How to Enable Cross-Environment Advertising Measurement on Android Devices without Privacy Sandbox

[tprieur]

We are exploring how we will continue to drive business for the publishers & advertisers working with us in all scenarios. In that context, we are investigating cross-environment (App <> Web) scenarios, on mobile devices that will have no 3PC on Chrome and rely on ARA for attribution, but have not yet PSB & ARA deployed on their Android device (either because Android PSB is not in GA, or because their device is too old and runs an Android version that does not support the Privacy Sandbox APIs).

For the following, let’s assume the user has no 3PC and the PSB enabled on Chrome, but no PSB on Android Apps. On Mobile, we can have 4 Ad scenarios:

• Case 1: User uses an App where an Ad is shown, clicks and is redirected to another App. We can use GAID to measure the impact of the Ad.

• Case 2: User browses the web on his Chrome Mobile instance, clicks on an Ad and is redirected to an App (either through Deep link or App Link). In this case, we cannot log any trigger, so should the user convert, we would have no idea about it. Currently, we use a Graph to help us with this use case.

• Case 3 : User uses an App, clicks on an Ad that redirects to the Web. Similar to case 2, in such case we would not be able to record the source and, hence not be able to measure the impact of the Ad.

• Case 4 : User browses on Chrome Mobile, clicks on an Ad and is redirected to a Website. We can use ARA, happy days.

Case 2 and 3 are problematic here : as we cannot fully measure the outcomes of a given marketing campaign, advertiser budgets would be lower and both Web & App publishers' Ad revenue would take a hit.

To ensure we can still operate a healthy advertising business in this transition phase, could you please detail Google Chrome plans in the interim phase where 3PCD have been removed from Chrome mobile, but the Privacy Sandbox for Android is not yet available at scale on most - if not all - Android devices ?

[jolynyao]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for raising this & apologies for the delay. On the Android side, we’re working on expanding PSB/ARA coverage - ARA is available on Android 13 and 14, and we plan to begin expanding to Android 11 and 12 later this year, although that is subject to change. We won’t be able to expand to Android 10 or older, but we expect the percentage of Android devices still on Android 10 or below to be lower at 3PCD and naturally decrease over time as users upgrade. Does that help mitigate Cases 2 and 3?

[tprieur]

Hi !
Thanks for your reply. This is good news - Are there any official communications or ETA about ARA on Android 11 and 12? With those OS covered, what is the percentage of users you expect to be covered? Do you have any target regarding that?

[jolynyao]

We’re aiming to support ARA on Android 12 in Q224 and Android 11 by end of Q324, but those dates are subject to change. Re: user coverage, there are many factors to consider, like how quickly users upgrade / purchase new devices and any variances depending on the ad-tech / publisher / advertiser footprint. Happy to discuss your scenario in more detail!