New LocalResponse Products Give Brands Instant Access

Social advertising platform LocalResponse launched a host of products today that are designed to help brands and other marketers to respond to consumer intent in real-time.

The company released an analytics and action platform for marketers, PRO Dashboard, and took two advertising products out of beta, Direct Response and Intent Retargeting.

“At a high level, we analyze real-time consumer intent, such as Facebook post, status updates, tweets, Foursuqare check ins, and anything that’s broadcasting publicity,” co-founder Nihal Mehta told Street Fight.  Translation: If you tweet “I’m at Walgreens,” LocalResponse’s technology will recognize the language and allow Walgreens to send you a tweet with an offer or discount.

The company is now taking the next step in understanding and activation. “Why we’re really different is we listen to not just Twitter, but to other platforms as well. We analyze almost 500 million pieces of content every day and run natural language processes on that information. We look for phrases such as ‘at Walgreens’ or ‘near Walgreens,'” Mehta said. “We’re also an ad network, and we can allow marketers to respond. Everybody can do analytics, but who cares about analytics is you can’t actually respond?”

For this type of direct response campaign, LocalResponse charges on a CPC model so “if the campaign sucks and the clickthrough rate is low, we don’t get paid,” Mehta said. According to a press release, however, click-through-rates are more than 50% for the DR campaigns.

Additionally, LocalReponse offers a service called Intent Retargeting. If, for example, someone complains about AT&T on Facebook, they may see a banner ad for Verizon pop up in the near future. The company reports click-through-rates for this model hover around 1%, and it charges marketers on a CPM basis.

On one hand, that type of targeting capability is remarkable. One the other, it is terrifyingly specific. But let’s face it: ads are not going anywhere. Neither is the click-through model, at least in the near future. If LocalResponse can effectively and efficiently bring helpful advertisements to consumers who are, after all, providing the information themselves, that is, on balance, a good development. A little Big Brother perhaps, but you’ll happily use that 20% off coupon on 2001: A Space Odyssey next time you’re tweeting about being near a Blockbuster.

Noah Davis is a senior editor at Street Fight.