GroundTruth recently undertook a quantitative research study into opinions on location-based advertising amongst digital professionals in the UK, which revealed marketers consider it the lynchpin between online and offline behaviours. To delve a little deeper into the findings, we have conducted interviews with a host of industry leaders from brands, agency, consultant and trade body point of view.
In our fourth interview, we speak to Jide Sobo, Associate Digital Director at Ebiquity.
What is the primary benefit of location data in advertising?
Our survey found 71% of respondents believed location data has the ability to provide customer insights that no other channel can.
It is great for building audiences as it shows real-world intent, so you can build audiences for advertising based on patterns of behaviour. By measuring actual locations people visit, you can build very accurate models, as location is really the most honest version of you. For instance, as online can actually be the polished version of you, it may turn out that, although you spend a huge amount of time at the gym, and may be interested in ads for relevant services, for instance, healthy foods, you also spend a lot of time visiting fast food restaurants and may be interested in very different products.
By measuring actual locations people visit, you can build very accurate models, as location is really the most honest version of you.
What role can location play in joining up consumers on and offline experiences?
Our survey found 87% believe that location marketing can be the lynchpin between online and offline customer behaviour.
Location can play a significant role in driving people instore but there is a challenge in measuring reach and accuracy.
How effective are location-based mobile campaigns in increasing visits to bricks and mortar stores?
Our survey found 69% of UK digital marketers who have run mobile location-based marketing campaigns have tied performance to offline activity such as store visits.
They can be very good at increasing in-store visits. However, to measure uptake from mobile it’s important you look at incremental footfall and use technology that helps you dig into the data and pinpoint the actual role mobile advertising played in increasing footfall during the specific period you are measuring.
How should location data be used to plan activity in other media channels?
Our survey found 83% believe that the data collected from location targeting can be used to plan other media channels.
Location data should be used to plan all media, especially offline media. For instance, it can make outdoor advertising much more impactful and effective. It can also add granularity to online advertising and location should be used to supercharge all your online advertising. Location can even be used to power your programmatic TV activity. If you understand your customers’ offline behaviours better, you can deliver more effective advertising to their TV set.
At what stage of the marketing channel is mobile location targeting most effective?
Our research found 42% believe mobile location-based targeting is essential in the awareness stage, 43% in the consideration stage and 40% in the post-sale phase.
Location should be effective throughout the customer journey. It’s another powerful audience identifier on top of its use in proximity targeting.
What are the key challenges to mobile location-based marketing?
The quality and consistency of data. The ideal situation is being able to link up all devices a consumer uses to know it’s the same person. As an industry we tend to focus on devices, not people, whereas we need to focus on a human identifier, in a GDPR-compliant manner. More education is also needed so that people understand the potential of location. If you don’t properly understand it, you don’t even know the right questions to ask on how to use it best.
