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Location Data for
Mobile Advertising Is
Only as Good as
Its Source
WHY QUALITY
MATTERS
Sponsor Content
WHY QUALITY MATTERS
Location Data for Mobile Advertising Is
Only as Good as Its Source
We live in a mobile-first world, and location
continues to be a crucial component of mobile
marketing strategy. Marketers and agencies
are increasingly turning to location data
to deliver smarter targeting, holistic measurement and more. But how, exactly? What
specific targeting tactics do marketers employ
when using location data, and how satisfied
are they with these tactics? How is location
used to yield closed-loop measurement? What
are the most common pitfalls and concerns
that marketers should consider when evaluating location data opportunities?
A survey of agency and brand marketing
professionals by Ad Age on behalf of Factual
offers some revealing insight into these
questions.
Marketers are still concerned
about data quality.
The survey investigated marketers’ perceptions about location data—with an emphasis
on both targeting and measurement use cases.
It found that data quality and transparency
are marketers’ top two concerns for both of
these. Over 80% of respondents indicated that
data quality was the single most important
consideration when using location data for
targeting.
Meanwhile, most respondents (58.3%)
believe the current quality of mobile location
data is very problematic, while a little more
than half (54.5%) suggest that the lack of
transparency is an issue. Respondents especially want to know how data is validated, how
location-based audiences are defined and built,
and what the original source of the data is.
Ocean Fine, VP of agencies and partnerships at Factual, points to a lack of common
measurement in the industry to explain
these findings. “There’s not one, regulated
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measuring stick, so varying marketing messages and approaches from many different
location vendors have confused the market,”
she says.
Still, a majority of respondents reported
plans to boost their investment in location
data in the next year—demonstrating the
power of location. “Despite their questions
regarding data quality, marketers are still
committed to it. Marketers understand the
value of location data,” Fine notes.
Benjamin Larkin, media analytics director
at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, is not surprised that the validity and accuracy of data
are top of mind with respondents.
“It’s a big issue for us as well,” he says.
“With new technologies and capabilities
available, we’re still in the early-adopter phase with location-based options,” he
explains, adding that there’s much still to do
toward affirming the accreditation of data
sources but also in discerning the best methodologies. “We’ve continued testing, asking
a lot of questions, finding out how people are
sourcing their data, making sure the checks
and balances are in place. Making sure the
data is accurate is a primary concern.”
Bill Michels, senior VP of product and
partnerships at Factual, believes that three
things will improve trust and use of location
data and tactics: time, better materials and
education. “The industry as a whole is investing heavily in technology to more accurately
cleanse and validate location data,” he says,
adding, “There will always be suspect data —
it will come down to how vendors are able to
parse that suspect data out.”
Who is using location data?
Among respondents to the survey, 16% of their
advertising budgets in 2017 were devoted
Ad Age October 17, 2017
Familiarity With Mobile Advertising Targets
8-10
Ratings
Average
Median
Geotargeting based on country/region/ZIP/DMA
72.5%
8.1
9
Location-based audience targeting
66.2%
7.8
8
Cost-per-visit ad buys
49.1%
6.9
7
Point-radius geofencing
34.5%
5.8
6
Place visit attribution
31.1%
5.7
6
Beacon (primarily for comparison)
27.0%
5.4
6
Polygon geofencing
22.6%
4.6
4
Other (social media, retargeting, Bluetooth,
geofencing, location verification, etc.)
11.2%
3.3
2
4c. Please rate: how satisfied are you with these mobile tactics?
Scale of 1-10 where 1= not at all satisfied and 10 = extremely satisfied (chart based on 8-10 ratings).
Base: Bases vary (7-262).
Reasons for Using Location Data
Currently
(2017)
Targeting: Geotargeted mobile ads
67.2%
Targeting: Geotargeted desktop ads
62.3%
Insights: Using insights derived from location data to
inform larger business strategies
54.0%
Targeting: Mobile targeting to enhance desktop/offline campaigns via
increased/cross-device touch points
53.4%
Targeting: Audience/Behavioral targeting based on historical
location data (e.g., visits to brick-and mortar businesses)
53.2%
2a. How are you using location data currently?
