Dstillery Launches Data Visualization Tool Dscover Maps, Fueled by Quality Audience Profiles

Location data offers advertisers insights on their audiences, but it also presents the challenge of visualizing loads of information.

On Monday, applied data science company Dstillery of New York City launched its Dscover Maps product, which allows advertisers to get a big-picture view of audience data by geography.

“We took a look at our location data that we had previously been using to target our audiences, and we applied it to learn about these locations,” said Peter Lenz, senior geospatial analyst at Dstillery and designer of Dscover Maps.

Visualization features like this aren’t new among location data firms, but Lenz said that his company’s product stands out for one important reason. “The most important thing about Dscover Maps is the data that’s sitting behind it,” he said.

Dstillery’s analytics pull from over 160 billion data points with location data attached, including web, grand location, and mobile activities. From that data, Dstillery throws out data points that aren’t useful—about 60 to 75% of the data—leaving only quality information.

From the data that remains—still billions of data points—the company can illustrate a device’s history and build audiences. Dstillery has gotten as specific as identifying cereal lovers or urban backyard chicken farmers, Lenz said. The Dstillery data set includes over 300 million anonymous profiles.

That process of data collection and audience information evolves on a daily basis, with more data added daily as Dstillery collects more and more information on activities or locations associated with device IDs, Lenz said.

“Our information about the world is constantly being refreshed every day,” he added. The company’s software uses machine learning techniques to sort and clean through the data.

“When our system detects a device is no longer interested in a behavior, we pull that out,” he said. Having quality data that is able to build audiences as close to reality as possible is more important to Dstillery than having a large number of device IDs, he said.

Now, using Maps, Dstillery’s clients can log in and run their own visualizations, allowing them access to complex analytics in a readable format. Clients can sort by zip code or designated market area.

“It’s very easy to use,” Lenz said. “We spent a lot of time thinking about the UI.”

One of Dstillery’s clients is Captivate, an OOH media firm that specializes in elevator ads. Dstillery has helped Captivate look at devices that show up in buildings with Captivate screens and evaluate the common interests of people in that building to help set up more finely targeted campaigns.

Neil Shapiro, vice president of digital sales at Captivate, applauded the DMaps product. “By consolidating multiple data signals into an easy-to-use and customizable platform, we can bring smarter thinking to all of our advertising partners,” he said, according to a Dstillery press release.

By launching a product like Dscover Maps, Dstillery hopes that clients will get a chance to play with Dstillery’s data and capture insights about their audiences from a geospatial perspective to inform campaigns on any medium.

Dstillery was founded in 2008 and has raised $54.4 million in five rounds of funding, according to Crunchbase.

Kate Talerico is a staff writer at Street Fight.