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Devices vs. Users: A New Level of Ad Campaign Analytics in MyTracker

MyTracker has expanded its analytics toolkit. Now you can gauge the performance of your advertising platforms even if users interact with an app or website from different devices.

To learn more about how this works, visit our blog. In this article, we will focus on the differences between device-level and user-level analytics, listing their pros and cons.

The difference between device and user analytics

The number of devices that have visited your website or app is not always the same as the number of users. This is hardly surprising, as a single user may have several devices: a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, etc.

Plus, a user can create several accounts on a single device, and analytics systems will treat them as unique users.

Device analytics

Analytics systems see a device as a unique set of anonymous identifiers associated with a physical device, through which a user interacts with your service.

In MyTracker, device-related metrics are marked by the index d – devices.

The set of identifiers that help detect a device depends on the specific platform – Android, iOS or WEB.

cross-device attribution

The extent to which app owners can analyze user behavior on a single device depends on the platform, its privacy rules, and analytics restrictions.

For mobile apps, the identifier is more or less constant, enabling owners to see the user's journey from installing the app to target events: payment, login, adding to cart, completing a game tutorial, etc.

Browser cookies are used to identify unique devices in Web applications. Unfortunately, cookies are not as permanent as a physical device identifier. If the user deletes cookies or their lifetime expires, then for the analytics system, the user behavior on this device will stop being updated, and it will see a new device with a different set of identifiers.

Pros of device-level analytics

Cons of device-level analytics

User analytics

A user is an individual using your service. To start doing that, they need to create an account and accept the terms of the user agreement.

For MyTracker, a user is an anonymous customUserId associated with accounts that are part of the same project.

MyTracker does not recommend providing personal data such email, phone number, and other sensitive information as user ID.

For instructions on choosing and sending user ID, go to our Documentation section.

In MyTracker, metrics related to project users are marked by the index u – users.

Unlike devices, individuals generally have a limited number of accounts in a service. Customers understand that to use the service, they need to create an account and log in to:

User ID helps analyze the project audience across different apps and platforms. This helps track user progress while they use your service, even if a device falters.

user level analytics

Unlike device-level metrics, user-level metrics can be analyzed across apps that are part of the same project and estimate unique audience. To do this, just change the grouping of the report, leaving Project and excluding Apps or Platforms.

There are fewer active users within the project than the sum of active users in each individual app, as some customers used more than one platform and app to interact with the service.

Pros of user-level analytics

Cons of user-level analytics

user device level analytics

A new level of ad campaign analytics – free of in MyTracker

For accurate tracking, information on both users and devices needs to be collected. MyTracker is the first solution to offer free cross-platform and cross-device attribution and analytics.

If your project has user accounts, try our tool to ensure seamless analytics for user behavior on various devices. With this data, you will be able to optimize traffic purchases based on past actions of the user on different platforms.

For more details on user tracking, check out our Documentation section.

Tags: attribution product analytics marketing analytics