Base: 363 respondents; chart sorted by “Currently” column.
Important to Important People
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Why Quality Matters
Goals for Mobile Advertising Campaigns Using Location Data
Primary
Campaign Goals
for Mobile
Campaigns
Primary
Campaign Goals
for Mobile
Campaigns
Using Location
Data
Those Who
Are Not Using
Location Data
Reach my primary target audience
(brand awareness)
74.7%
56.5%
18.2%
Drive engagement with the brand’s
mobile content
55.1%
45.4%
9.7%
Cross-pollination between different
media channels
54.3%
54.6%
0.3%
Generate social shares
47.9%
48.2%
0.3%
Reach my competitors’ customers
(competitive conquesting)
42.7%
40.4%
2.3%
3a. What are your primary campaign goals for your mobile advertising campaigns?
3b. For mobile advertising campaigns using location data, what are your primary campaign goals?
Base: 363 respondents; chart sorted by “Mobile Campaigns.”
to location data, versus 10.9% in 2016. The
respondents expect that number to grow to
20.3% in 2018. Marketers said they intend
to increase their budgets for mobile display
and mobile video overall, as well as increase
their total ad budgets across all media (to an
estimated $81 million in 2018).
When asked which tactics they were most
familiar with, an overwhelming majority of
respondents (72.5%) cited geotargeting based
on location data such as country, region and
ZIP code, while tactics like beacon technology
(27%) and polygon geofencing (22.6%) were
far behind. Not surprisingly, then, when asked
which tactics they are currently employing in
their mobile campaigns, marketers indicated using geotargeting using broad location
(73.8%) as their most favored tactic, followed
by location-based audience targeting (67.3%).
Why do marketers favor geotargeting
based on data like country, region and ZIP
code? Respondents point to the ability it provides to deliver reach at a local level, better
targeting and effectiveness, and ease of execution. The downside, meanwhile, includes factors such as finding enough interested parties
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within a location, questionable accuracy and
varying demographics within ZIP codes.
Factual’s Michels says marketers are
getting even smarter about geofencing. “You
want to make sure that when somebody passes through a barrier—like in the middle of the
night, driving by—that they were actually at
a location. You want to use location products
that inform you where users have actually
visited, so that the audience you’re building is truly representative. You also want to
understand the type of activities people are
doing—understand the user’s life in general,
like what time are they home? How long do
they commute to work? You need to understand that data to craft a good campaign. And
of course, the data has to come from a trusted
source.”
Automotive, travel, CPG, entertainment,
financial services, consumer electronics and
QSR marketers have done well using location
data, according to Michels.
How do marketers use location data?
According to survey results, data is primarily
used to geotarget mobile (67.2%) and desktop
Ad Age October 17, 2017
Why Quality Matters
(62.3%) ads, followed by using the insights
to inform larger business strategies (54%),
enhancing campaigns by way of cross-device
touch points (53.4%) and targeting based on
historical data such as visits to a brick-andmortar location (53.2%).
Primary goals for mobile campaigns that
use location data are brand awareness (74.7%)
and driving engagement with mobile content
(55.1%), followed by cross-pollination across
disparate media channels (54.3%), generating
social media shares (47.9%) and reaching a
competitor’s customers (42.7%).
Despite fewer respondents stating that
driving in-store and e-commerce sales is a
primary goal, most (67.5%) cite conversion
rates as the top KPI by which they measure
campaigns, followed by leads generated
(56.5%), click-through rate and cost per click
(CTR/CPC) (55.1%) and social sharing (46%).
It would appear marketers are very interested in finding out how they are driving
conversions and sales, but do not necessarily
understand how to structure their campaigns
to do that more effectively. Says Sophia Ho,
VP-director at Starcom, “Marketers definitely
want to have a better way to measure their
campaign performance and attribute conversions accurately, but there is no established
solution that provides the strong, holistic
insight.”
