Placed Brings Location Analytics to Programmatic

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placed_logo_square_analyticsPlaced has made its move into programmatic. The location analytics firm has announced a new partnership with Adelphic that will bring the company’s attribution and targeting data to the demand-side platform’s client base. The move marks an important step for Placed as it looks to bring its measurement service to a wider market.

“We’ve got a very strong footprint in terms of agencies, networks, publishers and leveraging different place
services,” said Shim. “In working with a DSP like Adelphic, we’re opening up Placed Attribution and Placed Targeting to a larger audience that might not transact through the traditional channels — a standard media buy.”

The company operates a panel of about 175,000 users (roughly 1 in every 1,500 American adults) who have downloaded its mobile app and have consented to sharing their location data with the company. The app runs in the background, passively indexing the consumers’ locations throughout the day. The firm can then see when its panelists view an ad, and track where those users went subsequently.

The partnership will make Placed targeting and attribution available to all Adelphic clients as well as immediate access to Placed Targeting for more than 50 of the most visited businesses in the US. Shim says the growth of third-party data products such as Placed could help change a somewhat problematic perception of hyperlocal marketing among brands and agencies.

“I really believe that [the deal] will accelerate the growth [of location marketing] by giving marketers the ability to look past just that someone is nearby a store and in a certain app,” said Shim. “Where we see it going is looking at behaviors. We think that’s going to give more opportunities to reach the right audience and track performance.”

Placed already works with a number of advertising networks, opening its data targeting and measurement products to more traditional advertising buys. The hope is that the merging of Placed and Adelphic’s technologies will provide users with a far richer idea of whether or not the analytics are leading to sales.

“On the attribution side, it’s taking the ability to say that someone saw an app and did they go into that physical store,” he added. “So it’s capturing that other 90 percent of the revenue that happens in the physical world. And that’s a key for hyperlocal, actually having that ROI that connects back to the physical world.”

The three year-old startup is helping set the pace for the growth of hyperlocal marketing going forward according to Shim, who has long championed the idea that measuring clicks is not enough. He said marketers need to be able to see how the money they invest generates profits in incremental revenue.

“That’s what really is going to make hyperlocal accelerate in 2014 and 2015,” he said. “Targeting expands the reach, drives better performance. Attribution really makes the media accountable.”

Mason Lerner is a contributor to Street Fight.

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