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The IAB’s board merger underlines challenges yet to be overcome when it comes to targeting audiences on mobile

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By Ronan Shields, Digital Editor

September 23, 2015 | 5 min read

The IAB’s Mobile Board is to go the way of Mobile Engage, and will be merged with its ‘more mainstream’ counterpart, in a reflection of the growing importance of the medium. The Drum’s digital editor Ronan Shields offers his assessment of the move.

The IAB today (23 September) announced that it is to merge the IAB Board and Mobile Board to put mobile at the centre of everything it does, just six years after its initial formation. This is sage advice for

advertisers, but with the issue of devising a universal method of targeting ads to audiences on mobile devices yet to be resolved, there’s still some work to be done.

I have covered mobile marketing and advertising at close quarters for the bulk of the duration of this six year window, and sources within the trade body tell me the move has been prompted in no small part by Jon Mew, the IAB’s chief operating officer and its first ever head of mobile, dating back to 2009.

Mew has engineered the move within the trade body given that he feels this is a crucial time to ensure that mobile no longer remains as a separate discipline, and with such a measure it aims to set an example to the wider digital industry.

This is an apt decision given that ">smartphones and tablets are now the most commonly used internet enabled devices, with 33 per cent of UK internet users citing the former as their most important device for going online, according to a recent Ofcom report.

Backed by such a statistic, I think it’s safe to say ‘the year of mobile’ has been and gone. Quite when it was is something of a moot point, but what is important for advertisers to realise is that thinking about users’

experiences across screens is now more important than a ‘mobile first’ mentality.

But why is mobile spend still so low?

However, with mobile accounting for not even a quarter (23 per cent) of digital ad spend last year, there’s clearly a disconnect between such devices’ share of audience attention and advertiser investment.

The reason for this is that advertising on mobile devices is still hard,"> particularly since there are two differing schools of thought on how best to target audiences across screens; be that using probabilistic targeting the favoured method of ‘open players’ ­ or deterministic targeting ­ the method favoured by those who are widely labelled as ‘walled gardens’. See below for a potted definition of the two.

Deterministic targeting

This model uses logged-in user data (or first party data) to identify users across screens via anonymised IDs provided by the specific service provider.

Probabilistic targeting

This model uses a number of anonymised data points, such as device-type, location data and browsing history, etc, in order to recognise a user across screens.

">This topic was explored at length in the latest issue of The Drum with input from advocates of the various models, but largely we’re still at a deadlock as to which model will prevail. Although given that both Facebook and Google ­advocates of the deterministic model ­ together account for over 75 cent of spend on mobile devices, we can assume this is currently the default model for the industry.

However, in complete contrast to the integrated mindset of being ‘merged’, or ‘open’, the deterministic model is siloed by its very nature if the device IDs cannot be used outside of a ‘walled garden’, which means advertisers have to work a lot harder to make their campaigns scale.

Of course, proponents of the closed model would argue that they are merely protecting the user experience, and protecting their data, and that their policies are not motivated by greed.

Although, having spoken to sources over these claims since, others would doubt their sincerity ­ many would allege that they just want to make it as difficult as possible to dilute advertisers’ spend.

A list of the newly merged IAB Board membership demonstrates that it contains advocates of both models ­ notably AOL and AppNexus, as well as Facebook and Google ­ which would suggest that some lively debate is likely to he had upon their six-weekly meetings.

So while it looks as if the industry is agreed on the need for a cross-screen mentality, the issue of how we get there is still very much in question.

Ronan Shields is digital editor for The Drum

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