Ad IDs

What are Ad IDs?

Ad IDs are user-level IDs that are the same for a user over multiple apps on their device. Ad IDs allow marketers to send content and ads to users that have not limited their ad tracking. Other services such as Facebook and Twitter capture the same Ad ID and have ad platforms to target specific users based on Ad IDs.

This topic guide covers use cases and technical details on how to send Airship Ad IDs so you can begin to optimize your user acquisition and re-marketing campaigns.

Use Cases

Customer acquisition costs for mobile are rising due to low-quality users churning out within a short time frame. It is therefore increasingly critical to focus on your most valuable and loyal users, the ones you’ve worked hard to acquire, activate, retain, and monetize.

What if you could construct an ideal profile based on the characteristics of your most loyal users, then take the profile and say, “I’ll have more like them, please”?

With Airship messaging and Performance AnalyticsA customizable marketing intelligence tool that provides access to reports and graphs based on engagement data. you can leverage your most valuable users to find similar new users. Grow your audience according to user characteristics that have been most successful for you in the past.

 Tip

Read the Exporting Lists Tutorial to learn how to take action with Performance Analytics using Ad IDs.

New User Acquisition

Using ad platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to leverage the information available in Performance AnalyticsA customizable marketing intelligence tool that provides access to reports and graphs based on engagement data., such as loyal users, as input in to Facebook’s lookalike audience helps you find more high-valued users similar to your loyal users.

Examples of valuable data:

  • Push opted-in
  • Interacted with a message
  • Active for the last 30 days
  • Completed a goal in your app

Win-Back and Re-Marketing

You can also use Facebook or Twitter Ad platforms to run win-back campaigns for churned users or re-market your product using a custom audience.

Win Back - Example of valuable data:

  • Uninstall

Re-marketing - Examples of valuable data:

  • New users
  • Abandoned cart
  • Browsed product view (non-purchase)
  • High frequency/recency users

Technical Details

 Warning

Your app must:

  1. Send the limit ad tracking field from your app, and
  2. Not target users with ads who have limit ad tracking enabled. A value of Unknown or Limit Ad Tracking = Yes or Unknown means you cannot send ads to these users.

Follow the Mobile platform guide for details about enabling tracking the Ad ID.