Tips & Guides — 19 Apr 2023
The new era of mobile attribution
Mobile apps have become integral to customers’ daily lives in recent years. From social media to shopping, banking, and so on, there is an app to simplify almost every process or interaction. In a fast-moving scenery, the way we use technology is constantly changing, and, this time, advertising methods are entering a new era.
The mobile app advertising market is growing rapidly, and in-app advertising is a significant driver. One of the technologies that are revolutionizing the mobile attribution industry is Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). Thus, many digital marketers are asking more about it and how it can help to overcome the challenges in the cookieless future.
Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) is a new approach to online advertising developed by Google Chrome. It is designed to give users more privacy while allowing advertisers to deliver targeted ads. FLoC is part of Google’s Privacy Sandbox project, which aims to create a more secure and privacy-focused web ecosystem.
This article will explore FLoC, why it is necessary, and how it can be applied in practice. Let’s dive into the new era of mobile attribution.
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FLoC is a privacy-preserving way to group people with similar interests based on browsing history. It uses machine learning algorithms to create “cohorts” of users with similar browsing patterns. Instead of using individual user data, like third-party used to do, the FLoC uses the browser’s local data to create these cohorts. The browser shares the cohort ID with websites, which can use to deliver more relevant ads to users without knowing their personal information.
Online advertising has been an essential part of the internet for years. However, traditional targeted advertising methods rely on collecting and processing user data, which raises concerns about privacy and data protection. Users are often uncomfortable with the idea of companies tracking their online behavior to deliver targeted ads. Additionally, recent changes in privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA have made it more difficult for companies to collect and use personal data.
FLoC is designed to address these concerns by providing a privacy-preserving way to deliver targeted ads. It allows advertisers to deliver relevant ads to users without collecting or processing their personal data. Instead, FLoC uses machine learning algorithms to group users with similar interests into cohorts. This approach ensures that users’ personal data remains on their devices, and only anonymized cohort information is shared with advertisers.
FLoC is currently being tested by Google as part of the Privacy Sandbox project. Websites can use the cohort ID to deliver ads that are relevant to users’ interests without collecting or processing their personal data. Advertisers can use this information to deliver targeted ads to specific cohorts without knowing the individual users’ identities.
To use FLoC, website owners must implement a JavaScript API that allows the browser to create cohorts and share the cohort ID with the website. Advertisers can then use this information to deliver targeted ads to the relevant cohort. The entire process is designed to be privacy-preserving, with no personal data being collected or shared.
Mobile app developers can use Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) in various ways to provide more privacy to users while still delivering relevant ads. Here are some possible ways that mobile app developers can use FLoC:
Overall, FLoC offers mobile app developers a new way to deliver targeted ads while preserving user privacy. As more users become concerned about online privacy, incorporating FLoC into mobile apps can be a valuable tool for developers to build trust and provide a better user experience.
FLoC is a new approach to online advertising that provides a privacy-preserving way to deliver targeted ads. It uses machine learning algorithms to group users with similar interests into cohorts, which can be used to deliver relevant ads without collecting or processing personal data.
As one of the parts of Google’s Privacy Sandbox project, FLoC aims to create a more secure and privacy-focused web ecosystem, as it provides a promising solution for delivering targeted ads while preserving user privacy.
One potential solution is to use FLoC to target users with ads and track their behavior across different devices. By using FLoC, mobile attribution providers could access user cohorts that are more relevant and privacy-focused, improving the accuracy of attribution and reducing the need for individual user tracking.
Moreover, Mobile Attribution and Federated Learning of Cohorts highlight the importance of privacy and user tracking in mobile advertising and the need for new, privacy-focused solutions to address these challenges.
Written by
Aleksei Protopopov has over 10 years of experience in mobile marketing and mobile app promotion. Throughout his career, he has overseen the development of several technological products that have helped users get up-to-date, transparent data when working with new traffic sources and understand better the behavior of mobile application users.
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