New ways to unlock revenue with first-party data

As consumers’ expectations around digital privacy shifts, app publishers need new strategies and tools to position their businesses for durable growth. This is why Google is developing new privacy-first solutions to help app publishers of all sizes navigate industry changes while building thriving businesses. Today, we’re excited to announce a suite of features that enable you to build trust with effective consent management and boost revenue through activating your first-party data.

Build Trust

Trust is the cornerstone of the relationship that you build with your users. Our research shows 91% of people want brands to be transparent about how they use the data they collect.¹ Google AdMob provides tools to support user choice and help you be more transparent on data usage:

• You can use Google consent management solutions or a certified-Consent Management Platform (CMP) to manage app users’ privacy choices for various regulations.
• If you’re looking to offer even more privacy control options to your app users, you can use ads personalization controls in the Privacy & messaging tab or choose to pass user privacy preferences via the new Publisher Privacy Treatment API with your own custom workflow.

Create Value

First-party identifiers enable core ad functionality that third-party device IDs previously provided — like frequency management and ads personalization — while also respecting user privacy. That’s why we’ve built publisher first-party ID for apps (formerly known as same app key), an identifier generated by AdMob that automatically supports personalized ad serving on your apps when third-party device IDs are absent. This identifier is unique to the publisher, corresponding only to users on your properties. Additionally, publisher first-party ID seamlessly respects user privacy settings to help you manage regulatory compliance.

We’re also building new solutions to help you enrich publisher first-party ID to inform a more personalized ad serving experience. User insight surveys is a new feature that helps you better understand users’ ad preferences by showing a survey using standard rewarded ad units.

Another solution to help you unlock the value of first-party data is app analytics connection. It links your first-party analytics data like user activity and purchase events to publisher first-party ID to further enhance ad personalization. App analytics connection is fully integrated with Google Analytics for Firebase.

Publishers who have been testing these first-party data solutions are excited about the impact they’ve seen.

“We were particularly interested in user insight surveys, which can help us generate first-party data while players are engaging with our games to personalize ad serving in the absence of third-party tracking IDs. We’re excited about AdMob's commitment and progress in developing first-party data solutions. It gives us confidence that they will continue to build durable solutions to help advance our monetization strategy in the long run.”

— Kiel LeBaron, Sr. Director, Ad Monetization, Jam City

“It's been a core focus of my team to identify ways to unlock new revenue growth with less reliance on third-party identifiers. I’m excited about the early results of AdMob’s simple and automatic solutions like app analytics connection and user insight surveys, which are enabling me to start using a first-party data strategy on AdMob to boost my revenue potential.”

— Diogo Branco, Head of Ads Monetization, MiniClip

User insight surveys and app analytics connection are currently in beta and will be available to more AdMob publishers in the near future. Reach out to your account manager to learn more or follow AdMob channels to get the latest information.

Control Activation

Lastly, we know it’s important that app publishers control how their first-party data is used. AdMob enables you to activate your data with flexibility to best support your business. For example, you can easily view the performance of publisher first-party ID for your apps relative to other ID types with the new Identity tab in the Ads Activity report. You can also test the effectiveness of the various first-party data features with simple toggles in the new Publisher data tab.

First-party data offers app publishers an opportunity to unlock new revenue potential for the long-term, while respecting user privacy. We’re committed to building innovative and durable solutions in this area to help you achieve growth.