OREANDA-NEWS. Flashtalking, the leading global independent ad server, today announced it will acquire Device9, a mobile device recognition technology provider that gives advertisers visibility into areas that third party cookies cannot. The deal allows Flashtalking to deliver on the promise of meaningful post-cookie alternatives for data driven marketers by closing the tracking gap within mobile and desktop.

Device9, a Hamburg, Germany tech company co-founded by Detlef Lorenz, built a digital device recognition solution independent of cookies by probabilistically identifying users across desktop, mobile web and mobile app environments, effectively tying impressions and clicks back to conversions on one device without the need for third party cookies. The technology scans more than 50 non PII signals to produce a unique signature, matching across apps and mobile browsers enabling advertisers to match conversions to cookie-less impressions in mobile and other digital environments.

"By keying on non PII data available on the device rather than cookies, we can effectively span mobile apps and web spaces," Lorenz said. "Looking forward, device recognition will join cookies in a cascade of attribution strategies that will provide advertisers with a higher resolution picture of their audiences independent of channel or device."

Flashtalking's acquisition of Device9 lays out a vision that includes view through mobile conversion, in app mobile conversion, and cross-device ID matching and persistent profiles, giving advertisers a more comprehensive view of their audiences and the ability to universally manage reach and frequency across multiple devices and channels. Initially, Flashtalking will focus on integrating Device9 technology to unify the mobile web and app environments before bringing the desktop space into the fold.

"Flashtalking does not wade into the media revenue stream. Being media agnostic, our ad serving platform is uniquely positioned to be the single source of truth, arming advertisers with unbiased measurement that spans all audience engagements," said John Nardone, Flashtalking CEO. "In the short term we are concentrating on closing the attribution gap between mobile web and mobile app impressions, enabling strategies like remarketing and sequencing between mobile app and web spaces, before we move on to the other opportunities the technology presents."