Many marketers, especially in digital, are
still trying to reconcile which KPI matters
most, according to Factual’s Fine. Marketers
and agencies often ask:
• How do I drive sales?
• What can realistically be tracked
and measured today across all these
channels?
• How can you most effectively track
conversion?
• What are the touch points to get the
consumer to do that? How is that
measured?
“Location data is one important piece of
the story,” says Fine. “Did I serve someone
an ad and did it get them to visit my store?
Yes, but they may visit your store many times
before they purchase a product, or they may
Important to Important People
visit the store and then make their purchase
online. The question is how to stitch all that
together. What are the measuring tools you’re
using to understand the effectiveness of all
the media you’re driving? There are a lot of
metrics, and brands are still figuring out how
to find the right metrics and blend of data to
measure.”
When asked which factors they were most
concerned about when considering location
data, respondents listed data quality by far as
the top consideration by far (80.3%), followed
by the reputation of the party providing the
data (70.7%) and the transparency of the
data source (65.2%). When using the data for
measurement, the answers shifted somewhat, though data quality was still at the top
(78.5%).
But how exactly is data quality determined? Respondents cited accuracy (i.e., how
close data points are to the actual location) as
the top factor (64.6%).
When asked what marketers should be
asking of their data providers to improve
results of their campaigns, Factual’s Michels
says: “There are two types of data: the place
data itself—the metadata of the physical
world, the baseline data—and the data about
mobile device users’ location. You need to
make sure the place data is global, that it’s
comprehensive—not just retail stores, but
parks and beaches. The second half is, great,
now that you have all that place data, what are
your technologies and processes for looking
at inbound device or timestamp data to know
that someone was there? If you’re good at
that, it means you’re also good at filtering out
suspect data.”
Michels advises marketers to ask where
location data comes from and how it’s being
“cleansed,” or processed. He also stresses the
importance of considering the global nature
of data. “It’s important to think of consumers
globally, not just in the U.S.,” he says.
A challenge is presented by more sophisticated location-targeting tactics, according
to the survey—including beacon technology,
polygon geofencing and place-visit attribution. For those who are familiar with polygon
geofencing, the verbatim responses note that
they like this tactic for its accuracy, precision
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Why Quality Matters
LOCATION DATA AT WORK
This Adsmovil campaign aimed to
increase brand engagement and
awareness for Renault’s Twizy.
Using Factual’s Geopulse Proximity product, which provides accurate, easy-to-use
geofencing technology that’s designed to
perform at real-time-bidding scale, the
Hispanic mobile ad network Adsmovil drove
visits to auto dealerships with a campaign
that won second place in the Best Use of
Mobile category at the Festival of Media
Awards.
Adsmovil needed an innovative mobile
strategy to increase brand engagement and
awareness around the new Renault Twizy
model in Colombia. The campaign sought to
educate eco-friendly customers about the
electric car’s technology and invite them in
for a test drive. Paired with engaging rich
media creative, Adsmovil leveraged Factual’s
Geopulse Proximity to reach drivers on
their mobile devices near Renault dealers in
Colombia. The campaign drove an average
click-through rate of 2.62%—four times the
average rich media CTR. Audiences also
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spent more than 10 seconds on average
interacting with the banner. Throughout the
campaign, Renault enjoyed a 15% boost in
dealer visits.
By way of another of its products,
Geopulse Audience, which enables marketers
to build highly customizable audiences based
on mobile users’ real-world behavior, Factual
helped programmatic firm Amnet exceed a
major department store’s goals by 40%.
The retailer sought to reach female
fashionistas aged 18-34 to create awareness
around a new clothing line. It used Geopulse
Audience to reach consumers in its target
group who had recently visited its competitors’ stores and who regularly shop at
retailers like J. Crew, Banana Republic and
Ann Taylor.
The result: Factual’s Geopulse Audience
segments outperformed other mobile behavioral targeting segments’ CTR by 73%, on top
of the campaign’s CTR goal of 40%.
