Using mobile ads to monetize is an integral part of the mobile apps ecosystem today, with a large number of developers relying solely on advertising revenue to sustain their businesses. For this purpose, certain unique device-level identifiers are sent to ad networks to allow them to serve targeted and more relevant ads. Apart from better monetization, uniquely identifying devices is extremely important as it helps ad networks do conversion matching (attributing app installs to the source), frequency capping, estimating unique users, security and fraud detection, and re-engagement/retargeting campaigns. However, certain identifiers such as IMEI (a large number of apps actually use this!) are less than ideal from a security and privacy perspective.
To balance user privacy and mobile advertising requirements, last year Google announced that it is replacing the unique Android ID with a new Advertising ID (AID). Though this new ID has been available since then, come August 1st 2014, the new policy will be in effect that mandates the use of the Advertising ID. According to Google’s developer content guidelines,
“Beginning August 1st 2014, all updates and new apps uploaded to the Play Store must use the advertising ID (when available on a device) in lieu of any other device identifiers for any advertising purposes.”
With this new ID comes new user privacy controls, similar to Apple’s “limit ad tracking”. Users can choose to reset the Advertising ID (similar to resetting IDFA in iOS 6) and opt out of “interest based ads.”
Google’s approach for an anonymous unique ID is inline with Apple’s IDFA approach, which has been well received by the entire industry.
InMobi has always been compliant with Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines and Google’s Developer Content Guidelines and honors the policy changes including user opt-out settings for both platforms.
InMobi’s latest Android SDK supports the new Advertising ID. Download now and follow the integration guidelines to enjoy uninterrupted monetization for your Android apps.
Use Google AID, collected by InMobi Analytics. Starting 17th June 2014, the InMobi Analytics SDK for Android will collect the Google Advertising Identifier by default, along with its supplementary setting that allows users to opt out of "interest based ads".
If you’re an advertiser looking for implementation code (including the collection of the Google AID), then please upgrade to our latest SDK so that InMobi Analytics can start collecting the value on installs (and other events) and perform attribution. You can pass the value on ad click via your tracking links. Details on this will be posted and communicated very soon!
Download the InMobi Android SDK now to ensure accurate ad attribution.
Please Note: All new apps and updates submitted to Google Play from August 1st 2014 must utilize this new ID. Any violation to Google’s developer content guidelines can result in app rejection.
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