5 Self-Serve Platforms for Location-Based Mobile Campaigns
Eighty-five percent of marketers expect spending on location-based mobile ads to increase in the coming year, and 59% say they use mobile location marketing right now. As these types of targeted campaigns become more commonplace and the barriers to entry decrease, marketers will get more comfortable using the technology and self-service platforms are expected to gain in popularity.
Although there’s still debate within the ad tech community over whether SMBs are best served by self-serve platforms, the demand is certainly there. With limited budgets and a strong desire to get the most bang for their buck, local business owners are actively searching for self-managed advertising and marketing solutions.
Here are five location-based mobile ad platforms that businesses can try.
1. MarketPlace by xAd: Delivering targeted messages to people at the right places
MarketPlace is a self-serve marketing platform for location-based campaign planning, buying, and reporting. Mobile marketers who use MarketPlace can deliver messages to more than 300 million unique monthly consumers based on their past and current location behaviors. MarketPlace’s Campaign Builder gives clients standard and custom location targeting capabilities, along with access to a consumer visitation inventory system and comprehensive campaign reporting. It also gives marketers the ability to view visitation and bid trends across categories, regions, brands, and individual stores. This data can then be used to help make more strategic planning decisions.
2. mFlyer: Location-based advertising for local businesses
mFlyer is a mobile advertising platform from the predictive location intelligence firm Moasis Global. Using the self-serve platform, marketers can create their own ads or offers and then select the precise locations, along with dates and times, where consumers should be when those ads appear on their mobile devices. Ads that businesses run with mFlyer show up on popular mobile apps like TV Guide, Trulia, NBC News, The Weather Channel, and ESPN. After viewing their ads, known as “mFlyers,” consumers are directed to mobile landing pages, which can also be designed through mFlyer. Real-time reports are used to optimize strategies over time. Merchants pay based on the number of mFlyers they want to send, with prices starting at $19 for 1,000 monthly mFlyers.
3. PocketMath: Localizing mobile ads
PocketMath is a self-serve mobile ad platform that anyone can use to buy programmatic real-time bidding inventory. Advertisers can reach audiences on mobile devices, and they can make their ads local by connecting consumers with businesses and events nearby their current locations. Advertisers can also target based on device, wireless carrier, and audience demographics. PocketMath supports multiple ad networks, and both mobile and in-app ad impressions, however it doesn’t offer desktop or cross-device functionality.
4. ZettaMobile: Mobile advertising for local businesses
ZettaMobile offers DIY tools that merchants can use to create and maintain their own mobile ad campaigns that are targeted to specific locations. ZettaMobile gives merchants the freedom to design their own ads and decide how large of an area to target. The default location setting is three miles around a business’ location, but for rural areas ZettaMobile recommends going out to 25 miles. Within those areas, consumers can see ZettaMobile ads when they visit mobile sites for Business Insider, BBC America, White Pages, Craigslist, and others. ZettaMobile offers a free 30-day trial for businesses.
5. Smadex: Placing targeted ads on mobile devices
A mobile programmatic buying platform, Smadex has options for both self-service and managed clients. Smadex gives businesses a way to engage with hyperlocal audiences by targeting consumers using mobile devices within a radius of specific locations and then driving those consumers in-store. Multiple location points can be created for a single campaign to support multi-location businesses. Advertisers can also take a broader approach, targeting mobile users in multiple cities or countries with a single campaign. Smadex offers both proprietary and third-party data, which clients can segment to create their custom target audience groups.
Know of other self-service platforms for location-based mobile ad campaigns? Leave a description in the comments.
Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.
