Case Study: MEDIATA Sees 20% Campaign Lift Through Skyhook Partnership

Within the ad tech community, location means everything. Unfortunately, incorrect topology methods used to trace ad requests by IP address can result in campaigns and audience profiles that are wildly off base. As a result, as much as 90% of ad inventories are now being populated with incorrect location data.

Resolving this issue was a major goal for MEDIATA, a data management and targeting platform that launched in July 2009 as Valued Interactive Media (VIM). MEDIATA uses its RTB-enabled media delivery platform to match advertisers to prospects in a scalable way. Specializing in audience management and data driven advertising, MEDIATA believes that data has a direct influence on digital campaign performance. The company partnered with Skyhook in an effort to improve the location data being used to populate its ad inventories.

The challenge for MEDIATA, along with many other server-side ad tech companies, has always been acquiring the type of accurate location data that’s necessary to create intelligent user profiles. The only consumer location data source that MEDIATA has been able to access is user IP addresses, so getting the most accurate IP location possible was a top priority.

Read the full case study on how Skyhook powered success for MEDIATA.

In an effort to reduce wasted spend, MEDIATA partnered with leading location network Skyhook, testing its Hyperlocal IP feature.  Skyhook has differentiated itself from other IP positioning providers by taking an empirical approach to location. Rather than inferring IP address positions using network topology—a notoriously inefficient and inaccurate method used by many competing firms—Skyhook takes advantage of their global database of ground-truth locations, which have been assigned to IP addresses. The company says this approach yields much more accurate location data, and it enables ad tech firms like MEDIATA to position ad requests down to 100 meters.

Skyhook’s Context Accelerator Hyperlocal IP feature allows advertising companies, like MEDIATA, to provide their clients with granular geo-targeted data derived from IP addresses. This proprietary technology positions IP addresses empirically down to 100 meters and below, and it enables firms like MEDIATA to provide more relevant advertising to consumers based on accurate location information. It has also allowed MEDIATA to help brands target audiences more precisely at scale.

“Integrating Skyhook into our platform means we can more consistently reach the customers we are targeting. This will have a major effect on digital investment strategies,” says John Stones, MEDIATA Head of Product and Innovation. “MEDIATA’s ability to analyze campaign data and provide further insights into a brand’s audience profiles is an exciting development for our company that will enable us to deepen our relationship with clients.”

Nine months after the partnership between MEDIATA and Skyhook first began, the results have become clear. MEDIATA has seen a 20% campaign lift, compared to other leading IP providers. The company attributes this figure directly to Skyhook’s Hyperlocal IP solution.

“Teaming up with the world’s leading location positioning company has already demonstrated very significant improvement in not only campaign performance, but also our audience intelligence,” says Stones.

In addition to improving the quality of location data for its ad inventory, MEDIATA says Skyhook’s Hyperlocal IP has driven improved ad engagement and incremental revenue. The company anticipates improved relationships with clients as a direct result of its Skyhook partnership and the deeper audience insights its now able to provide.

“MEDIATA’s results prove the hypothesis that hyperlocal targeting drastically improves the signal of content,” says Kipp Jones, Skyhook’s SVP of Product and Engineering.  “We are excited for MEDIATA and their customers, and are looking forward to their roll-out across APAC.” 

Download the complete case study here.

About Skyhook

Skyhook is the worldwide leader in location positioning, context and intelligence. In 2003, Skyhook pioneered the development of the Wi-Fi Positioning System to provide precise and reliable location results in urban areas. Since then we’ve taken location far past simple latitude and longitude. We make massive amounts of data actionable from macro level trends to deep contextual insights.