Trying to deliver targeted advertising to a single person when he or she is constantly switching devices? That’s a challenge.

But it’s a challenge that the Direct Marketing Association and its member companies are doubling down on. This week, DMA announced it was bringing together various industry stakeholders—including marketers, ad sellers, and media buyers—to improve the intelligence of the association’s existing program dealing with the issue.

DMA hopes that the Cross-Device ID (XDID) Structured Innovation Program can help make cross-device technology easier to implement so that the industry hops on board. With 75 percent of the group’s members struggling with cross-device ID technology, DMA CEO Thomas Benton emphasized that the group was there to help.

“DMA’s membership is a marketplace of buyers and sellers, as DMA is the only association that represents the entire marketing and advertising ecosystem,” Benton said in a news release. “DMA’s job is to make it easier for this marketplace to grow and thrive and to take the friction out of the transaction between the buyer and the seller. When there’s an innovative technology that buyers want to buy and sellers want to sell, we are working to make it easier for the marketplace to successfully do business together.”

The association is teaming with a variety of firms on the endeavor, including Oracle, LiveRamp, Colgate-Palmolive, and MRM//McCann.

Ajit Thupil, the business lead for Oracle ID Graph, noted, along with others, that the cross-device ID issue was growing in importance. He added that DMA’s effort was the right one to get the initiative off the ground.

“The train has left the station with people-based marketing,” Thupil said in the news release. “Done right, marketers and publishers can deliver an efficient and effective advertising experience that is more impactful and less disruptive for the consumer.”

The effort comes in response to internal research by DMA that showed many of its members were struggling to come up with a solution to the cross-device identity issue.

(iStock/Thinkstock)