6 Pure-Play Online-to-Offline Attribution Platforms

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This post is the latest in our “Targeting Location” series. It’s our editorial focus for the month of March, including topics like location-based ad targeting, attribution, and privacy. See the rest of the series here


This is the second in a two-part series on attribution platforms. Shoot us an email at [email protected] if you think your attribution company should be included in future articles. Photo by Lerone Pieters.

The biggest tech players seem to have their hands in every pot. But as companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google offer even more diverse digital advertising opportunities, brand marketers are becoming more interested in vendors with a singular focus.

In a pure-play model, vendors focus exclusively on a certain number of core competencies. Not only does this help those companies to differentiate themselves from firms with broader offerings, but it also gives brands confidence that the vendor is an expert in the market.

As online-to-offline attribution takes off, pure-play vendors are taking the lead in innovation, finding new ways to connect digital campaigns to foot traffic and in-store sales. Here are six vendors making a difference in the space right now.

1. Placed
The online-to-offline attribution platform developed by Placed works by connecting ad exposure to store visits and sales. Once a brand’s ads are delivered through a media partner, Placed matches to its first- and third-party audience of more than 150 million people. That information is used to determine the exposed visit rate and the unexposed visit rate, based on a lookalike audience. Placed then calculates lift from the difference in visit rates between those groups, resulting in a calculated return on ad spend (ROAS) that brands can use to understand the real value of their digital campaigns.

2. Freckle IoT
Specializing in multi-touch, offline attribution, Freckle IoT uses opted-in, first-party data to generate insights into the effectiveness of brands’ advertising strategies. Freckle uses persistent, dwell-based location data. When consumers see advertising on any platform, Freckle captures the impression signals. Then, using its repository of data, the company is able to recognize mobile IDs when consumers walk in-store. By analyzing both sets of data, Freckle can determine if the advertising drove the in-store visit.

3. NinthDecimal
NinthDecimal is an audience targeting, measurement, and attribution company that measures incremental lift with in-store visits to understand which conversions are attributed to specific campaigns. NinthDecimal’s flagship measurement product is the Location Conversion Index (LCI), which measures marketing spend across mobile, desktop, website, TV, OTT, out-of-home, search, and print. The solution uses consumers’ real-world behaviors to connect store visits with marketing campaigns. This makes it possible for brands to measure campaign ROI and better understand their customers’ path to conversion.

4. PlaceIQ
A data and technology company that helps businesses leverage location-based insights to understand audiences, PlaceIQ relies on its Place Visit Rate (PVR) metric to measure foot traffic patterns. When the PVR metric is combined with purchasing data, brands have the ability to understand which exposed audiences went to which stores (and how they behaved at those stores), and ultimately see a clearer picture of offline performance. Businesses that work with PlaceIQ can use visitation measurement through direct data delivery or through existing partnerships, including Google DCM.

5. Visual IQ
A marketing attribution solutions provider that combines different analytic approaches, Visual IQ analyzes customer journeys in real-time to help brands determine which strategies are working best for each audience. The company’s platform takes a brand’s paid, owned, and earned marketing data and runs it through a “TrueAttribution” process each day to identify opportunities for optimization. Brands can also use Visual IQ’s platform to calculate the actual quantitative impact of their marketing on specific audience segments.

6. Verve
Within Verve’s location-based mobile marketing platform is a product dubbed Momentum, which tracks and optimizes advertisers’ digital campaigns. Verve Momentum analyzes campaign performance through control group methodology. Advertisers can track specific audiences over time and optimize their experiences in order to shape their habits. They can see granular details about how small tweaks in their campaigns will change what consumers are doing and where they are going, while also discovering how their ads are impacting in-store foot traffic by analyzing store conversions, visit frequency, and the rates of desired actions.

Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.Rainbow over Montclair

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Stephanie Miles is a journalist who covers personal finance, technology, and real estate. As Street Fight’s senior editor, she is particularly interested in how local merchants and national brands are utilizing hyperlocal technology to reach consumers. She has written for FHM, the Daily News, Working World, Gawker, Cityfile, and Recessionwire.