Ad Age October 17, 2017
Why Quality Matters
and relevancy. For the relatively few that use
beacons, they also cite attribution and ability
to target at point of purchase as reasons to
employ the technology.
Says Ho of Starcom: “Beacon is a good way
to track and target but scale is still a concern.
And it is also not for all brands, especially
those not in retail.”
Improving creative in mobile campaigns
There’s been much talk over the years about
the growing pains of creative in mobile campaigns. How great a factor is creative in the
effectiveness of location-based campaigns?
Fine believes there is a great opportunity
for marketers to use location data to customize creative. “We’ve seen the industry in
general move toward a trend of embracing
the kind of creative people want to interact
with—many companies are investing in video,
for example. Marketers can use all kinds of
data points, but location can be so powerful in
helping to understand the consumer you want
to reach and how to provide them relevant
content. It’s one thing to target an audience—
it’s another to really speak to the individual
with customized creative.”
What about the high-profile consumer
data breaches dominating headlines? Are
those having any impact on location-based
campaigns, on marketers’ embrace of them
and consumers’ comfort engaging with them?
“Location data is here to stay—it’s
super valuable to marketers,” Fine says.
“Regulations may come into place regarding
the way that data is collected, and there may
be more attention and questions asked to
make sure data is collected in a manner that
respects consumers’ right to privacy, but consumers, especially millennials, are savvy. They
will share information if it brings them value.”
Key Takeaways
1. Marketers and agencies continue to increase their investment in location data.
2. Respondents most often turn to location
data for targeting, but the use of location
data for insights and measurement is
growing.
3. For all location-based use cases, data quality is the No. 1 consideration for marketers
Important to Important People
“Marketers can use
all kinds of data
points, but location
can be so powerful in
helping to understand
the consumer you
want to reach and
how to provide them
relevant content.”
Ocean Fine, VP of agencies and
partnerships, Factual
and agencies—and almost 60% surveyed
view the current quality of mobile location
data as “very problematic.”
4. How can you be sure you’re getting the
best location data? Ask the provider of the
data questions, including:
a) How are you sourcing your data?
Specifically…
• What is the source of your places
data? Is it licensed?
• What is the source of your user location data?
b) What are your methodologies to ensure
accuracy and precision? How do you
validate your user location data?
c) How do you attribute a mobile device
user to a specific place?
5. Spend time developing the best KPIs for
your campaign objectives. Marketers
attempting to sort out which KPIs matter
most need to ask questions like:
a) How do I drive sales?
b) What can realistically be tracked and
measured across multiple channels?
c) What are the touch points to consider
on the way to driving a consumer to
conversion?
d) I served someone an ad, but did it drive
them to my business? And if so, did they
simply visit or did they make a purchase?
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Ad Age Custom Studio
About Factual
The Ad Age Custom Studio helps our
clients connect with an audience
actively seeking innovative companies,
products and partners. Through custom
articles, research, events, webcasts,
videos, site pages, white papers and
more, our end-to-end solutions deliver
content that resonates.
Factual is a neutral location data
company with a mission of making
data easily accessible to anyone
that needs it. We help mobile app
developers incorporate location data
within their apps, we help advertisers
deliver more relevant ads, and we help
large companies clean, enrich and
maintain their internal data assets.
Factual’s data about places across the
globe reveals a deeper understanding
of people based on their geographic
behavior.
Staff:
Editor: Ann Marie Kerwin
Writer: Tony Case
Senior Art Director: Jennifer Chiu
Copy Editor: Barbara Knoll
Contact us:
Jackie Ramsey
General Manager, Revenue and
Client Partnerships
jramsey@adage.com
About the Survey:
Advertising Age secured third-party
research firm Advantage Business
Research to conduct an online research
study for Factual. Advantage Business
Research was responsible for all phases
of the online research, including
programming, coding and tabulation.
Final survey findings are based on 363
total respondents who qualified after
answering the screening questions and
completed the full survey. The survey
started on July 21, 2017 and officially
closed on August 8, 2017. Margin of
error, at a 95% confidence level, is +/5.2% percentage points.
For more information, visit
www.factual.com.