracking Provides a More Accurate View of the Customer Journey

All marketers understand the importance of gaining insight into the customer journey, at least conceptually. But, according to a survey conducted by Millward Brown Digital, less than half are confident in their understanding of the customer journey.

Read Also: Using Cohort Analysis to Measure User Retention

To truly understand your customer’s experience you must look beyond the content or media your customer consumed. That is only part of the picture. The broader view incorporates the device that was used to consume those materials.

Without cross-device tracking, your view into the customer journey is incomplete.

It’s as if your customer walked into a black box, did some “stuff” with your marketing materials and came out the other side with your product in hand. How can you impact what happens inside that box if you can’t see what your customer’s experience was?

Cross-device tracking provides a more accurate view of the customer journey. With this information marketers can determine which devices drive consumer behavior and use that knowledge to optimize the customer experience.

Cross-Device Tracking Offers Deeper Insight Into the Impact of Marketing Spend

With limited budgets and increased scrutiny of our marketing spend, we marketers need granular insight into the impact of our activities. Cross-device tracking adds additional granularity to our marketing spend analytics.

Knowing which devices are being used when customers interact with your media can help you make more informed decisions about the types of media in which you invest. Matching media spend decisions to your target customer’s purchasing style will allow you to make adjustments that optimize your spend and ultimately increase return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).

Cross-Device Tracking Expands Customer Journey Insights to Include Offline Activity

Advanced platforms use cross-device tracking to provide marketers with insights that go beyond devices and into offline customer behavior. This technology can combine online and offline consumer activity to build an expanded view of each customer’s journey.

The ability to match consumer activity that takes place separately (such as research on a desktop vs. a purchase made offline) and associate that activity with one person is very important in today’s connected world. Marketers need this unified view of the customer’s journey. This allows us to see the impact of more traditional marketing activities (like direct mail) and create a bridge between these initiatives and online behavior.

Below are some examples of the insights marketers gain with cross-device tracking and how this information can be used to facilitate improvements.

Identify situations where the customer experience with your brand is ineffective.
Doing so will allows you to prioritize content and user experience projects in favor of those that will have the greatest impact.

For example, perhaps you will find that shopping carts are most often abandoned when customers interact with your brand on their phone. Armed with this information, you can make a strong case for prioritizing projects that will make the mobile checkout experience easier.

Map device usage patterns to stages of the buyer journey.
This information will help you identify the media that is most suitable at specific stages and reallocate spend accordingly.

For example, if you find that your customers seek feature comparison information while on the go, you can choose to optimize comparison content for mobile. This means opting for vertically oriented images and/or content that does not consume a huge amount of data.

Customer A is the same person as Customer B.
Cross-device tracking enables you to identify individuals regardless of the device they are using. This information is what marketers need to create a unified experience across all devices and a better experience with our brands.

For example, with this information, you can create a personalized experience for your customers. When they move from one device to the next, you can greet them by name and/or provide them with truly relevant offers. By personalizing your customer’s experience and giving them exactly what they need, when they need it you build trust. This will help you to turn new customers into repeat customers and repeat customers into brand advocates.

Future Trends in Cross-Device Tracking and Attribution

As we look toward the future, the landscape of cross-device tracking and attribution is poised for further innovation and refinement. Emerging technologies and changing consumer behaviors will continue to shape the way marketers approach cross-device strategies.

The Rise of AI and Advanced Analytics

Artificial intelligence and advanced analytics are set to play a pivotal role in the future of cross-device tracking. These technologies will offer even more sophisticated methods for analyzing consumer data, providing deeper insights and more accurate predictions.

Adapting to Changing Consumer Behaviors

Consumer behaviors are constantly evolving, especially in their use of technology. Marketers must stay agile and adaptable, continuously refining their cross-device strategies to align with these changes. The future will demand a proactive approach to understand and engage with consumers across an ever-expanding array of devices.

Privacy-Centric Tracking

With increasing emphasis on data privacy, future developments in cross-device tracking will likely focus on privacy-centric methods. This shift will require marketers to balance effective tracking with respecting consumer privacy, a challenge that will define the next era of digital marketing.

Final Words

As technology advances, so does the way that businesses market to their consumers. To be successful, tracking customers across devices is now more critical than ever, allowing you to target the right clients at the right moment with the right message.