SafeGraph Raises $45M to Democratize Access to Places Data
SafeGraph — which powers analytics for organizations like Sysco, Ares Management, Choice Hotels, US Foods, and Verizon Media — picked up $45 million from Sapphire Ventures, as well as returning investors from previous rounds like Peter Thiel and Alex Rosen of Ridge Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to capitalize on the expanding market of data buyers and offer new ways for customers to buy data. Through a growing partner network and new data delivery mechanisms, SafeGraph will be allowing interested parties to access the exact data they need, wherever they need it.
What’s the Fate of Location Intelligence in 2021?
The biggest thing we predict is location intelligence sector consolidation. This has already gotten started in 2020, considering Foursquare’s merger with Factual, and smaller deals like X-Mode’s acquisition of Location Sciences and Near’s recent Teemo acquisition.
Locating Holiday Success for Small Businesses
Because of the enormous spike in online transactions, there are more ways for customers to shop than ever before, creating new opportunities for small businesses to connect with core segments and personalize messaging with data-based insights grounded in historical trends and real-time behaviors. The ability to target individuals based on where they have previously been is tremendously valuable as consumer behavior has been required to adjust to ever-changing guidelines at the state/city and local level.
The World Outside is Frightful—Drive Holiday Sales with Social Media Instead
The challenges of driving holiday sales in 2020 do not signify the end of retail, as many sensationalized headlines would have you believe. This e-commerce-focused season is, however, a siren call to local retailers who have yet to take social media marketing seriously.
In the absence of typical frantic holiday shopping foot traffic, social media is a necessary part of holiday marking to effectively reach consumers who opt to stay inside.
Foursquare’s New Audio Assistant is a Peek into the Future of Local Tech
Dubbed Marsbot for Airpods, Foursquare’s virtual assistant will whisper insights to users about their surroundings, unprompted, as they move throughout the world. This may be a recommendation for a local coffee shop or a fun fact about a landmark.
For brick-and-mortar businesses and the technology providers that help them connect with customers, the marketing possibilities are tantalizing.
What Happens to Drive-to-Store Campaigns After Apple’s IDFA Update?
Given that Apple’s Limit Ad Tracking feature already renders roughly one-third of iOS users totally anonymous, drive-to-store conversion measurement has been limited at the device-level for some time. The iOS 14 update from Apple simply adds another challenge on top of what was already a difficult endeavor. For marketers who haven’t done so yet, they should take this opportunity to pivot to measurement strategies that are less reliant on the ever-shifting policies of tech giants like Apple.
How Political Campaigns Leverage Location Data in an Era of Virtual Events
Political ad spending is expected to reach record highs this cycle, topping $6.89 billion in the 2019/2020 election period. This cycle’s spending is 63% higher than spending in the 2015/2016 season. Tapping into location data to make that advertising more relevant has taken a bit more creativity than usual.
How Accurate Geolocation Data Fosters a Better Customer Experience
Having the most reliable data the first time you ask for it is a no brainer for the consumer, but its obvious importance is often overlooked by the provider. Data quality should be a dominant component to support a business’ reputation. But what if the data were slightly off? What implications does that have?
Heard on the Street, Episode 55: Location Intelligence’s New Normal
Location intelligence is expanding beyond its well-known uses for advertising (ad targeting, attribution, etc.), supporting enterprises in a number of other ways. That includes supply chain management as well as decisions about where to open another store location.
All of the above applications of location intelligence are fueling UberMedia, our latest guest on Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast. UberMedia CEO Gladys Kong says that this expansion of location data’s utility was already underway but has accelerated in the Covid era.
How Location Intelligence Benefits Businesses During Covid-19
The pandemic has changed the way businesses function, and while a lot of purchasing has moved online, many physical locations remain. Location intelligence is one factor that can help businesses perform better. Its uses include supply and inventory updates, supply-chain improvements, sales and marketing optimization, and monitoring for increased safety.
Tapad, Reveal Mobile Partner to ‘Make Attribution Make Sense’
Household targeting was possible before the pandemic, but it has become even more necessary for brands since shelter-in-place orders began this spring. With more people living together, and spending more time together inside their homes, having the ability to target multiple members of the same household has become more valuable for marketers.
