Anonymized cross-application or cross-site attribution without use of central ids

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for attributing online actions to previously delivered electronic advertisements on a plurality of devices using a plurality of device identifier (ID) clusters without use of central IDs. Each device ID cluster is associated with a device, and each device has device characteristics. Each device ID cluster includes one or more device identifiers. Device-related ad impression data and online action data is received. This data includes a device identifier associated with the device. The device identifier is used to identify the device ID cluster associated with the device to which the ad impression was delivered or the online action took place on. Copy devices are selected and paired with respective devices, and the same ad impression data or online action data are assigned to respective copy devices, thereby anonymizing the devices for which the device-related ad impression data or online action data was received.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method for attributing online actions to previously delivered electronic advertisements on a plurality of devices using a plurality of device identifier (ID) clusters, each device ID cluster including one or more identifiers, and each device ID cluster is associated with a function on a device that has device characteristics, the method comprising:
 (a) receiving, by a computer system:
 (i) ad impression data including, for each ad impression:
 (A) an ad identifier, 
 (B) a device identifier associated with a device that the ad impression was delivered to, and 
 (C) an advertiser ID, and 
 
 (ii) online action data including, for each online action:
 (A) an online action identifier, 
 (B) a device identifier associated with a device that the online action took place on, and 
 (C) an advertiser ID, and; 
 
   (b) storing the ad impression data and the online action data in a database of the computer system;   (c) for each device identifier received from the ad impression data or the online action data, using the computer system to identify a device ID cluster from the plurality of device ID clusters that includes the received device identifier, thereby identifying the device that received the ad impression or took the online action;   (d) electronically linking in the database, by the computer system, the received ad impression data or online action data with the device associated with the device ID cluster identified in step (c);   (e) determining, by the computer system, for each received ad impression or online action, whether an ad impression or online action previously occurred:
 (i) on the same device within the same function that is associated with the identified device ID cluster, or 
 (ii) within another function on the same device that is associated with the identified device ID cluster; 
   (f) the computer system taking one of the following actions as a result of the determination in step (e):
 (i) when no previous ad impression or online action previously occurred on the same device:
 (A) select a copy device with similar device characteristics to the device characteristics of the device associated with the identified device ID cluster, 
 (B) electronically pair the device associated with the identified device ID cluster with the selected copy device, and 
 (C) add in the database to the selected copy device a copy of the received ad impression data or online action data received for the device associated with the identified device ID cluster; or 
 
 (ii) when a previous ad impression or online action previously occurred on the same device, add a copy of the received ad impression data or online action data to the previously paired copy device that was selected as a result of having similar device characteristics to the device associated with the identified device ID cluster; and 
   (g) attributing, by the computer system, online actions to previously delivered electronic advertisements by using data in the computer system to identify for at least a given advertiser ID which online actions were preceded by delivered ad impressions within the same function on a device, or within the same device.