What is cross-device tracking?

Cross-device tracking is a method used to monitor and analyse user behaviour across multiple devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. It helps marketers create a unified view of user activity, enabling personalised advertising, and better analytics. While it offers benefits like targeted marketing, cross-device tracking raises privacy concerns as it often occurs without explicit user consent.

Deterministic tracking: Done deterministically, using identifiers like logins to link devices. For example, if a user logs into a streaming platform on their laptop and TV, the system can associate these devices with the same individual.

Probabilistic tracking: Done probabilistically, inferring connections through data such as IP address, device type, browsing patterns and geolocation. Probabilistic matching is useful when direct identifiers are unavailable.