“The pandemic has caused people to spend a lot more time at home. That means more time spent with shared devices,” Tapad COO Mark Connon says. ”Brands need to have a better understanding of who is using what device and when, despite these shifting behaviors, in order to make their engagements count.”
Changing Behaviors Are Influencing Targeting Tactics
Online actions such as a person’s search history or the brands they like on social media platforms fall short in telling the full story of genuine consumer behavior. Offline behaviors, however, prove to be more indicative of a consumer’s likes, dislikes, and hobbies. During a time when people go fewer places, where they go tells us even more about who they are.
Location Weekly: Google Moves to Auto-Delete Location, Search Data
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers X-Mode launching its Consent API for partner apps, Google moving to auto-delete location and search history, and NomadiX Media securing a contract with the Qatar World Cup.
Why You Should Be Using a Demand-Side Platform for Location Advertising
Advertising in 2020 is about the use of precision data, iterative learning, and the ability to be everywhere to a niche group of users.
A key element of success for many advertising agencies, and their clients, is the deployment of a demand-side platform. In this article, we’ll talk about what they are, how they are integral for location-dependent advertisers, and how you can access them.
Street Fight’s July Theme: Targeting Location
After huddling with the editorial team about our July theme, we all agreed that it could be time to mix it up a bit. So we’re returning to a meat-and-potatoes theme in our lineup: Targeting Location. This will allow us to talk about something else while acknowledging Covid-19’s still rampant status.
What do we mean by “Targeting Location?” A central issue for location-based media and commerce, this is the moving target of how to pinpoint and optimize strategies around device location. It includes topics like location-targeted ads, building audience profiles, attribution, paid search, and location data strategies.
How Z-Axis is Set to Level Up Localized Marketing Post-Covid
The margin for error is thin and every dollar counts. Accuracy and precision are top of mind, as advertisers continue to long for reliable data to make the most strategic decisions in their advertising spending, especially in the digital space.
Advertising technology and localized marketing platforms built their business on the use of GPS signals to provide real-world KPIs like foot traffic attribution, allowing businesses large and small to go beyond the click to reach and engage more precise audiences. And while this technology has certainly improved from its early days, it can only go so far without the introduction of another dimension: z-axis.
6 Ways To Use Hyperlocal Data To Rebuild in the Covid-19 Economy
Location is a prime indicator of our interests, purchase habits, and daily behaviors. Where we go defines who we are, and in the Covid-19 world, location continues to tell that story, even if the story has changed for many of us as we practice social distancing.
Marketers continue to command vast data sets for campaign targeting. Here are six data sets, powered by location behaviors, that marketers can use to build awareness, generate leads, and drive sales.
With Covid Insights Tracker, GroundTruth Looks to Democratize Location Data
GroundTruth’s new Covid-19 Insights tracker gives brands a way to track foot traffic down to the zip code level. The tracker is updated weekly, with the ability to search for daily foot traffic across a number of categories, like auto dealers, banks, restaurants, and retail.
Data comes from the 30 billion annual global visits GroundTruth observes on its platform. The company uses indexed foot traffic to demonstrate the relative increase or decrease in visits to different places of interest, with weekly and daily charts depicting foot traffic indexed against average weekly/daily visits starting from December 30, 2019.
Heard on the Street, Episode 51: Adding a Third Dimension to Location Data
Bringing new dimension (literally) to location data is the field of “3D location.” This essentially takes typical lat/long coordinates and adds a Z-axis. It brings new meaning in the form of elevation, which comes in handy in places like high-rise buildings and shopping malls.
This is where Polaris Wireless hangs its hat. The company uses several inputs like barometric pressure to pinpoint mobile device locations using all three dimensions. This can have many use cases such as helping emergency responders show up to the correct floor of a building.
As Cookies Crumble, Can Location Data Pick Up the Pieces?
One potential and promising alternative to third-party cookies is location data. Captured from mobile users as they move through the physical world, location data can be used for a range of purposes and personalization.
Real-world visitation patterns offer clues to user identity, brand affinities, and purchase intent. Putting aside that Covid-19 has radically upended movement patterns for the time being, regular airport or hotel visitation can identify business travelers, routine presence in a gym suggests health-consciousness, and weekly fast-food visits implies the opposite. Someone visiting car dealerships is probably an “auto-intender,” and so on.