OpenX and AdTruth have joined forces to launch a Real-Time Bidding Platform across mobile web and app inventory, as well as desktop, which they say is the first of its kind.

AdTruth’s ‘device recognition technology’ anonymously identifies consumers whether they are using apps on their device or browsing the mobile web. Adtruth says it ‘fills the gap where cookies do not perform’, ultimately resulting in increased ROI for the marketer.

We spoke to the GM of AdTruth, James Lamberti, about these capabilities.

MM: Advertisers have typically found it difficult to track advertising activity on the iOS browser compared to in-app – how does this work?

JL: “This technology opens up the ability for digital advertisers to target and retarget in the iOS browser – but it does so while still maintaining respect for whatever choice the consumer has made when it comes to privacy. We use 100 or 200 different data points – but nothing contextual  – to identify the user. When our technology sees your iPhone, it sees it in the same way in mobile web as it would in-app.

MM: Google has been called up in the US and now the UK for iOS tracking – how is this different?

JL: This is radically different. Unlike Google, we don’t use any persistent permanent identifiers. They have left something on the device, like a cookie, or something far more invasive. Our technology is privacy by design. It is probabilistic or statistical rather than using cookies. The data we use creates a statistical probability between 80 and 95 per cent that it’s you, but remains anonymous.

It provides enough granularity to open up important advertising use cases, like relevant retargeting of ads, but we’re not so precise as to invade users privacy. If we see a privacy signal, the technology is automatically able to disarm itself to protect our clients.