Cross Device

The concept of Cross Device has emerged as a core way for marketers, advertisers, and application owners to understand today’s consumer and modern user journeys. Consumers today are not tied to one screen where they start and finish their journeys. Today’s consumers browse a product on their mobile phone while commuting, check reviews on their work laptop and then use the tablet at home to complete their purchase. Every one of those touch points is a step in the journey, but if a brand can’t connect them together, all these actions can appear to the brand as belonging to three different users.

This is where cross-device strategies come into play. Cross-device technology allows you to identify, measure, and engage the same user across screens, ensuring you know where every marketing effort fits into the journey and it’s not disparate and fragmented, but consistent, accurate, and impactful work.

This glossary will cover Cross-device: what it is, its importance, how it works, and its role in cross-device tracking, cross-device marketing, and cross-device attribution. To understand the implications of cross-device, it is also relevant to understand deep linking, as it is useful for properly linking users across devices and platforms.

What Does Cross Device Mean? 

Cross-device is the ability to recognize and consolidate user behavior across multiple digital devices. These devices may include smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart TVs, or even wearables.  Rather than address each user interaction as an isolated event, Cross-device identifies all interactions as from the same user or household. 

In other words, it connects the dots across devices.

This holistic perspective is important because most users’ behavior online is multi-device by default. Research from Google has found that 90% of users use multiple devices to finish one task. Without cross-device measurement, this fluidity of behavior would disappear and your knowledge of users would be incomplete.

Why Cross Device Matters in Today’s Digital Landscape 

Digital journeys are very rarely linear. Users explore apps, websites and ads in fragmented journeys. Cross-device is important for the following reasons: 

Fragmented Journeys: Without cross-device, as marketers, you may misattribute conversions to the wrong channel or miss conversions altogether. 

User-Based Insights: Understanding people (not just devices) allows for advanced personalization and engagement. 

Efficient Spending: By accurately tracking user behavior, you won’t waste your ad spend and will maximize ROI. 

According to many reports, the % of internet users owns more than one connected device, which means that if brands don’t account for cross-device behavior, they are leaving massive gaps in both measurement and engagement. 

How Cross Device Functions

The capability of Cross-device is derived from its ability to connect various signals from multiple devices that identify the same user. Broadly, there are two methodologies we consider. 

1. Deterministic Matching

This is the identification of users based on their logged-in credentials. For example, a user may log into a specific account using their email or phone number. If that same user logged in using multiple devices, deterministic methods can infer that those devices are tied to one user. 

2. Probabilistic Matching

Probabilistic uses algorithms and patterns to infer that multiple devices are likely tied to the same user; examples include IP address, location and device type. Although less accurate, probabilistic approaches scale better in privacy-centric environments. 

Most often, platforms will engage a blend of deterministic and probabilistic schemes to build an actionable cross-device identity graph.

Cross Device Tracking 

Cross-device tracking is the process of tracking user actions across devices to create a complete understanding of the customer journey. This type of tracking allows marketers to satisfy questions like:

1. What device has the most influence on the user’s ultimate decision to purchase?

2. In what way do users migrate from one device to another during the purchasing process?

3. At what point does users’ ad exposure take place while locations of where they final purchase stage takes place?

Cross-device tracking is especially important for app marketers because they want to understand and match the installs or in-app events of the app to campaigns or ads that may have started on a different device. For example, a user may have seen your desktop ad, but they install the app on their mobile device at a later time.

Cross Device Marketing

Once you’ve established the ability to track your users across devices, the next step is cross-device marketing. Cross-device marketing simply means that you’re delivering messages that are personalized, consistent and relevant to your desired audience, regardless of where the user engages. 

Consider this example in the real world: imagine a user browsing running shoes on your app while on mobile, then later opens your website while on a laptop. Cross-device marketing would allow you to retarget them with the same specific shoe model on their desktop, instead of starting over from scratch. 

The benefit here is two-fold:

Consistency – Users see a connected experience across touchpoints, rather than fragmented messaging.

Relevance – You’re engaging them with what they’ve already expressed interest in, making it more likely that they will convert.

According to Linearity- UX Statistics, over 73% of consumers expect a consistent, seamless experience across and devices, yet many feel brands are falling short.  Cross-device marketing is how you meet (and exceed) that expectation!

Cross Device Attribution

Lastly, cross-device attribution can be used to connect the dots between exposures and outcomes across devices. Attribution allows you to understand which ads, channels, and devices ultimately drove a user to convert. 

For example: 

• A user views a mobile ad on Instagram.
• Later in the day, they search for your brand on their desktop.
• Finally, they complete the purchase on their tablet.

If you did not have cross-device attribution established, you might attribute the conversion to only the final step (tablet), whereas the earlier exposures played a fundamental role in the user’s final decision. Cross-device attribution allows account managers to understand how all exposures worked together to create a journey, allowing campaigns to be optimized and informed by comprehensive insights.

Perks of Cross Device to Marketers and App Owners 

Cross-device is valuable throughout the marketing lifecycle:

• Accurate Measurement: No more missing attributions or counting users twice.

• Optimized Campaigns: Spend the budget on devices and channels that matter.

• Improved Personalization: Present content across devices in a relevant way and context.

• User Analytics: Create insights on people rather than devices.

Cross-device is particularly important for app marketers to connect web-to-app journeys, measure installs, and find opportunities for engagement in-app. Apptrove’s resources on web-to-app growth discuss how overcoming these challenges can generate higher retention and revenue.

Challenges and Things to Note 

Cross-device has a lot of value but with value comes challenges:

• Privacy – With regulations like GDPR and CCPA, consider how marketers ensure compliant tracking and attribution.

• Digital Complexity – Stitching signals across devices isn’t easy and requires a robust identity framework.

• Trade-offs in Accuracy – Deterministic is more accurate but limited and probabilistic is wider reaching but less accurate.

Finding the right balance of accuracy, privacy, and scale is key. This is also why many brands are looking for solutions that are privacy-first but still allow effective cross-device insights.

What’s Ahead for Cross Device

Cross-device strategies will only become more important. As people embrace new devices such as wearables, connected cars, and smart home products, the user journey will continue to expand across ecosystems. 

Developing trends such as AI-driven identity graphs and privacy-first tracking methodologies will continue to evolve how Cross-device works. For marketers, this goal is unchanged: to understand people, not devices, and deliver experiences that feel organic and cohesive.

Summary 

Cross Device isn’t merely a technical term—it’s the bedrock of marketing and app growth today. It allows you to view the full user journey as it is intended to be seen: fluid, across devices and channels.  With cross-device tracking, cross-device marketing, and cross-device attribution, you will have the visibility to measure performance, personalize engagement, and scale with confidence.

As digital ecosystems become more interconnected, investing in Cross-Device strategies is non-negotiable. This is the only path forward into a world where your audience is everywhere, at once. With Apptrove, you will approach cross-device measurement with precision, privacy-first insights and the confidence to optimize each step of the user journey.

from Apptrove https://apptrove.com/cross-device-measuring-user-behavior-and-engagement/
via Apptrove